Page:Alexander Jonas - Reporter and Socialist (1885).djvu/28

 scribed like the course of the stars and the revolutions of the earth, recurring eternally like ebb, tide and flood, and in no way subject to the desire and dictates of man. It is a condition of things that could exist and develop itself only under certain institutions and laws, created by man himself and changeable by other institutions and laws made by other men. You ask me whether this state of affairs has not always prevailed? I say it has not, but similar conditions have been prevailing; that is to say, there have always been the rich and the poor, the robber and his victim. But, while formerly poverty was decreed politically, so to speak, i.e. while the slaves of America, and the serfs and feudal dependents of Europe were compelled by law to give their labor to their masters and lords. at the present day prevails the altogether unlimited "freedom" of robbing and being robbed, i. e. employer and worker are "free" to make their bargain for the remuneration to be accorded to the latter for his labor. But, in most cases the employer has not only an advantage over the worker, but he absolutely dictates the terms of the bargain: for, the worker is always compelled to sell his labor, he cannot wait for the price to go up. He must be satisfied with what he is offered; he cannot, as he could formerly hope, to become independent, except in a very few extraordinarily fortunate cases, as he does not possess any capital in order to produce at wholesale by machinery, as the prevailing condition of things requires at present. But the boss has, as a rule, the choice of the workers, as there are plenty of them in the market, who were made superfluous by many new inventions and improved machinery. Almost all branches of industry are overcrowded by unemployed workers, and in addition thereto in this country the immense number of immigrants landing at our shores every day serve to accustom the workers to accept any amount of wages offered to them, and consequently with the increase of the number of the unemployed, the standard of life of those who are employed must needs decrease in proportion. Owing to this process, the effects of which are precipitated upon the American workmen by their employers, favoring the importation of European cheap labor, the standard of life of the American workmen has been reduced to nearly that of his European fellow-sufferer.