1893 - State Library Information Center

£8 STATISTICS OF LABOR AND INDUSTRIES.republic, and for which its greatest and best citizens felt shameand remorse. Similar was the incident of the individual who,during the recent financial panic in the Stock Kixchauge in NewYork, having the boldness to call in question the stability ofsome of our financial institutions there, was assaulted and condemnedby his fellow-meinbers, for fear that the whole wouldtumble into bankruptcy.When subsistence became scarce and the populace becameclamorous, the custom among the rulers in ancient times was todistribute food to the inhabitants of the cities. In England theestablishment of workhouses and parish relief of paupers suggestsidentical action. Wherein do the purposes of the twosystems differ? .In Germany there are establishments for menout of work, as well as for paupers. In France the institutionsof public charity are supplemented by the refuge for homelessworkingmen. Were not we imitating ancient Homo during therecent industrial crisis, by the free distribution of soup and othersupplies to the unemployed in nearly every industrial centre?The recurrence of these social phenomena with such regularpertinacity, and the acknowledged incapacity of modern statesmanshipto deal successfully with them, suggest the query,What have we learned during the past 2,000 years in the scienceof government?The possibility of material wealth now within our grasp ia farbeyond the highest conception of the ancionts; but with it nilwe are still perplexed by the fact that the great majority of thepeople is yet poor; and the tendency of our industrial operationsseems to be in the direction of making them poorer. With themultiplication of labor-saving appliances, the masses not onlycontinue poor but continue slaves to incessant toil. Wealthaccumulates in the hands of a few, while the many are doomed todependence and poverty. Laws to suppress vagrancy disgracethe statute-books of every country in the world, while trampsare everywhere increasing in numbers. The method of dealingwith the unemployed poor may not bo so brutal as formerly, butthe fact remains that their numbers have not been diminished.Probably the persistence of these economic facts has made popularthe phrase, " history repeats itself/' and why it ia that the