done and is willing to pay for.'

to

And, in answer this inexorable law, we send our children to school to learn how to solve mathematical problems and how to parse ungrammatical sentences in Paradise Lost. What a mockery it is.

"Let us turn our faces toward the future and give the children of the next generation a chance. It will be a blessing to all. It will solve the problem of the 'tramp' by evolution; it will make all the conditions. of life easier; it will exalt our civilization, and even benefit laboring men by increasing the total sum of industry and diminishing the number of sluggards whom they must now support."

It is manifest that the laboring population of this country is discontented. They know that they are the producers of our great wealth. Their labor is their capital and their only means of support. They must have employment or starve. Idleness insures the loss of shelter and inability to obtain food and clothing for themselves and their families. This absolute dependence upon employment for existence, puts the laborer to great. disadvantage in his contest with those who want his labor, in setting the price or wages to be paid and in the free exercise of his suffrage and other rights of citizenship. As a rule rule the necessity of the laborer for employment is much greater and more imperious than the necessity of those who want labor. When the struggle between capital and labor becomes a question of endurance it soon ends in the submission of labor, and the necessity that makes the submission compulsory breeds discontent, and sometimes the sense of wrong makes the helpless man desperate

and drives him to mob violence for revenge. It is useless to attempt to conceal the fact, that the laborers or working people of this country look upon capital accumulated in large corporations and individual. ownership by the operations of class legislation, with a great deal of suspicion and distrust. The laborer feels that these vast corporations, and the large num-. ber of individuals with their unknown millions of wealth in whose service he has been employed, have not made with him anything like a fair division of this immense joint product of labor and capital. The laborer feels that there is something wrong in his having so little to show for his work and his employer having so much to show for his money. The general conviction of the laboring people is that the state of things that works out such unequal results and conditions is radically wrong somehow and somewhere, and they want a remedy-a change. When you ask them what remedy they have to propose, as I have often done, they are utterly unable to give any valuable information. They can present moving pictures of their condition of dependence and privation and of the methods and practices of their employers, which they condemn, but when it comes to the question what do you propose-what power has the government to relieve you, they are all at sea without rudder or compass. It is a fearful problem. With all its complications and perils it confronts our government and country. It must be met and solved as I

have confidence it will be wisely and properly on Democratic principles without paternalism in our government, and without revolutionary methods destructive of personal rights and Republican government.

CHAPTER V.

PENSIONS.

Hon. COURTLAND C. MATSON,

Chairman of the Committee on Invalid Pensions, National

House of Representatives.

THE subject of Pensions is one of increasing importance to all the people, and has been made so by reason of the rapid increase in the amount appropriated. Political issues have never been made relating to this subject. Both parties have seemed to be anxious to meet the demands of those who have asked for pensions and have been willing to go just as far in that direction as it was in the power of the Government to pay. The pensioners themselves, however, are more interested than any one else in wise and conservative legislation and all must be ready to concede that if demands were made that cannot be met a reaction in the very favorable public sentiment heretofore existing is liable at any time to occur. It has been asserted that our Government pays now, annually, more for pensions than all the other civilized governments. Whether true or not it ought to be remembered that this expense upon our people does away with the necessity of maintaining a large and standing army, for our reliance in time of danger must be upon our volunteer force. On the other hand it ought to be remembered that the rights (362)