304 LAND AND LABOR. 



Or that one should do it all in place of ten ? The 

 tendency, at the present time, is to one against a 

 hundred, under the influence and power of precisely 

 the same forces as are destroying the small farmers 

 and fattening the nonresident plutocrats, and must 

 be met with the same remedy. In any and all cases 

 the adoption of the propositions from the manufac- 

 turers of Massachusetts will be ample to protect so- 

 ciety and the workingman against the crushing weight 

 of capital ; because capital, without the uncontrolled, 

 slavish use of labor, that great fund which supplies 

 every nation "with all the necessaries and conven- 

 iences of life," is powerless for injury to the indus- 

 tries of mankind. 



With the adoption of their propositions machinery 

 would at once fill its proper function, in conferring 

 upon mankind the great blessings of reduction in toil, 

 and at the same time vastly increased production and 

 use of the necessaries, comforts, and wealth of society. 



Society is a vast and complex social machine, the 

 force or motive power which runs it being labor only, 

 but without regulator or governor of any kind. Every 

 speculator, gambler, monopolist, and manufacturer 

 uses and consumes the labor of the machine as ca- 

 price or self interest dictates. The result is, that the 

 n 1,1 chine is always out of order and needing repairs. 

 It becomes the toy or plaything of anyone who has 

 the capital to make it so. " Crises " follow " booms ;" 

 "strikes" succeed "compromises;" "lockouts" are 

 on the heels of " amicable arrangements ; " " failures" 

 and "hard times" are but a little behind "flush times" 

 and " prosperity." There is constant friction and war 



