Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume], July 04, 1914, Image 1

About Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1902-1919

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1 1 Vol. 23 SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, JULY 4, 1914 No. 2
if li il
$ An Independent Paper Published Under
i :: the Management of J. T. Goodwin ::
i
1 EDITORIALS B Y JUDGE C. C. GOOD WIN
I '
f &
; The Rights of Capital
IN his speech at Wabash college the other day
I Vice-President Marshall Included this wise
I 1 saw:
il "In 1850 the proportion of the annual wealth
I created In the country by the joint efforts of
, $ labor and capital was one-fourth to labor and
i three-fourths to capital. Sixty years later the
proportion had changed to less than one-fifth to
I labor and more than four-fifths to capital. This
s 1 disproportion, to my mind, has much to do with
I I our present discontent."
f f Would the vice-president like to have a re-
tp turn to the conditions of 1850?
i ' Let us recall a few of them. There were
, less than 10,000 miles of4 railways in the United
1 ! States.
i A hired man worked sixteen hours out of
l ' tho twenty-four and if his employer had agreed
f to pay him $12 a month, the neighbors among
themselves admitted that the employer might
' do it, but it would require all the profits of the
1 farm. The wife and mother worked eighteen
; hours of the twenty-four, did the work of the
-., house and found room for a new baby every
I I other year. Her whole wardrobe did not cost
$7.50. The farmers were satisfied to simply live
, f and in nine cases out of ten when they died at
, about 63 as most of them did, the schedule
showed that what they had accumulated after
f forty years of toil merely represented the in-
I creased value of their farms.
' Where a little factory was found, there chll-
I dren worked fourteen hours a day; there was
. I no expense made to give them light or to prop-
il erly ventilate the rooms where they worked and
J next to no regard was paid to sanitation.
I When sickness came there were no conveni-
I ences nor comforts save such as the wife and
I' mother could invent. iNo ice in summer, no meat
1" v' but salt meat; to want a few luxuries displayed
1 f an extravagant longing which ought to bo
F frowned upon.
. I The little red or log school house had but
one room and the seats were so high that the
I feet of the smaller children could not reach the
I floor. It, like the homes, was fashioned regard-
I I less of the claims of ventilation or sanitation
I and the books in the schools were handed down
I I from the older to the younger children year after
year. As a rule each family did its own work,
so if a little was saved at the year's end, that
i 4 little was counted as profits and labor was not
J J ' counted at all.
R There were just two redeeming features to it
I all.
B There were limitless acres of marvelously
D rich land which men could settle upon and own,
f, , and from those humble homes came a race of
.
women and men as splendid as the world ever
saw. '
It would mightily relieve tho present unrest
if we had a great practically uninhabited valley
such as were the main portions of the Mississippi
and Missouri valleys, where men could take up
homesteads unvexed by the modern school of
Plnchots.
A strong civilization would spread over it,
but it would represent merely a primitive, pas
toral and rudely agricultural people. No such a
beginning ever can without help culminate In
a great nation.
Greatness, in a national sense, comes from
iron and gold. When the first shipment of gold
dust from California was made it marked an
era in our nation's progress. It was equivalent
to the sounding through the megaphone of the
sentinel angel that watches over us, the cry of:
"Attention "United States! 'Bout face and for
ward march!"
The tryanriy of two hundred years of unre
warded toil, was about to be thrown off. '
Labor was about to come into Its reward ac
cording to merit, its hours reduced, its rewards
increased, even to the humblest, four-fold, steam
and electricity were about to take upon their
steel arms the heavier work of men; wives and
mothers were about to be emancipated from
their old Blavery; new voices were to fill the
air, new lights to fill the nights.
The trouble now is that those who have the
management of affairs are not great enough to
see the progress and keep it moving, but busy
themselves in throwing obstacles in Its way.
Vice-President Marshall has worked through
a long life intent upon accumulating enough so
that, upon its proceeds, he can spend his de
clining .years In peace without apprehension or
those cares that wear out men's lives. That is,
he wants to be at peace and have his accumu
lated capital work for his living. Still ho be
wails the fact that the proceeds of capital en
croach more and more upon the returns from
labor. By his acts he confesses that money Is
but labor concentrated, but by his words ho
clings to the old superstition, that all there is
comes from present labor and forgets that money
Itself is but labor immortalized, working day and
night and is worthy to draw its fair reward.
When a river at flood time comes rushing
down, it Is idle to try to arrest it, but turned
aside, it runs mills, floats ships, enriches the
soil and becomes a blessing.
It is the same with money. Put It into full
use and it will do the heavier part of a nation's
work, build its roads, its factories, its cities, its
ships and palaces. Hold it as an enemy and
wherever it concentrates strike It down, and all
that will follow will be as when a flood Is op
posed a long trail of wreck and devastation.
Today
"v N this Fourth of July morning all Americans
s should keep In mind that when it was made
tho nation's birthday, the heavens and the earth
were stirred, and could men's ears ? ive been
sublimated, the air would have been resonant
with the old song "Peaco On Earth and to Man H
Good Will." That is there was a doublo con- H
secratlon of the day, one on earth, one in H
heaven. M
The land was to bo dedicated to liberty and H
was to endure while the .people were worthy of
the boon. M
There have been many reminders of that H
since to men who have been watching. It was
on the eve of this anniversary that Leo's trl-
umphant army was turned back baffled from H
Gettysburg. H
It was on this anniversary that Vicksburg H
collapsed under the Iron hand of Grant, which H
events wore notices to all tho outside world that H
tho American union wasi to be. indissoluble. H
It has grown clearer over since that so long H
as our people are true to themselves, there can H
be no disaster that our country cannot survive. H
It has become a great world power; Its Influence H
Is steadily advancing, with every year our flag H
takes on new majesty and light. M
It will always bo so unless the people them- M
selves grow negligent or careless or depraved. H
And let us all keep In mind today that this H
is the greatest anniversary that a waiting world M
has been blessed with for nineteen hundred - H
years. H
The Day We Celebrate H
"PHE Anniversary Day of the nation is not as M
filled with cheer as some previous ones
have been. Wo are told that tho trouble is be- ' H
cause of the unrest of the people. That unrest H
is really apprehension; apprehension of trouble H
because of the lack of those in power to adjust H
and harmonize present conditions. It is a re- H
proach that it is so; so rich Is our country H
though but half developed; so ample the means H
to inaugurate new enterprises; so countless the H
host that needs employment; surely there should H
be no halting; no suspension, but rather a con- H
tlnuous onward march like "an army with ban- H
ners." H
An on-looker would reach tho conclusion 'In a H
moment that In such a situation tho business of H
the government should be, not to he crying H
"halt!" but to keep in advance clearing obstacles H
out of the path of progress, and not to perch H
on the heights and keep up a continual qroaking H
of lament over what has been done. H
Rather the people cannot but note a few H
significant facts. Our export trade is decreasing, B
our Imports increasing; our shipyards are silent; H
our flag has well-nigh disappeared from tho H
sea; our export trade to the ports behind which H
struggle half the population of the earth, is dead, H
and by our laws we offer a premium on the pro- H
ducts which those same people send us. One H
by one our factories are closing, no new ones H
are being built and the army of the unemployed H
is swelling by divisions and corps. H
If a poor man starts out upon the frontier D
to find and .possess some of the treasures which H
nature hid in her hills to await his coming, the H
first thing ho finds Is a notice that the whole H
region has been set asldo by a benevolent gov- Q
' erment, that what treasures it m-.y possess can H