Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the SouthFortune, Timothy Thomas
History
Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South
Fortune, Timothy Thomas
African Americans -- Southern States; Southern States -- Economic conditions; United States -- Race relations
Is it not time that new weapons should be adopted, and new
methods introduced? * * * Will not the working men of the
country learn anything from the bitter experiences they have
passed through, and abandon methods that have been so
uniformly followed by the ultimate failure of all their
efforts. But the great evils by which we are surrounded, and
that are destroying the foundations of society, can be
removed by the working-men only. They form the large
majority of its members, and in our country they are
all-powerful. Still it is only by absolutely united action
that the working-men can accomplish any good. By disunion
they may achieve any amount of evil. The enemy they have to
contend against, though few in number, are strong in
position and possession of great capital. Nevertheless,
before the united working-men of the country, seeking really
national objects and noble ends, by methods that are just
and in harmony with the institutions under which we live,
the tyranny of capital will end. The working-men will also
draw to their support a very large part of the best thought
and intelligence of the country, that will be sure to keep
even step with the labor of society in its attack upon the
enemies of humanity and progress.
There is no fact truer than this, that the accumulated wealth of the
land, and the sources of power, are fast becoming concentrated in the
hands of a few men, who use that wealth and power to the debasement
and enthrallment of the wage workers. Already it is almost impossible
to obtain any legislation, in State or Federal legislatures, to
ameliorate the condition of the laboring classes. Capital has placed
its tyrant grip upon the throat of the Goddess of Liberty. The power
of railroad and telegraph corporations, and associated capital
invested in monopolies which oppress the many, while ministering to
the wealth, the comfort and the luxury of the few, has become
omnipotent in halls of legislation, courts of justice, and even in the
Executive Chambers of great States, so that the poor, the oppressed
and the defrauded appeal in vain for justice.
Such is the deplorable condition of the laboring classes in the west,
the north and the east. They are bound to the car of capital, and are
being ground to powder as fast as day follows day. They organize in
vain; they protest in vain; they appeal in vain. Civilization is doing
its work. "To him that hath, more shall be given; to him that hath
nothing, even that shall be taken from him."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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