United States or Syria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Last October in Berlin, at a time when I was absent from here, during your first preliminary discussion concerning the German Workingmen's Congress a discussion which I followed in the newspapers with interest two opposing views were brought forward in the meeting. One was to the effect that you have no concern whatever with political agitation and that it has no interest for you.

This State Guardianship Plan, as it was called, aimed to "regenerate America in a generation" and to "make but one class out of the many that now envy and despise each other." There were, then, three workingmen's parties in New York, none of which, however, succeeded in gaining an influential position in state politics.

The "Courier and Enquirer," owned by Webb and Noah, in the pay of the United States Bank, burst out into savage invective. It held the Workingmen's Party up to opprobrium as an infidel crowd, hostile to the morals and the institutions of society, and to the rights of property.

So in a debate on the "closed shop," in most workingmen's clubs the negative would be able to accomplish little, for the other side would be intrenched in the prejudices and prepossessions of the audience. In political bodies unevenness of sides is of common occurrence, for a minority must always defend its doctrines, no matter how overwhelming the vote is certain to be.

The only peril that the capitalist class feared was the creation of a distinct, disciplined and determined workingmen's party. This they knew would, if successful, seriously endanger and tend to sweep away the injustices and oppressions upon which they, the capitalists, subsisted.

If they are able to stay "fused" during enough elections and also win them, the fidelity of the adherent of the third party is certain to be put to a hard and unsuccessful test. To the outsider these conclusions may appear novel, but labor in America learned these lessons through a long experience, which began when the first workingmen's parties were attempted in 1828-1832.

We were thus reminded that in this quiet little place the inimitable Jane Austin had lived and produced her most notable novels, which are far more appreciated now than in the lifetime of the authoress. An old woman of whom we inquired pointed out the house a large square building with tiled roof, now used as the home of a workingmen's club.

Annual Reports of the Workingmen's Loan Association, Boston; the Provident Loan Association, New York; and the Provident Loan Company, Buffalo. See Report on the Questions drawn up by Present Residents in our College Settlements, p. 17. Published by the Church Social Union, Boston. Leaflet on "Summer Savings," published by the Baltimore Charity Organization Society. p. 25.

While engaged in this, Richard resolved in his mind several questions as to his future abode. He could not reconcile his thought to any of the workingmen's boarding-houses, of which there were five or six in the slums of the village, where the doorways were greasy, and women flitted about in the hottest weather with thick woolen shawls over their heads.

Passing over the Equal Rights movement in 1834, which was a diluted revival of the Workingmen's Party, and which, also, was turned into sterility by the treachery of its leaders, we arrive at the panic of 1837, the time when Astor, profiting from misfortune on every side, vastly increased his wealth.