California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



21 )( 



(lUiiptol and ^ixUx, 



ASSOCIATED CAPITAL AND CO- 

 OPERATIVE LABOR. 



BY JOHN D. SCOTT, 51. D. 



t^'^HERE is no real and bona fide an- 

 tagonism between labor and capital, 

 per se. When, however, selfishness 

 on the part of capitalists induces 

 joki them to lessen the wages of their 

 workmen without just cause, or greed on 

 the part of the laborers influences them 

 to indulge in the doubtful luxury of 

 strikes, then there does arise antagon- 

 ism, often of a tearful character. But 

 these are really foreign and artificial ele- 

 ments. They are not germain to either. 

 As Wordsworth in his inimitable phrase- 

 ology declares that " the child is father 

 to the man," the one, in process of time, 

 growing naturally out of the other, so 

 capital is but a legitimate evolution out 

 of labor. Capital could never have had 

 an existence without labor. It is the 

 representative, measure and exponent of 

 labor; and there can be no more antag- 

 onism between them than between the 

 bunch of grapes and the vine that has 

 produced it. So intimate is this union 

 between capital and labor that, like "the 

 meeting of the waters," they might be 

 said to merge into one another, thus an- 

 nihilating the idea of antagonism alto- 

 gether. One is the compliment of the 

 other, and could no more perform its 

 appropriate functions, alone, than could 

 the single blade of a pair of shears 

 when separated from its fellow. They 

 are mutually inter-dependent, not only 

 for their prosperity, but for their very 

 existence. No wrong-doing, therefore, 

 no oppression, no extortion, on the one 

 side, can long exist without entailing on 

 that side the bitter fruits of loss of busi- 

 ness, depreciation of values, loss of in- 

 terest, loss of skillful workmen who 

 seek other and more promising fields of 

 enterprise, and, as often happens, the 

 total breaking up and ruin of all inter- 

 ests concerned. And, on the other 

 hand, through the misguided counsels of 

 trades-unions and unjustifiable strikes, 

 hundreds and thousands of the working 

 classes have been driven to the verge of 

 starvation and plunged into indescrib- 

 able ruin. These remedies have not only 

 been shown theoretically to be inade- 

 quate to the righting of the wrongs com- 

 pliuned of, but practically, also; for the 

 history of these uuuatural wars teaches 

 us that they have always been disastrous 

 to both parties. 



As these remedies have been found 

 worse than useless, it is jiertinent to 

 enquire what would be efl'ective ones. 

 We confidently replj', in the first iilace, 



AN IN-CEE.1SE OF KNOWLEDGE. 



Ignorance is not more the mother of 

 superstition than of error; and error 

 leads to innumerable evils. The uni- 

 versality of education, and the conse- 

 quent dift'usion of knowledge, affords to 

 capitalists and laborers the only known 

 means of becoming thoroughly ac- 

 quainted with themselves and with each 

 other. It is the rising sun that dispels 

 the darkness of the night and the mists 

 of the morning. It teaches the capital- 

 ist that money is not the panacea for 

 "all the ills that flesh is heir to," and 

 that it is not the smnmum bonum of hu- 

 man effort; and the laborer, that "man 

 lives not by bread alone." Something 

 more is wanting to complete the sum of 

 human happiness than capital and labor. 

 These may be the means, but not the 

 end of life. 



•* Life is real, life is earnest, 

 And the grave ie not its goal; 



Dxist thou art, to dust returnest, 

 Was not Bpokon of the soul." 



Culture — a higher plane of civilization 

 — the full and complete development of 

 human cajjabilities and possibilities, 

 should be the goal of human ambition. 



We say, in the second place, that when 

 this knowledge has been a'ttained — when 

 capitalists and workmen thoroughly un- 

 derstand each other — their mutual needs, 

 their combined omnipotence for good— 



THIS KNOWLEDGE SHOULD BE P0T INTO 

 PRACTICAL USE. 



A few htmdred years ago, even among 

 Europeans, such a consummation would 

 have been an utter impossibiUty. They 

 had not yet been educated up to that 

 plane. Even now, such an idea would 

 be as incomprehensible to the Oriental 

 mind as the transit of Venus to a Hot- 

 tentot. But, thanks to Dickens and 

 Eugene Sue in fiction, Beranger in song, 

 John Bright and Owen in actual practice 

 and Herbert Spencer in social philoso- 

 phy, and millions of philanthropic pens 

 and open purses everywhere, mankind 

 is beginning to ho redeemed and disen- 

 thralled from the superstitions and 

 errors of the ages, and rendered capable 

 of conceiving and establishing those 

 grand industrial institutions that are to 

 civilize and crystalize the best instincts 

 and aspirations of humanity. These are 

 the mighty influences that areslowly.but 

 surely, lifting us to a higher level, as 

 continents rise from the sea. We are but 

 just entering upon this grand and glori- 

 ous 



INDUSTRIAL EEA. 



Practical expression was given to it in 

 the Paris Exposition; the reverberations 

 were continued in the English Crystal 

 Palace, and now they are echoed back in 

 centennial thunders from the New World 

 to the Old. In the City of Brotherly 

 Love capital and labor will meet once 

 more, face to face. Again will they join 

 hands over the holy altar of civilization, 

 and the heart's pulsations of each will be 

 felt by the other. On that holy ground, 

 consecrated to the best interests of man, 

 will again be demonstrated, in the pres- 

 ence of the assembled world, the great 

 problem of the compatibility of capital 

 and labor. And the world will now ac- 

 knowledge the justness of the solution, 

 inasmuch as many co-operative manu- 

 factories, in various countries, can be 

 pointed to as successful examples of co- 

 operation. Among these, the great car- 

 pet manufactory of John Bright will not 

 be forgotten. It will be shown, among 

 other facts, the larger the establishment 

 — within reasonable bounds — the less the 

 general and individual expense, and the 

 greater the combined profit. When the 

 operatives occupy one building their 

 rents will be decreased fifty per cent. 

 The same, or even a gi'eater per cent, can 

 be saved when all the cooking is done in 

 a common kitchen and the meals served 

 in a common dining-room. The waste 

 heat from the cooking ranges could be 

 made to warm the entire establishment, 

 the rooms occupied by the workmen and 

 their families, as well as the various 

 apartments where the work is done. A 

 laundry could do the washing for the en- 

 tire community at much less cost than it 

 could be done by each familj' or worker 

 separately. A hospital would accom- 

 plish the same saving in the care of the 

 sick. Of course, water-powers, a strip 

 of timbered laud, grain fields and pas- 

 tures, cows, poultry, etc., would all be 

 deskleraia. Many other acquisitions 

 which will suggest themselves to the 

 reader, but which we have not space here 

 to enumerate, would lessen the expenses 

 and increase the economical workings of 



the institution. 



The great dining-hall could be made 

 to do duty, on occasion, as a concert 

 room, as a theater, for the purposes of a 

 debating society, for the delivery of 

 courses of lectures upon literature', art 

 and science by distinguished scholars, 

 and as a ball room. 



As " honor and fame from no condi- 

 tion rise," in a community like this, 

 endowed with the various tastes and tal- 

 ents found in our common humanity, 

 natural musicians, painters, sculptors, 

 inventors, etc., would spring uj) and have 

 abundant opportunities to develop and 

 perfect their powers. In this age of "the 

 making of many books" a library would 

 only be a question of time. The com- 

 munity could institute its own schools or 

 send their children to the common 

 schools. 



It would be a pleasant task to elabor- 

 ate this article still further and run out 

 these and other lines of thought to their 

 legitimate conclusions. We might ad- 

 vocate the establishment of a newspaper, 

 a savings bank, a life insurance com- 

 pany, and many other institutions in this 

 our busy little world. We might dwell 

 upon the well-known social princijjle 

 that the bettering of the condition of the 

 working classes, the increase of their 

 education, and the cultivation of their 

 tastes and talents vastly increases their 

 wants and their capacity for enjoying the 

 luxuries of life and the esthetic creations 

 of genius. We might demonstrate that 

 such a community, set down in a dull 

 town, would soon galvanize it into com- 

 mercial life and ensure a fortune to every 

 one of its enterprising tradesmen. But 

 we must leave the pursuit of these pleas- 

 ing thoughts to our intelligent readers. 

 Our lengthening lines admonish us that 

 we are trenching upon our prescribed 

 limits, and that we must bring this paper, 

 which we wish we could have made more 

 acceptable, to a speedy close. 



But, to make our institution a truly 

 co-operative one, and to insure its suc- 

 cess "beyond all lingering of doubt," 

 the working men, women, and children 

 employed, besides reasonable wages, 

 should be allowed a certain per cent, on 

 the net earnings of the institution. The 

 effect would be m.agical. It would in- 

 stantly transform a human ma<'hine into 

 an interested, self-respecting worker. 

 While working only for wages, the ma- 

 chine cared only to get through the day's 

 work as best he might and draw his 

 wages every Saturday night. But as an 

 interested stockholder — as a part owner 

 — in the vast estate and buzzing machin- 

 ery, with what different eyes he looks 

 upon the busy little world around him ! 

 He sees everything — hears everything. 

 He encourages a despairing comrade 

 here, chides a lazy one there, and re- 

 proves careless ones everywhere. The 

 processes of work which ho looked upon 

 before with such stolid indiflerence, he 

 now studies with the keenest relish, and 

 makes vast improvements in the machin- 

 ery wherever needed; and having liberal 

 inducements ofl'ered him in the way of 

 re'wards and payments for patents, this 

 interest is hightened an hundred-fold, 

 not only tor the benefit of the worker or 

 inventor himself, but for that of the 

 company at large. 



Thus the working men, the women, 

 and even the children are raised to the 

 plane of self-respect and self-assertion. 

 The faculties of the mind are not only 

 unfettered but developed to their utmost 

 capacities. The shackles of blighting 

 poverty, with its pinching cold and gnaw- 

 ing hunger, fall from their limbs in 

 broken links, never to be welded and 

 worn again, for "revolutions never go 

 backwards." Instead of having to 



trudge with long, weary steps to their 

 work, they are on hand, in the same 

 building with it. Their hearts are not 

 weighed down with the bitter dew-drops 

 of sorrow, nor their limbs stiftened by 

 "November's surly blast." They do not 

 go to their work with the last sigh of 

 human dissolution on their lips, but 

 with the cheerj' carol of the lark as he 

 mounts up to greet the coming morn. 

 Intelligence flashes from every eye, and 

 the roses of health bloom upon every 

 cheek. 



Let not, then, the noble band of work- 

 ers in the holy cause of human progress 

 despair. Let them remember that good 

 seed in the moral world, like that in the 

 physical, reproduces itself, and that its 

 golden harvest will be garnered up, at 

 last, in the great store-houses of "the 

 good time coming." The bread cast 

 upon the streams of industry, like the 

 Kg3'ptian's wheat sown upon the flooded 

 Nile, wiU return after many days, to feed, 

 to clothe, to educate and to bless millions 

 yet unborn. Thus is the human race to 

 bo raised and enabled to fulfill their 

 great mission, "to subdue the earth." 

 Thus wiU mankind be brought to a per- 

 fect comprehension of the laws of mind 

 and matter — the great principles of the 

 religion of science — that are to perfect 

 their characters and bring them in closer 

 harmony with the attributes of Deity. 



(fclucatioual 



PROFICIENCY WILL COMMAND 

 SUCCESS. 



m — 



t'jj-S I lUBTLESS a thorough education is 

 ][ . something to be desired and worthy 

 iLll of the ambition and exertions of 

 every young man. It is a life-long 

 source of blessing. But to be half 

 learned is ignorance. Education is not 

 simply book-learning. It is something 

 practical. To have the head filled with 

 theory, and lack the ability to apply, is 

 a burden. There is such a thing as be- 

 ing educated to a point of usefulness; 

 but the one who has stopped short of 

 this is trtily an object of pity. Be edu- 

 cated mechanics — be imderstand work- 

 men, and the world wiJl want your ser- 

 vices. "Proficiency will command." 



In almost any season of the year, in 

 our cities and towns, numbers of men 

 are to be seen who apparently have little 

 or nothing to do. They live in a hand- 

 to-mouth, semi-starvation way; com- 

 plain loudly of hard times, no work, and 

 gloomy prospects; curse the country and 

 the people, and blame everything except 

 themselves for their lot. 



In a country like this, where Nature 

 seems to have exhausted her genius in 

 creating a home for man: where every- 

 thing conducive to comfort and happi- 

 ness is all but spontaneous; a country 

 that has but begun to develop it varied 

 resources — it does appear strange, at 

 first thought, that such can be the case, 

 and we are naturally led to inquire. 

 What is the cause of this? What reason 

 can be assigned for it? It results from 

 several very apparent causes. We will 

 now notice but one. Among this class 

 of men are representatives of almost 

 every trade and profession, and although 

 not the only reason, one of the chief 

 causes of their idleness is to be found in 

 the fact that these are generally ver}- 

 inferior workmen. They are men who . 

 have not thoroughly mastered their pro- 

 fessions before setting out as journey- 

 men. They are not educated mechanics. 



This flooding of the market with an 

 inferior and unprofitable class of work- 



