Page:Alexander Jonas - Reporter and Socialist (1885).djvu/24

 of millions of acres of the most fertile land by the devouring railroad monopolies. But, beside all this, the phrase "Go west, young man!" has no meaning whatever nowadays. Suppose that to-day out of 10,000 cigarmakers in any of the Eastern States 2,000 should become superfluous. Of course, they could not have saved anything out of their miserable starvation wages; how could they "go west" several thousands of miles, together with their wives and children? What would be the amount of the capital necessary to enable them to do so? It would probably amount to more than was needed to bring them to New York from Liverpool or Hamburg. And is there anyone to believe that a cigarmaker, who has made cigars all his lifetime, would make a successful farmer all of a sudden? Let him be placed, with a plough and an axe and other tools, he has to buy first, upon a piece of untilled soil, and the result will be that he starves to death!

And all this goes to prove that, whatever advantages America may possess, or have possessed, on account of the immense wealth of her natural resources, or in consequence of her political institutions, they are decreasing from the causes I have mentioned from day to day, and their beneficiary effect as well, while the consequences of the capitalistic mode of production which must naturally be the same everywhere, will make themselves to be felt more or less, according to the more or less favorable conditions in the different countries, with terrible force also in the United States in the same way as they are felt in Europe. Therefore, whosoever, like many of our capitalistic and journalistic snobs are doing, asserts that the effects of the capitalistic mode of production may appear in Europe but not in America; and whosoever denies that the same comparative amount of social misery exists in this country, and that it was caused by the same agencies by which it was produced in Europe, belongs to the party of those who are what their name implies—"Knownothings."

I must admit that things are worse than myself and a great many other people may have thought before this, though I commence to understand that the reason of all this trouble is different from what most men think; yet, I should say that even under present circumstances the large mass of