Part 23 (1/2)
”Fellow Citizens, Mr. George Evans, the leading advocate of Organized Labor in America, wishes to speak to you. Will you hear him?”
”Yes! Yes! Yes!” came from all parts of the house.
The man began in quivering tones that held Sam and gripped the unwilling mind of the crowd:
”My friends: Just a few words. I have in my arms the still breathing skeleton of a little girl. I found her in a street behind this building within the sound of the voice of your speaker.”
He paused and waved to John Brown.
”She was fighting with a stray cat for a crust of bread in a garbage pail. I hold her on high.”
With both hands he lifted the dazed thing above his head.
”Look at her. This bundle of rags G.o.d made in the form of a woman to be the mother of the race. She has been thrown into your streets to starve.
Her father is a workingman whom I know. For six months, out of work, he fought with death and h.e.l.l, and h.e.l.l won. He is now in prison. Her mother, unable to support herself and child, sought oblivion in drink.
She's in the gutter to-night. Her brother has joined a gang on the East Side. Her sister is a girl of the streets.
”You talk to me of Negro Slavery in the South? Behold the child of the White Wage Slave of the North! Why are you crying over the poor negro?
In the South the master owns the slave. Here the master owns the job.
Down there the master feeds, clothes and houses his man with care. Black children laugh and play. Here the master who owns the job buys labor in the open market. He can get it from a man for 75 cents a day. From a woman for 30 cents a day. When he has bought the last ounce of strength they can give, the master of the wage slave kicks him out to freeze or starve or sink into crime.
”You tell me of the white master's l.u.s.t down South? I tell you of the white master's l.u.s.t for the daughters of our own race.
”I see a foreman of a factory sitting in this crowd. I've known him for ten years. I've talked with a score of his victims. He has the power to employ or discharge girls of all ages ranging from twelve to twenty-five. Do you think a girl can pa.s.s his bead eyes and not pay for the job the price he sees fit to demand?
”If you think so, you don't know the man. I do!”
He paused and the stillness of death followed. Necks were craned to find the figure of the foreman crouching in the crowd. The speaker was not after the individual. His soul was aflame with the cause of millions.
”I see also a man in the crowd who owns a row of tenements so filthy, so dark, so reeking with disease that no Southern master would allow a beast to live in them. This hypocrite has given to John Brown to-night a contribution of money for the downtrodden black man. He coined this money out of the blood of white men and women who pay the rent for the dirty holes in which they die.”
A moment of silence that was pain as he paused and a hundred eyes swept the room in search of the man. Again the speaker stood without a sign.
He merely paused to let his message sink in the hearts of his hearers.
”My eyes have found another man in this crowd who is an employer of wage slaves. He is here to denounce Chattel Slavery in the South as the sum of all villainies while he practices a system of wage slavery more cruel without a thought morally wrong.
”I say this in justice to the man because I know him. He hasn't intelligence enough to realize what he is doing. If he had he would begin by abolis.h.i.+ng slavery in his own household. This reformer isn't a bad man at heart. He is simply an honest fool. These same fools in England have given millions to abolish black slavery in the Colonies and leave their own slaves in the Spittalfield slums to breed a race of paupers and criminals. Why don't a Buxton or a Wilberforce complain of the White Slavery at home? Because it is indispensable to their civilization. They lose nothing in freeing negroes in distant Colonies.
They would lose their fortunes if they dared free their own white brethren.
”The master of the wage slave employs his victim only when he needs him.
The Southern master supports his man whether he needs him or not. And cares for him when ill. The Abolitionist proposes to free the black slave from the whip. n.o.ble work. But to what end if he deprives him of food? He escapes the lash and lands in a felon's cell or climbs the steps of a gallows.
”Your inspired leader, the speaker of this evening, has found his most enthusiastic support in New England.
”No doubt.
”In Lowell, Ma.s.sachusetts, able-bodied men in the cotton mills are receiving 80 cents a day for ten hours' work. Women are receiving 32 cents a day for the same. At no period of the history of this republic has it been possible for a human being to live in a city and reproduce his kind on such wages. What is the result? The racial stock that made the Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts a civilized state is peris.h.i.+ng. It is being replaced from the slums of Europe. The standard of life is dragged lower with each generation.
”The negro, you tell me, must work for others or be flogged. The poor white man at your door must work for others or be starved. The negro is subject to a single master. He learns to know him, if not to like him.