338 LAND AND LABOR. 



distress ; their wrath is not felt by those who have 

 made them suffer. Their blows fall upon themselves 

 and their families ; their anger is felt only by their 

 wives, their children, and their nearest friends. They 

 are made to go hungry, to be without fuel or clothing, 

 and suffer all the miseries of destitution and idleness, 

 whilst the capitalist, against whom they wish to wreak 

 their vengeance, is never touched ; nor does he suffer 

 anything more than a slight inconvenience, which is 

 amply compensated in the greater weakness of his 

 workmen that is sure to follow, soon or late, and the 

 greater demands that he may soon enforce. 



But for the workingman there is no retrieval, no 

 compensation ; what he has lost is gone forever. All 

 that he has gained is on the side of greater weakness, 

 greater competition, less of the necessaries of life, and 

 more of its miseries. The industrial history of the 

 last fifty years, with the workmen relying solely upon 

 proscription, monopoly, strikes, and violence for pro- 

 tection and comfort, is a long list of disasters and 

 story of continuous failures. The weapons that they 

 have used are the boomerangs of self destruction. 

 They will not protect, and much less can they be 

 made to build up and improve. 



Manifestly, the experience of the last half century 

 has incontestably demonstrated one fact, and that is, 

 that proscription, monopoly, strikes, terrorism, and 

 violence are not the weapons with which to right the 

 wrongs of labor. But none others have yet been used. 



Is it not time that new weapons should be adopted, 

 and new methods introduced ? But the present indi- 

 cations are that the new season we are entering upon 



