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Show Jt, M THE WORKING MEN AND THE YEARS. )' fl A discussion is ging on as to whether work- B ing men are better off than they .were fiftv years B ago or not. One New York clergyman tells how t B in his youth he worked at ananvil, how there j ' B were mutual understandings and sympathies be- B tween employer and employees and no strikes, B while now with greatly increased wages there are L B strikes and contentions, and the inference is that h B working men are but parts of tho machinery in j' fl great establishments and tho soul and the hu- B man affections are no more considered. There is B nothing gained by reasoning on those lines, for j B neither conclusion is a correct one. There are j B four couses for the changed conditions. The (, M first is the mighty increase in money; the sec- M ond is the increased general intelligence; the I M third is the fear of hell fire has been taken away j M and finally the work has, in great part, been trans- I, M forred from natives to foreigners. The increase in ; money has quadrupled the cost of many things, jj B but it has advanced wages so much that the la- : B borer can live vastly better than he did and at J fl the same time save more money. By increased i B general intelligence wo mean more of tho news- fl paper than of the schools. Tho mechanic takes V fl the daily paper, he knows what is going on the j fl world around every day, what working men are p fl claiming, what is being conceded as his of right; ! fl what prospects for bettering his condition are . fl held out and if he Is a coal miner in Pennsyl- jfl vania, every night ho sinks to sleep wondering V fl whether he had better when he gets a little ahead fl go to Idaho or Australia. When we say the fear fl of hell-fire has been removed, we mean that the fl iron rule which the creeds enforced against men fl B fl M '' !w ' ' ' n tlie ol1 (ays nas een eHmmated; that the old Hr,, J " J ' ! threats have given away to appeals to men's bet- B' - '!' if m i ter selves, and men have grown liberalized. B" 1 1 I ! Thon with the Influx of such hosts of foreign- Kl m j ers, the old American loyalty to the employer H' f jjj has disappeared and the old gratitude for favors HjT1 m 41 ' done. A great proportion of the strikes originate B'h ' ' ' 1 , with men who begin work at twice or three or Wm j I g ' ' I four times what they ever received before, begin Hj ' h 1 V hungry and .when they, for the first time in their H . f, 'J ' lives, really get filled up on wholesome food, they Bu! j J ( are like mustangs after a week's run in an alfalfa Hft' !( I ; ' patch; they are ready to buck and break the H j I ' necks of the men who turned them into the al- Hi, j .J J falfa field. Hw, i I i When we say it was all sympathy and good B ' f I will between employer and employees fifty years H ago and that all that has passed away now we H I ' arc wrong in both statements. H ' i!ii if In the old days employers were not much H ' i ' jjg ' richer than employees; they all worked together Hj I kJL j jj and worked vastly harder than men can be forced i' jiff I j to work today. Those employers worked men urn twelve, fourteen and often, in a rush, sixteen Vmt hours a day, from five o'clock in the morning to 1 1 l MM seven and eight in the evening; they worked dell- Hj I ! m i cate children twelve hours and often the food H jv was none of the best. H, 1 i All this is changed, partly by the reasonable H 1 ' work of labor unions,,- partly through an enlight- H j j M' cned public sentiment. Again if sympathy is lack- H j fit ing now there is no lack of appreciation. For the H ; I'M '! really competent man there is no trouble in getting H , !' ! 1 n" Hi! j ))U ' When the Homestead lockout occurred, we y j J '' Sj road daily of the oppression of those poor work- i'l' fjijiSj ! ing men. Mr. Cleveland was elected President on j p T fJK -nat cry and on ne cry that Decause of the tariff H' 'I fiiH'8 I on In Plate no adyP would ever again be B I l B ale to own a tin pan. B i Hm i Well, after the election a congressional inves- B I vmt tigation of the Homestead trouble was ordered B '; ',wfi and it was discovered that the men who refused B ' Wm I any concess'ons were making from $8 to $15 per B ,, iim clay; some of them went in carriages to their B ) ' fB work in the morning and again the carriage was B . I fflt .sent to take them home at night. They were B ''rWt doing piece work; the corporation had at immense B "fj B expense substituted new for the old machinery B ' n&H which enabled them to double their earnings, B ' i MM B -i and wl,en tliey were asked to make a concession B i M because of the new machinery which had been B , ran furnished them, they refused and the lockout was B j i J3j ordered. B H I Another factor has done much to change the B HB I conditions. So many comforts have been added B ' JBi to tumble homes by cheap mechanical devices, B wSm I na lG boring man has comforts in his home Bfi iH 1 now tlaat lcInss could not command on the day Blf ' Wm i tImt Waterloo was fought. The general course of B I 5ml things is upward for the manual laborer, but his ffl ' JB I children should have more advantages than he Ble ,lflH iad' or rans are counting for more and more BH V aB every day. |