OCR Text |
Show . An Orator Wanted. , John Swinton, one of the brightest and most brilliant men of the country, wants "an orator" to plead the cause of downtrodden down-trodden iabor. An orator, such as he desires, de-sires, would be a grand and glorious acquisition ac-quisition "to the cause which lacks assist ance, out we nave iu,wu orators wm plead in vain for bread, and 100,000 who ask for work. "If you wanted help, why didn't you ask for it?" said a would-be philanthropist to a destitute man. "Look at my worn shoes and tattered clothes -and haggard fac3. Are they not pleading with a hundred tongues? No need for me to ask." So with Jthe cause of labor. While we have no great national orator with silvery voice to plead and demand that right, that justice shall be done, every day 5,000 mute appeals are put forth for help by worn and weary women, destitute and despairing men pinched and starving-children, all asking in as many different modes for the right to live, which in this land of freedom is denied them. What better or more forcible orator, through speaking in the language of despair, than an empty stomach? Go into the factories and see the little children, stunted in body and mind,worn out to retain what little flesh is still upon their slender bones, to enhance the gains of corporations and pile up dividends. Are not these oratDrs, whose looks should be more potent than a brace of tongues to proclaim die truth? . ' - See the working women, haggardworn and weary, with the last drop of the red current of life frozen from their veins, withonlv a choice between death and dishonor. Are not they orators, pleading in a thousand ways for right? . ; - See the grim and dirty miners in the bowels of the earth, scarce living decently de-cently when work is abundant, and subsisting sub-sisting how they can when ejected from work, from home, from shelter, at the will of a soulless corporation. Are not they all orators in the cause of humanity? hu-manity? This age has grown so hard that even the archangel's trumpet would not bring to life a spark of humanity in the dead souls that grind the faces of God's poor and insult Heaven by praying to -Yes, we want orators, and we want justice, jus-tice, and we much fear that if the former does not come with silvery tongue and golden words, one will soon appear with an iron throat and tongue of flame. |