USA > Indiana > Vanderburgh County > Evansville > Evansville and its men of mark > Part 19
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§ " The self-acting mule has the important advantage of rendering the mill owners independant of the combinations and strikes of the working spinners."-Baine's Cotton Manufacture, p. 207.
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womb of science, shall gradually thrust aside. into idleness and starvation their human competitors, until the laborer, like other extinct races of animals, shall perish from the earth.
I have made a special study of the statistical facts which go to justify more than all I here assert. But the limits of this narrative allow me to give only a condensed abstract of the results.
For two centuries after the Conquest, feudal oppressions and intestine wars grievously oppressed British labor. At any moment the serf might be taken from the plough to arm in his liege lord's quarrel ; and if, spite of all such interruptions, the seed was sown and the harvest ripened, the chance remained that it might be cut down by the sword of the forager or tram- pled under the hoof of the war-horse. Nothing is more charac- teristic than the Borderer's account of an ancient raid, in Scott's Lay :---
" They crossed the Liddell at curfew hour, And burnt my little lonely tower. The fiend receive their souls therefor : It had n't been burnt this year or more !"
The peasantry, or rather villeinry, of those days-many of them thralls-had the scantiest wages, often mere food and clothing, living miserably. But during Edward the Third's wars with France, he was compelled to manumit many bonds- men, in order to recruit his armies; and the forced services of villeinage were gradually exchanged for free labor, often fixed by statute. In the middle of the fourteenth century, common labor on a farm was set at three pence half penny a day ; in harvest, four pence. But at that time wheat did not exceed six pence a bushel, and other staple articles of food were in proportion. So in the fifteenth century, harvest wages were five pence, and wheat was seven pence halfpenny a bushel. With all this accords what Sir John Cullum, the English anti- quarian (quoted as reliable authority by Hallam), tells us, namely, that in the fourteenth century a week's wages in har- vest enabled the laborer to buy four bushels of wheat. The weekly wages of common farm labor, however, throughout the year, were the equivalent of three bushels of wheat only. This last may be safely assumed as the purchasing power of ordinary
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farm labor in England four hundred and five hundred years ago.
After many fluctuations, weekly wages of ordinary labor settled down, in the middle of the eighteenth century, to about a bushel and a half of wheat .; By the middle of the present century a common farm laborer could purchase, with his eight shillings for a week's work, but ONE BUSHEL of wheat. Since then wages have slowly risen ; and to-day a farm laborer, with nine and sixpence to ten shillings a week, can earn a bushel and a quarter of wheat.
Though, for brevity's sake I have here confined the compari- son to staple bread-stuff alone, I have verified the fact that it applies equally to other articles of common use or necessity. In the fiteenth century a week's labor bought sixty-four pounds of butchers' meat ; now it will hardly purchase nineteen. So, in- stead of ten geese, three would now absorb a week's labor ; instead of a sheep a week, a laborer must toil four weeks for a single sheep. Again, a day's wages will now buy, not eight dozen of eggs, as then it did, but three dozen ; not eight pounds of cheese, but three, not five pounds of butter, but two. Even in some staple articles of clothing, the balance is against the peasant of to-day. Three day's labor will now hardly procure him the stout pair of shoes which a single day formerly paid for ; and nine day's labor instead of six, are needed to obtain the material for a winter coat, that is, if a farm laborer should be extravagant enough to buy coarse broadcloth for such a purpose.
Labor in factories is somewhat better paid than farm labor ; adult operatives receiving from nine to eleven shillings a week when fully employed. But there are thousands, weavers and others in every manufacturing district, who have only occasional work at home and live in squallid wretchedness,-wretchedness that has often but five cents a day to keep each human body and soul together,t-wretchedness that terribly shortens life.
+See table of wages and prices from 1813 back to 1495, by Barton, in hls Enquiry into the Depreciation of Labor.
#In Minutes of Evidence before a Select Committee of the ilouse of Commons 1833, Mr. William Stocks, secretary of a committee of factory owners, deposed to certain facts obtained and verified by that committee during visits to the cottages of laborers in and around Huddersfield, thus summing up the results : " We found 13,226 individ-
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Another most significant fact is, that whereas, three hun- dred years ago, the poor-law system of England scarcely existed, my father found one in ten of all the inhabitants of Great Brit- ain a pauper, receiving parish relief.§ Without the English poor-laws, there would long since have been wholesale starva- tion among those able and willing to work. and, probably a re- bellion instigated by despair.
With all the foregoing data tallies an estimate made by Hallam, in his History of the Middle Ages, of the relative value of money ; which is, that any given sum in the fourteenth century must be multiplied by twenty, and in the fifteenth cen- tury by sixteen, to bring it to the standard of our day. If so then the common laborer's wages in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were equivalent to five shillings of the modern En- glish currency per day, or to thirty shillings per week ; at least three times as much as such a laborer receives at present.
But to guard against possible exaggeration, let us deduct one third from this result ; and the startling fact still forces it- self on our attention, that the working-classes employed in tilling the garden soil of Great Britain, or in tending her mag- nificent machinery, receive now, as the price of their toil, but one half as much as their rude ancestors did five centuries ago.
As cure for such evil and suffering, my father found the political economists urging a reduction of taxes. But his ex- perience taught him to regard that as a mere temporary pallia- tive. The very reduction of government burdens might be
uals that averaged two pence halfpenny (five cents) per day to live on. That sum inclu- ded all parish relief ; and it was not wholly applicable to meat and drink, for they had rent and everything to pay out of it, including wear and tear of looms " Minutes of Evidence, July 28, and August 3, 1833.
The Report of the Liverpool Branch of the Anti-Corn-Law League for 1833 shows a similar state of wholesale misery. It states that "in Vauxhall Ward, Liverpool, con- taining in all 6,000 families, or 24,000 souls, the number of 3,462 families had but two pence halfpenny (five cents) per individual to live on."
§In our manufacturing districts every eleventh inhabitant, and in our agricultural counties every eighth inhabitant, receives parish relief. But this by no means represents the whole mass of suffering. The horror of being branded as a pauper is so prevalent among the industrial population, that thousands prefer death by gradual starvation, to placing themselves on the parish funds,"-Report of Liverpool Branch of the Anti- Corn-Law League, 1833.
These calculations are, however, for the middle of the present century. Wages hav- ing since risen twenty or twenty-five per cent., the proportion of paupers is considerably less to-day.
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taken as an all sufficient plea for the further reduction of wages. Labor could be afforded for less. And down to the very point at which it can be afforded,-which means at that point on the road to famine at which men are not starved suddenly, but die slowly of toil inadequately sustained by scanty and unwhole- some food,-down to that point of bare subsistence my father saw the laborer of Britain thrust. How ? Wherefore ? By what legerdemain of cruelty and injustice ?
Thus the problem loomed upon him. We may imagine his reflections. Why, as the world advances in knowledge and power, do the prospects and the comforts of the mass of man- kind darken and decline ? How happens it that four or five centuries have passed over Britain, bringing peace where raged feuds and forays, affording protection to person and property, setting free the shackled press, spreading intelligence and liber- ality, reforming religion and fostering civilization, -how happens it that these centuries of improvement have left the British laborer twofold more the slave of toil than they found him ? Why must mechanical inventions-inevitable even if they were mischievous, and in themselves a rich blessing as surely as they are inevitable-stand in array against the laborer, instead of toiling by his side.
Momentous questions these ! My father pondered them day and night. If he had tersely stated the gist of his reflec- tions-which he was not always able to do-they might have assumed some such form as this : Will any man, who stands on his reputation for sanity, affirm that the necessary result of over-production is famine ? That because labor produces more than even luxury can waste, labor shall not have bread to eat? If we can imagine a point in the progres of improvement at which all the necessaries and comforts of life shall be produced without human labor, are we to suppose that the human laborer, when that point is reached, is to be dismissed by his masters from their employment, to be told that he is now a useless in- cumbrance which they cannot afford to hire ?
If such a result be flagrantly absurd in the extreme, it was then, and is now, in Great Britain, a terrible reality in the degree. Men were told that machines had filled their places and that their services were no longer required. Certain En-
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glish economists scrupled not to avow the doctrine, that a man born into a world already occupied and overstocked with labor has no RIGHT to claim food ; that such a one is a being super- fluous on the earth, and for whom, at the great banquet of na- ture, there is no place to be found.+
My father's conclusions from the data which I have here furnished were :
1. That the enormously increased productive powers which man in modern times has acquired, involve, and in a measure necessitate, great changes in the social and industrial structure of society.
2. That the world has reached a point of progress at which co-operative industry should replace competitive labor.
3. That society, discarding large cities and solitary homes, should resolve itself into associations, each of fifteen hundred or two thousand persons, who should own land and houses in common and labor for the benefit of the community. In this way, he believed, labor-saving power would directly aid, not tend to oppress, the workman.
The first proposition is doubtless true, especially as to old countries largely engaged in manufactures; the question re- maining, however, of what character and to what extent the changes should be.
The second proposition is now on trial in England on a large scale. Through the kindness of an English friend I have before me a report of the Fifth Annual Co-operative Congress, held at Newcastle on the 12th, 13th and 14th of last April, and which was attended by two hundred delegates from all parts of Great Britain and Ireland .¿ The two most prominent speakers were members of Parliament ; namely, the well-known Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown at Oxford, and Walter Morrison.
Mr. Hughes introduced the resolution, "That this meeting recognizes in co-operation the most effective means of perma- nently raising the condition of the people." And Mr. Morrison
See Malthus, in his Essay on the Principle of Population. But my father believed in the axiom put forth by a French historian : "Avant toutes les lois sociales, l'homme avoit le droit de subsister." - Raynal, Histoire des Indes, Vol. X, p. 232.
Published in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle of April 19, 1873, and covering twen- ty-nine closely printed columns. This paper is larger than the New York Tribune and was established in 1764.
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moved the following : " That it is of the essence of co-operation to recognize the right of labor to a substantial share in the profits it creates." Both resolutions were unanimously adopted.
Mr. Cowen, chairman of the Congress, said, in opening one of its meetings : " I am not an old man, yet I recollect a meet- ing which was held in this room thirty years ago. It was ad- dressed by the father of co-operative principles in this country, Mr. Robert Owen. [Cheers.] To the discredit of some of the inhabitants of Newcastle, they brought the meeting to a close by breaking the windows and dispersing the audience. They refused to listen to the patient and, I may say, affectionate appeals which Mr. Owen made to his hearers. We have con- siderably advanced since then."
The experiments then commenced, in the way of co-ope- rative stores, failed at that time, probably because the current of public opinion set in strongly against them. How great the contrast is to-day appears from the statistics, founded on Parliamentary documents, which were laid before this Congress. One wholesale co-operative store in Manchester has two hund- red and seventy-seven shareholding societies, and has five hund- red societies doing business with it ; has a capital of nearly three quarters of a million dollars, and its present annual business falls but little short of six millions. During eight years past it has done business to the amount of twenty millions, and has incurred in that period but a single thousand dollars of bad debts. Another, the North of England wholesale store, does a business varying from a hundred thousand to a hundred and forty thousand dollars a week.
There are in all, throughout England, about a thousand co- operative stores, and full returns have been made to Parliament by three-fourths of these. These three-fourths had, in 1871, two hundred and sixty thousand members; a capital of more than twelve and a half millions ; were doing a business of more than forty-seven millions a year, with an annual profit of four millions, that is, eight and a half per cent. on the capital in- vested.
Besides these stores, English co-operators have engine works employing five hundred hands ; a mining company, with twelve hundred workers ; an industrial bank at Newcastle ;
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linen, cotton, and other factories ; corn-mills ; a printing soci- ety ; an agricultural and horticultural association, with Thomas Hughes in its council ; and a Central Agency Society, with two members of Parliament on its committee of management.
Profiting by the experience of the past, many errors in or- ganization and in management have been avoided. At this time, with some twenty millions of capital employed, these co- operative enterprises are, with scarcely an exception, a pecuni- ary success.
As to the third proposition,-the resolving of society into small communities of common property-my father resolved to test it at New Harmony. I think it was a mistake to change the scene of the experiment from England to the United States. The average wages of farm labor here amount to a dollar and a quarter a day, or seven dollars and a half a week; and even if we put wheat at a dollar and eighty-five cents a bushel, which is its price only in our seaboard cities and when it is ready for shipment, a week's labor in husbandry will purchase four bushels of wheat instead of a bushel and a quarter, as in England The need of co-operation or some other protection for labor may be said to be threefold greater there than here.
My father made another and a still greater mistake. A believer in the force of circumstances and of the instinct of self- interest to reform all men, however ignorant or vicious, he ad- mitted into his village all comers, without recommendatory introduction or any examination whatever. This error was the more fatal, because it is in the nature of any novel experiment, or any putting forth of new views which may tend to revolu- tionize the opinions or habits of society, to attract to itself-as the Reformation did, three hundred years ago, and as Spiritu- alism does to-day-waifs and strays from surrounding society ; men and women of crude, ill-considered, extravagant notions ; nay, worse, vagrants who regard the latest heresy but a stalk- ing-horse for pecuniary gain, or a convenient cloak for immoral demeanor.
He did, indeed, take the precaution of establishing at New Harmony, in the first instance, a preliminary society only ; and he did refrain from any conveyance of real estate to its mem- bers. But he allowed this motley assemblage to elect its own
----
BOGART MCCOMAS-RUSSELL. CIN 0.
St. Mary's Catholic Church.
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Committee of Management, though the constitution of the soci- ety vested in him the appointing power.t The constitution was laid before the inhabitants, April 27, 1825 : Robert Owen then, for the first time, addressing the inhabitants. It was adopted May 1 .¿ But my father was able to remain, to watch its pro- gress, little more than a month. He departed, early in June, for England ; leaving a school of a hundred and thirty children who were boarded, clothed, and educated at the public expense. As to to the other inhabitants, they received a weekly credit on the public store to the amount which their services were, by the committee, deemed worth. There was a good band of mu- sic ; and the inhabitants, on my father's recommendation, resolved to meet together three evenings each week : one to discuss all subjects connected with the welfare of the society, another for a concert of vocal and instrumental music ; while the third was given up to a public ball.
My father's reception in America had been kind and hospi- table; and he gave us, on his return to Braxfield, a glowing ac- count of the favor with which his plans of social reform were regarded in the New World, and of the condition of things, and the bright promise for the future at New Harmony I was captivated with the picture he drew, and embarked with him toward the end of September from Liverpool in the packet-ship New York, exulting as an Israelite may have exulted when Moses spoke to him of the Land of Promise.
We had a jovial set of passengers, including the opera troupe of the elder Garcia, together with his son Manuel, twenty years old, and his two daughters-Maria, then aged seventeen ; and Pauline, then only four years old, but who afterwards be- came a celebrated singer and actress, and married a Paris jour- nalist of some reputation, Monsieur Viardot. She was the pet of passengers and crew ; and I have heard the child reply in four languages, with almost equal facility, to remarks in French, German, Italian and Spanish, addressed to her, in rapid succes- sion, by the members of her father's company.
t See New Harmony Gazette, Vol 1, page 135. My father recommended four of the seven persons who composed the committee ; and these four together with three others, were elected by the citizens.
* A copy of this constitution will be found in New Harmony Gazette, Vol 1, pp. 2, g
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Her elder sister, Mademoiselle Garcia, afterwards world- renowned-her brief career sad indeed in private, but brilliant in public to a degree hardly paralleled in the annals of the stage-had the previous Spring made a successful debut in Lon- don. She was a most interesting girl, simple, frank, bright as could be, charming in conversation, a general favorite ; and I think that during our somewhat protracted voyage she capti- vated the heart of Captain McDonald, a young English officer, a great friend and admirer of my father, who had accompanied us on our Transatlantic trip. It came to nothing, perhaps, be- cause Mc Donald, though a noble, generous fellow, had then lit- tle besides his commission to depend on ; but I doubt not she would have been far happier as his wife than she afterward was -poor girl !- with the reputed rich but bankrupt Malibran.
Her health seemed feeble, and this may have been due in part to the extreme severity with which that terrible Spaniard, her father, treated his children, The troupe had frequent re- hearsals on deck when the weather was fine, greatly to the de- light of the passengers. The only drawback to our pleasure in listening to some of the finest voices in the world was the brutal manner in which Garcia sometimes berated the singers, but es- pecially his son and daughter, when their performance did not please him.
One evening, after a rehearsal at which he had been so violent that his daughter seemed in mortal fear of him, she and I sat down, on a sofa on deck, to a game of chess. At first she appeared almost as lively and bright as usual ; but, ere the game ended, she turned deadly pale, her head sunk on my shoulder, and had I not caught her in my arms she must have fallen to the floor. I carried her down to the cabin, quite insensible, and it was some time before she recovered.
Another day, at the close of a rehearsal, the old man spoke in insulting terms to his son, I and other passengers being pres- ent. Manuel replied in a respectful, almost submissive tone .; yet he earnestly vindicated himself against the charge-of wil- tul negligence, I think it was-which his father brought against him. This incensed Garcia to such a degree. that he suddenly struck his son a blow with his fist so violent that the youth dropped on the deck as if shot. We instantly went in search
A
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of the captain, telling him what had happened, and he came on deck at once, confronting the still enraged father.
" What is this, sir ?" he said, the tone low, but with a dangerous ring in it. " Is it true that you dared to knock your son down ? "
The great singer was silent and looked sullen.
" It is true then ?" The tone rose a little, and the eyes flashed ; we saw there was mischief in them. " Do you know, sir," he went on, " that I am master here - ruler in my own ship-with the right to do whatever I please, if it is necessary to protect my passengers either from insult or injury ? Do you know that sir ?"
Still no answer.
" Do you see these men ?" pointing to some sailors who were looking on at a distaace with eyes of curiosity. "A single word from me and they 'll seize you on the spot ! But I don't want a fuss on board my ship. This time I'll pass it by. But now attend to what I say ; you had better, for your own sake. If you lay a finger again on a single passenger here - on your son, on your daughter, or on any other soul on board-I'll have you below in irons, sir-in irons! Do you understand that ?"
He did understand, and he was fairly cowed at last. He muttered an unintelligible excuse ; and the captain, turning away, issued some common-place order to the mate, as quietly as if nothing had happened.
From that day forth, though Garcia still scolded and grum- bled, he used, in our hearing, no insulting language, nor com- mitted any other violent act. To us, when nothing crossed his will or went wrong, he was polite and even obliging. We amused ourselves throughout the somewhat tedious voyage by getting out a weekly newspaper-quite a creditable production it was-and in its last number appeared a song, the words by one of our party, Mr. Stedman Whitwell, a London architect, and a convert to my father's views ; the music, graceful and spirited, by Garcia. It was afterwards published in New York under the title of Ebor Nova, and had quite a run ; for the Garcias won for themselves quite a reputation.
Our pleasant voyage came to an end November 7, 1825- the day on which I was twenty-four years old. New York's
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magnificent bay, its surface just stirred by a gentle breeze, and dotted all over with white sails-signs of a busy and enterpris- ing nation - while beyond, the city's hundred spires shot up white in the sunshine of a fresh autumn morning-all this, as I came upon it after the even tenor of a long ocean voyage, out- went whatever I had imagined of New World scenery. I had reached the Canaan of my hopes, and its first glimpse was beau- tiful even beyond my dreams. I landed, as in vision of the night one enters fairy-land.
Our first letters of introduction brought us into contact with a people genial and magnetic, who seemed to me, as to temperament, to occupy middle ground between the distant conventionality of my own countrymen and the light vivacity of the French. I liked them from the first, and with a youth- ful precipitancy, which, however, I have never repented, I went at once to a prothonotary's office and declared my intention to become a citizen of the United States.
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