Page:James Hudson Maurer - The Far East (1912).pdf/24

 become owners of the tools necessary to their existence or the making of things essential to their comfort.

But to own a machine or a number of them, house them in suitable buildings and purchase the raw materials necessary to feed the machines required more than ordinary means. The small factory or mill could be owned by a small capitalist. The larger industries naturally required greater capitalists to own them.

As the machines developed to the gigantic proportions they possess today, it was necessary that their owners keep pace with them.

With the evolution of the tools of production and distribution there developed two distinct classes in society which hitherto did not to any great extent exist.

The one a property class, owning the tools they do not use; the other a great propertyless class using tools they do not own. The latter class cannot live unless they work, and they cannot work unless the owing class (employers) allow them to.

It is therefore plain to be seen that the relations between these two classes is that of Master and Slave.

The tool users are as much dependent upon the tool owners for their existence as were the tillers of the soil dependent upon the owners of the soil, for neither can apply their labor to the source from which they draw their subsistence without the consent of the properties class. It is evident, therefore, that this property class controls the destinies, in fact the very lives of the great army of dispossessed toilers. Shakespeare said: "You take my life when you take the means whereby I live."

As we see today, many lives are needlessly sacrificed.

The United States Government through its various bureaus of statistics shows that more people are being killed every year in the United States during times of peace than in the bloodiest battles of history.

During the last 19 years the railroads of America have killed 143,527 persons. During the same period 931,450 persons have been injured by American railroads.

During the last 17 years American coal mines have killed 22,840 men and made at least 10,000 widows and 40,000 orphans.

During a single year American street railways killed and injured a few less than 49,000 persons.

Every year 6,000 Americans lose their lives in fires.