done. Take the Commissary Department of the United States. It will be admitted that that is more honestly conducted than any private enterprise in these United States. Q. Suppose that there were a railroad to be built-a Pacific railroad-and suppose that a corporation were organized to build that road, and desired aid from the government, and the government were able to take such supervisory measures as to insure honesty on the part of that corporation in its dealings with the government; take that as one case. Now, take the railroad on the other hand, and let the government undertake to build it itself directly, and have its agents who would employ the men to build it, and who would go forward and do the work directly for the government. On the one hand, there is the corporation honestly watched and forced to do what is right and honest, and, on the other hand, there is the government building the road itself by its own employés. And then, of course, after being built, on the one hand the corporation would run the road and pay back the government what it had borrowed; while on the other hand, the government would run the road by its employés, under such rules and regulations as it might establish. Which road do you think would be the most profitable in the end?-A. The government road, for it would have no money to pay to the contractor to support him. The contractor would have to get a living out of it, and that would be saved by the government getting all the profit itself. I want to make a point before you, and that is, we are antagonistic to politicians controlling the public work and putting on bolters and saloon-keepers, such as in this city. We want the government to employ honest men, and put no one on its work except competent mecbanics and laborers. It is as great an injury to us for politicians to do public work and put on hangers-on, to further their views, as it is for the contractor to do it. The government should carry on its own work and employ competent men, and, if that is done, the government will get all the benefit of their services at cost, and there will be no profits left for politicians or middlemen. Q. It would be hard to get that done?-A. Make the attempt. It would take years to work it out. Q. Now, in regard to the suffering which is caused, of course, by lack of employment for the working classes, you have given us some of your views in regard to the causes of that lack of employment. How are you going to get work for those unemployed laborers in the places where they now live? Have you any plan for that?A. The system of public improvement would relieve industry of all kinds. If we have a rising market, we have a rising currency. I think you will admit, if there is an inflation of currency, there is a rise in prices, aud vice versa. If the government would set the example and employ a certain number of people on public works, the speculators and business men would foresee that there would be an increase of demand to supply the wants of these people-an increase of prices-and they would invest in business and give employment to people. Q. That is what has been going on during the last six or seven years?—A. The Herald don't say so. Q. But you say the Herald don't always tell the truth?-A. It does in its news columns, but it does not in its editorial columns. Q. Take from 1865 to 1873-there was an inflation then of prices?-A. Yes, sir; a great inflation. Q. Was there not an activity in business occasioned?-A. Yes, sir. Q. Great activity in business?-A. Yes, sir. Q. Greater than this country ever knew before?-A. Yes, sir. Q. And then it was succeeded by depression greater than was ever known before?— A. Yes, sir. Q. If this inflation is going to cure everything, why didn't it cure it before? Why is it that it is succeeded by this terrible depression that brings us here to-day?—A. It did cure it. In 1861 the people of New York City were in about the same position they are to-day. Men were working for fifty cents a day, and could not obtain work. Q. As great as to-day?-A. Nearly as great as to-day. Q. Was not the country rather getting out of the depression of 1857 ?-A. Yes, sir; we were setting up new banks and inflating the currency. A great many men went into the Army because they could not get their living in any other way, and in 1865 and 1866 we were paid off, and we came home, and we all spent our money. That gave a great impetus to business. Q. That was the excitement which came from the inflation?-A. Yes, sir. We have an interest system and pay for the use of money from seven to ten per cent. We produce only from two to three per cent., according to statistics, and the result is that in every ten years or less we have an inflation panic, the interest eats up the principal, and the business men are bankrupt. That is outside of our money system. Q. Then if we should have another term of inflation, it would be succeeded by another period of prosperity ?-A. We would have ten years of prosperity, to be succeeded by a panic. Q. You want to inflate us out of this depression into another one by and by ?-A. Yes; I want ten fears of prosperity, and by the time a period of depression comes around we will not care about it. Q. Suppose we could get from a qualified period of inflation into a moderate kind of business prosperity, should we have as great a depression afterwards, or should we be as liable to have any depression, do you think?-A. Any man and any country that borrows money and pays for it more than he or the country can produce will be bankrupt in a certain number of years, and I don't see how it would be better for us to starve for seven or eight years to prevent a panic than if we were to feed well for eight or ten years and then have a panic. Q. Suppose we had the interests of the country protected by keeping the raw material at home and making the fabrics here, and supposing the land should be cultivated and people should keep at work, then there would not be any inflation of property by an additional use of money?-A. How are you going to employ your people without paying them in some money? There is an inflation. Q. Don't you suppose there is as much currency now in the country as there was before the war?-A. Yes, sir; and more. Q. A good deal more?-A. Not a great deal more, no, sir; pretty near the same. Q. Is there any limit to the amount of money that there may be under existing legislation?-A. No, sir; if you had bonds to deposit for it you can get two thousand million. Q. You spoke of the banking system. Is there any limit to the amount of national bank currency we can have now?-A. No; we can issue bonds to any extent. Q. If you had bonds or the wherewithal to get bonds, you or I might buy the bonds and deposit them, and be chartered as a bank and go forward and issue currency as well as any one else, might we not?-A. We might do all that. Q. If you or I could see any way to use our money by working a bank and issuing the currency of that bank, we could do it and we would be apt to do it, would we not?— A. That is the point I want to bring to your attention. Q. I want to bring it to your attention; should we not do that?-A. We will not lend money to a man on a falling market. Q. You are speaking about wanting money; you and I can establish a bank and lend money if we could only see an object to use our money in that way ? A. Yes, sir. Q. If business demanded it, there would be no reason why new banks would not grow up?-A. None at all. Q. And more money be used under the existing state of things?-A. They could set up banks in every corner. Q. So that it is business that is wanted and not money?-A. We differ on that question of money; we will fight that question out on the stump this year. It is business that is wanted; it is the repeal of interest that is wanted. Q. Now, you have got a house?—A. No, I haven't; I build houses for others. Q. Well, if you had a house, its value is a certain sum in gold, or in that which is regarded as the staple currency. Supposing there is money, the price of that house goes up?-A. Yes, sir. Q. Does its real value go up ?—A. No, sir. Q. So that the real value remains the same ?--A. Yes, sir. Q. Values are not increased by more money?-A. It is a broad question that, yes, and no. They are not really increased; a house is a house, no matter what amount of money is in the country, and shelters a man, but values do increase, because if you would give to people additional means for getting money, that would increase the demand, and the increase of that demand, through the purchasing price, would increase the value of that article. Q. If there was more business and more money, everything would be worth more, because there would be a greater demand for it?-A. Yes, sir. Q. The question is to get business going so that this demand will come, but there would be no additional value from the fact that money increased. Suppose that you had a house before the inflation of currency, and you lived there; you owned your house clear when you went into the inflation; you came out and you have the house still, you have nothing else and didn't have anything else before; it don't matter what that house is worth in dollars; you are worth as much at the end as you would be at the beginning?-A. Supposing I answer the question by saying I have a mortgage on the house, and by legislation you double the mortgage. Q. You could have paid your mortgage easily?-A. During the inflation? Q. Yes, sir. If it took $2 to buy as much wheat or corn during the inflated season as one dollar did when there was no inflation, $2 would be only worth what $1 was worth when there was no inflation?-A. Yes, sir; but it makes a difference whether the man has that one dollar. Q. And you could pay the money you borrowed before the inflation, with the $27—A. I see the point you make; but two wrongs don't make a right. If we wronged people that had debts before the war, it is no reason we should keep the people in their present condition. I admit there was a wrong done then. All I ask you, gentlemen, is to give our people an opportunity to live a few years, and then those questions can be peaceably settled. If we do not get employment, I am afraid we will not settle them peaceably. Q. Of course you have studied history somewhat. Do you think, on the whole, society is improved by having the poorer members of it aided, except in just so far as is necessary to keep them from actual extreme suffering? Do you think society would be improved by such governmental aid?—A. Always improved. It is the best government that takes the best care of its people. Q. You would have everybody understand that if they didn't make a living themselves the government would see to it that they didn't suffer?-A. No. I would have the government give a man an opportunity to make a living for himself, and if he was not able to do it, we have our almshouses. Q. You believe in that system, do you?-A. I believe a man that is willing to work and cannot get it is bound hand and foot to the capitalist. We ask the government to legislate so that a man that is willing to work can get work. Q. You want the government to be a capitalist ?-A. The government is the great capitalist. Q. You would not let any one else have any capital?-A. You are reaching over to futurity. I believe in a government system. I believe it would be better for this community to have the government run the railroads than have Vanderbilt do it. It will be only a question of a few years whether Vanderbilt runs them or whether we run them. By Mr. THOMPSON: Q. Some of the gentlemen yesterday gave as a reason for the want of employment the introduction of machinery. What are your views on that point?-A. Under our present system we invent machinery, and a capitalist introduces it in his business. A machine will disemploy ten or a hundred men, and they are cast out on the market, and there is no provision for their employment. A girl with a machine can do the work a hundred men used to do, and there is no provision for the employment of those people. So under the present system machinery is an injury to the working classes, but a benefit to the man who owns the machine. We ask that there shall be some legislation towards the re-employment of those people thrown out of work by machinery. The advanced thinkers of our system ask that the government shall own the machines. I don't advocate that. Of course, it would be better to have the government own these machines and use them to better the people than injure them. I think if we had a proper government system and utilized the machines, we could do all that is necessary to be done in two hours a day, and I think it would be better than having ten or twenty men walking the streets idle and hungry. We would not consider it a good policy for a man to employ ten girls with machines and have a hundred men doing nothing. Under our present system we do that. The machine comes in and the man goes out, and there is no way to support him unless some man chooses to employ him. We consider that is wrong, and ask the government to try and remedy it; but it is a broad question that cannot be worked out in a year or two. The homestead bill and the public improvement bill can be passed at the next session of Congress, and the government can give us time to work out those other things, and if we have time the people of the country will decide them with the ballot-box this winter. I have been begging our government for years to adopt measures of relief for our people, and I ask you to give us some relief, so that we won't be compelled to wring it from each other. I am, like every other man in my circumstances under this system, in a living hell. I would take up arms to-morrow to overthrow this system if there was no other remedy; but there is the ballot, and I ask you, gentlemen, to give us work and food, and we will peaceably settle those other questions at the ballot-box.. VIEWS OF MR. OSBORNE WARD. OSBORNE WARD appeared and made the following statement: By Mr. THOMPSON: Question. What association or community do you represent?-Answer. I represent that body of the labor movement known as the Socialistic Labor party of Brooklyn. Q. Is it the same organization that Mr. Bartholomee represented yesterday ?-A. Yes, sir; all the difference is that Mr. Bartholomee represents that party in New York and I am called the organizer of the city of Brooklyn. Q. We heard the views of several gentlemen representing that organization yesterday, and we desire to avoid repetition. So if you will confine yourself to the points as briefly and with as little declamation as possible, we will be glad to hear you.-A. To tell you the truth, I would make it so brief that, if it were carrying out my own inclination, I would not be here; but as it is, I was telegraphed last night at midnight to appear here, and I suppose I must do so as a representative of that body, having been elected chairman of that committee last night. Q. We assume there is widespread want of labor, and, to some extent probably, a very large number of people suffering. I want your views as to what has produced this suffering, and then your suggestions as to what may remedy it.-A. Well, I can make that exceedingly brief. The system of political economy upon which all people live, and ever have from the beginning, as we know, of the historic period has been that of competition. It has produced all our wrong. We never have been able to solve the social problem on the principle of competition; therefore we would solve the problem of social equality in co-operation, or, as some people say, communism. The ideas which have been put forth by my friend Carsey approach very nearly to our ideas in many respects. They don't approach our ideas at all in relation to inflation, but in relation to the changes regarding the government employment of the people we would be with him were it not for the fact that he does not accept, nor does his party, the Greenback party, accept the change or the departure from competition to co-operation. As a labor party we consider, as do the Christians, that absolute conversion is necessary, and, after conversion from work, organized concentration of force and the building-up of the political party. In order to do this, therefore, to change from a competitive basis into the co-operative business, we must recognize an immense change and absolute introversion of things, and we don't want to have anything to do with parties who will not accept our views. The proposition is clear, and we wish every one to understand that proposition. Q. There is a rivalry between your organizations?-A. Yes, sir. Q. Will you state what has produced, in your judgment, this widespread diminishing and want of employment and consequent suffering?-A. What has produced that is the intelligence and the bone and sinew of the laboring classes themselves. They have invented, produced, and reduplicated machinery to such an extent as has been already explained to you, that where ten men were formerly employed but one man is now employed. The machine, I am sorry to say-because it makes me ashamed of the ignorance of the laboring classes whom we represent-has been given over into the hands of the individual on the competitive system, who operates that machine in his. own individual interest or the interest of a corporation, excluding the majority of nine out of the ten who are not employed in the operation of that machine from any participation in its products. The result is naturally that the money, or a large percentage of the money, which used to be paid as wages to the ten men before the introduction of the innovation, is now gobbled up by the individual who controls it, in the form of profit, and the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer. That is the cause, or one great cause, of the difficulty before us to-day. By Mr. RICE: Q. Do you think the poor are poorer now than they were fifty years ago, as a class ?— A. Yes, sir. If you will put it 500 years ago, I should say not. Q. The poor are poorer?-A. Yes, sir. Q. In England and in this country?-A. In the United States; I don't represent the party in England. Q. According to your information?-A. In England I think the thing goes on a little worse than it was fifty years ago, because industries are larger there now than they were. Q. You think things are a little worse than they were fifty years ago?—A. Yes, sir; in England. Q. You think the poor are poorer than they were fifty years ago?-A. Yes, sir. Q. Before the increased production caused by machinery the poor were better off in this country than they are now?-A. The poor were better off at that time than they are at this time. Q. They had more property?-A. Yes, sir. If you speak of the extreme poor, they had no property then. Q. They had more to eat, drink, and wear then than they have now?-A. Yes, sir. Q. More pairs of shoes in a year, more clothes and more food, and better, fifty years ago than now?-A. You must give me an opportunity to look into that. You say more pairs of shoes. I cannot say that they did, but I say that the necessities of this progressing age requires a better pair of shoes than they had then. Q. Don't they have better pairs of shoes now?-A. They had when they put them on, but they are out at the toes. Q. They wear out a little sooner?-A. Yes, sir; they are out at the toes now. Q. On the whole their necessities have increased, have they not?-A. Yes, sir. Q. Are not those necessities better met than they were fifty years ago?-A. No, sir; they are not. Q. Don't they have more, on the whole?-A. They do, on the whole. Q. Don't they live better, and in better houses, and have better means of support, than they did at that time, on the whole ?-A. They do, on the whole; but now there are forty millions of people, and fifty years ago there were only about half that much, so that they do in reality, on the whole. The trouble is in the repartition of these improvements. By Mr. THOMPSON: Q. You mean, in short, that the condition of the working classes has been improved in reality, but that relatively it is worse than it was years ago?-A. Relatively it is; there is a larger number of population. Q. The gulf is wider-the world has progressed since the introduction of machinery-Yes, sir. Q. And progressed pretty rapidly?-A. Yes, sir. Q. And on the whole you think too rapidly ?-A. O, not at all, sir, if we could have arrangements such that we could enjoy our machines. Q. If we could have everything divided?—A. Everything divided; that is the word. Q. According to the principle of co-operation ?-A. Yes, sir. Q. If you could have the gross profits divided and cut up it would be all right; you would not find fault with production then?-A. No, sir. Q. Do you think there would be as much production and progress were it not for competition?-A. Undoubtedly, sir. Q. You don't regard competition as a stimulus to exertion?-A. Competition belongs properly to the intellect, and as far as it belongs properly to the intellect its reward is social honor, but when it is turned Q. Let us not take any theoretical view.-A. Then, practically, when competition is turned into an antagonism requiring neighbor to war against neighbor, as actually exists in the competitive plan throughont society to-day, it is a curse. Q. Is not the desire to excel the great stimulus, practically?-A. Practically, the desire is to excel; or naturally it belongs to the mind. Q. Is it not the most powerful stimulus that there is?-A. If you accept the competitive basis it is, but if you accept the co-operative basis it is not. Q. Under the competitive system you say it has been the most powerful stimulus ?— A. It has been. Q. You would have that done away with?-A. Yes, sir; we would introduce the co-operative system. Q. You would have every one as well off as his neighbor, and no better?—A. In every respect. Q. You would have him working for the good of society rather than for the good of himself and family-A. Himself and family are parts of society. Q. And you would not have him seeking to get his family better off a little than the rest of the families?-A. No, because theoretically in that respect you could only establish competitions. Q. How would you do where one man would be able to render service worth $10 when another man of the same society could only perform work to the value of $5?A. If the gentleman would study the plan of existing co-operative societies he would soon find there is no pecuniary emolument which comes to such individual labor. Q. You must have some standard by which to regulate the quantum of work done, would you not?-A. No, sir. If the gentleman wishes to find an example of good co-operation, let him go among the Shakers; let him go among the communities. There are many communities in this State. Thousands of people are actually working on that same system, where they have abjured absolutely the competitive system and do not obtain any pecuniary reward whatever. The only rewards they have and enjoy are the ones intellect awards. Q. They get on?-A. Yes, sir; their success is perfect. Q. Why don't you form such an association ?-A. I am doing it. I have been at work for twelve years on that very plan. I would make the United States that association, and I would make the government the nucleus of it. Q. Supposing there are a great majority of people that don't want it now, would it not be best for you to go into a small one and show an example ?-A. No, sir. Q. Supposing I don't want to go into one and you do, how will you get me in?-A. Then we will convince you by argument and make you a Christian, and then you will. Q. Supposing I am so bad that you cannot do that, then what would you do?-A. We would encounter such minds, but we expect to so far christianize them that we shall get a majority, and then we will bring you in any how. Q. It has been going on for eighteen hundred years, and I have not got to that point yet. Now, suppose you cannot get me so. Is it not better for you to have your cooperative system out of those that think as you do, and go into it and get the benefit of it, and let me stay outside and get the evils of staying outside? Is that not the best way to do?-A. That is a direct question, and it is necessary for me to answer it, and my method of answering it will be the same way in which I answer those greenbackers, and that is, until they become converted from competitive society into co-operative society, we cannot admit them into our party; but when that comes, and in relation |