CHAPTER V 



IN the latter half of the eighteenth century, col- 

 lectivism and capitalism, as now understood, were 

 brought forth, both born of the same parents, the 

 " Spinning Jenny " and the Steam Engine. The first 

 view of these great benefactors of the race filled the 

 laborers with alarm fear that increased production 

 would rob them of the means of livelihood and 

 drove them into a frenzy of hate, which took form in 

 the destruction of labor-saving machines these mute 

 but mighty factors sent for their deliverance from 

 bondage a bondage worse than that of the colored 

 slave, then on our own soil. So insane was their rage 

 that they drove these machines out of many districts, 

 and laws were enacted, making the destruction of such 

 machines a penal offense punished by deportation. 

 Other bills were before Parliament seeking to make 

 the offense punishable by death. It was only after 

 their blind fury was past that they were able to realize 

 and accept this innovation as a blessing, that the first 

 real step toward the emancipation of labor was taken. 

 As soon as these conditions obtained, classes more for- 

 tunate and more powerful than they took up the cause 

 of labor, and by intelligent cooperation with it, secured 

 real, valuable and permanent reforms, raising them 

 from slaves, in all but name, to free men. By undue 

 restriction of hours, restriction of output and elimina- 



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