Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

Paris Correspondence of the Chronotype.1

Paris, July 13, 1848

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day when some sixty years ago the people of Paris tore down the Bastille. Since that time what have they not endured and done! Tomorrow they will not destroy a Bastille, for they are imprisoned in one that is too strong for their feeble strength. This Bastille has grown silently and fatally around them; its walls and dungeons have been years in preparation; their inhabitants have not guessed the fate preparing for them, till suddenly they found themselves imprisoned. The Bastille I mean is the Bastille of poverty; its towers and cells are erected by the power of competitive labor.

Yesterday, on the Boulevards, about forty men came with their wives and children and sat down where the crowd of passers must behold them. Their faces were pale, and despair was written on their features. The bystanders asked them why they were there? "Would you have us starve in secret?" was the answer; "we prefer that the whole public should know to what French laborers are reduced." A policeman came up and told them they must not stay there, and that if they were suffering, the authorities would relieve them. "Charity!" said they, "it is not charity we want; give us work!" The police with difficulty made them withdraw from the spot where they sat, an exciting and dangerous spectacle.

Five minutes ago, on the corner of the street I saw a little written placard in a neat hand-writing. It was the humble advertisement of an ouvrier [worker]. He had been without anything to do for four months, and implored any reader who had any sort of work by which he might gain his food to employ him. These are the merest indications of the distress among the working population of Paris. This is their return for the blood they have shed for the country, and the sacrifices they have made. It is heart-rending to see a generous, brave, impulsive people in such a state.

One of the most noted of the leading radicals is M. Proudhon. He is a socialist, and not a socialist. He believes that the people must be saved, but that a commercial reform will relieve the present evils and settle the problem of France. I was at his house the other evening. He is a person of medium size, large head, and serious features; he speaks with warmth and decision, like a man whose convictions are ready for any trial. He explained his system in a rapid and clear manner, and he spoke of the crisis and what must be done. Against the moneyed class his eloquence was like a flood; they had slaughtered the people like brute beasts, rather than yield a sliver of their ill-got gains. Of theorists and students, he said, no more were wanted; they darkened counsel; of tinkering with political institutions they had too much; as to the question of one president, or three, he was indifferent; some said a good philosopher, a man of science, was needed to solve the tangled web, and bring light instead of darkness. A philosopher!—science! No, not a philosopher, but a Spartacus; not science, but the breaking of chains. No more discussing and talking, but action without rest!

Such is M. Proudhon, in private a man of the most gentle manners and of varied culture, but behind [him] all this revolutionary spirit, shooting up as in jets of flame. He has published the Representant du Peuple daily since the revolution. On Sunday last he proposed in it a petition to the Assembly, signed by such numbers as to make it a command, calling for the reduction of one-sixth from all rents about to fall due, one-half of the sum deducted to go to the state—the other half to the tenant. This was considered a direct attack upon property—which he has several times declared to be only a continuous robbery. Next day the paper was suspended by the order of the government. He will resume it again as soon as the siege is raised. The Fourierites, by the way, he dislikes very heartily; they are too quiet and pacific, and then they go for individual property.

What is the destiny of a country which contains many such men as Proudhon? One would say either to kill them, or be convulsed by them.

[Félicité de] Lamennais belongs to the same category. With less intellect, he has even more eloquence and passion. The government having revived the law of Louis Philippe, requiring each daily paper of Paris to pay twenty thousand dollars caution-money into the treasury, the Abbe [priest/abbot] not being able to command so much money for his Peuple Constituent, published his last number on Tuesday. It was in mourning; it had begun with the republic, he said; with the republic it expired, for the republic existed no longer. He concluded his philippic in these words:

As for ourselves, soldiers of the press, devoted to the defense of the liberties of the country, they treat us as they do the people—they disarm us. Not long since our paper was snatched from the hands of the carriers, and torn and abused in the public streets. One of our agents has been imprisoned at Rouen, and the journal seized without any further formality. The design of all is clear; it was at any cost to reduce us to silence. Now they have succeeded, by means of the caution-money. At this day it requires money, a great deal of money, to enjoy the right of speech. We are not rich enough. Silence to the poor!

On Tuesday an immense number of the paper was sold, and on Wednesday morning it became necessary to strike off another edition to satisfy the demand. That day the police seized it, and it is said that Lamennais is to be prosecuted for treason. I learn, however, that in conjunction with his friend, Pierre Leroux, he has obtained the means of paying the caution-money, the government having decided to reduce the amount to less than five thousand dollars. They intend to commence a new paper together, with the name of the Tribune Socialiste.

Though the government is generally reactionary, I am glad to say that there is one man of liberal views in it. I mean [Charles Gilbert] Tourret, the Minister of Commerce. He has in consideration, and intention too, a plan for a vast reform of commerce. It is necessary, he is convinced, to get rid of the intermediaires, that is to say, of the merchants whose practice it is to buy of the producer at less than the cost of production, and sell to the consumer for more than the actual value of the article. He thinks of establishing great entrepots in the interior of the country, where products can be deposited by the maker, and where the people can go for what they want, and have it without the addition of jobbing or retail profits, and without the adulterations and frauds which the merchants practice, especially on eatables and drinkables. The French trade in the United States he also thinks of arranging in the same manner, by the establishment of depots in the principal cities, managed by the agents of the republic, and furnishing goods directly from the manufacturers, at their prices, with the addition of commissions to cover the bare cost of transportation, storage, agents, &c. I say he intends to do this. I do not wish to speak too strongly; he is favorable to the plan, which meets precisely his ideas of commercial reform, but he may find difficulties in carrying it out. How the merchants would raise the shout of opposition if he should begin to do it! Great is Diana of the Ephesians! Sacred is the right of commerce to fleece the world!

[Alphonse de] Lamartine made a noble speech yesterday, according to all accounts. It was in the Committee of Foreign Affairs, on the policy which France ought to adopt in view of the march of the Russian army to the Danube. In his best efforts, say the members of the Committee who heard him, he never was more eloquent. Unfortunately the speech will not be published, as it related to movements of which the public cannot yet be informed. It is said, however, that it was decidedly in favor of French intervention in behalf of the Wallachians and Moldavians.

The official inquiry in regard to the insurrection has made known some interesting facts. The number of barricades constructed in the four days, was three thousand eight hundred and forty-three: this shows that the insurgents were able to work at something, though they were not very profitable in the national workshops. The number of cartridges issued to the troops and National Guard was upwards of two millions, and all of them were used. Besides this immense quantity of ammunition for small arms, there were also used above three thousand artillery cartridges: this of course was on the side of the authorities alone. The number of shots fired by the rebels can only be guessed at.

The proprietors of the Presse have held a meeting to protest against the stoppage of their paper. They say that of their 70,000 subscribers, they shall lose at least 30,000 by the suspension; this will cause a serious depreciation of the value of the property. The laborers connected with the paper, who are deprived of work, should also, they think, be considered: these consist of 20 editors; 25 clerks; 20 pressmen and assistants; 60 porters; 64 folders; and 500 carriers; all these persons are now out of employment. The stoppage also takes from the public treasury 2,200 francs a day, postages, and deprives the paper makers, ink makers and type founders of a daily demand to the amount of about 4,000 francs! You see that they have larger papers in Paris than we can boast of in America.

The National Assembly is inundated with all sorts of queer petitions. Yesterday one man asked for the abolition of the Episcopate, and of the celibacy of the priesthood; that every priest should be required to practice some branch of productive labor, and that the sacred vessels of the churches be melted and given to the poor! Another man asked a heavy fine to be laid on journalists who should publish false news. This last petition the Assembly laughed at.

The French have been hastening out of Paris in a steady stream for this fortnight, for fear of new insurrections. So great has been the demand for passports, that at the Prefecture of Police it has been necessary to appoint three men to issue them, whereas one is usually enough.

Salut et fraternite. - Bostonian.

Organized Trade in France.

We shall see out of all the turmoil, confusion and revolutions of France, arise a completely new order of things. The process of birth is necessarily painful—is necessarily attended with much waste of substance; but of substance no longer useful, and which must needs be cast off. Yet France will ere long stand before the world in its regenerate form, the paragon of nations. The activity of mind in that nation is without precedent—an activity alive with social sympathies, with the largest purposes of good to the race. Where is the other nation—where has there ever been a nation, so distinguished for ideas as this same French people? They have given the world all the social impulse, which it has had since the dark ages. Our own revolution is well-known to have been the product of French ideas; and at this day, you hear in France a distinct announcement of all the great ideas and principles, which animate the thought of this teeming age. It is more than an announcement of these ideas; it is an earnest effort to synthesize them, to unite them into the single formula of a Unitary Reform. But our object is to call the attention of our readers to the correspondence of the Chronotype, which we give in our columns. We are thankful that at last we have a reliable source of information from Paris. The correspondent of the Chronotype we are intimately acquainted with, and know that his statements of fact are to be relied on, and we believe his conjectures as to the future fate of France will be found to be as well-founded as those of the mercenary editors of English and American papers.

We ask the special attention of our readers to his letter. They will see that the French people have studied the principle of true commerce, with better results as to ideas, than any other nation. And as they are the first people to recognize, even theoretically, the necessity for an organization of labor, so they are the first as a government to recognize the equally pressing necessity for organizing trade.

Tourret, the Minister of Commerce, has hit upon a plan of organizing commerce by the state, which does up in a trice all that the Protective Unionists are patiently laboring to establish here. He proposes to establish entrepots throughout the country, where articles of produce or manufacture can be deposited by the creator, and where the people can obtain what they want, without the intervention of a merchant and jobber. His plan is no less than to afford every person all articles at actual cost, and to supersede the entire class of merchants, jobbers and peddlers. he proposes to extend the same plan to the United States. Will it not be something worthwhile, when we can obtain French silks, broadcloth, and other manufactures at the actual cost of delivering them here from those who produce them, and give them in return the products of our hands, at cost? This would be a free trade which would mean something, and which would be practicable.

The fact is, fellow laborers, the day is at hand when commerce has got to quit its spoliation of labor. We have but little expectation that M. Tourret can carry his scheme into effect at present, on account of the opposition which it will meet with from the traders and mercantile classes, any more than the friends of the working classes have been able to carry out the plan of organizing labor for the same reason. But the crab moves backward, and so does civilization. The direct movement would be to organize labor, and all the other questions of exchange would follow as a matter of course. But we must get at the organization of labor through organizing commerce. When we make it necessary for the hordes of non-producers to become producers, or starve. They will be among the first to call for the organization of attractive industry, as they were the first to decry it. The course of justice is like the agility of a cat; however you may toss it, it always comes right-side up.

Whether Tourret is allowed to carry out his plan at present, or not, there is the new idea and the hospitality of French mind, which never turns any thought out doors, will ere long regard this humble stranger as an exalted guest—as a deliverer.

The Buffalo Convention.

This convention, to which all eyes are now turned with held breath, as the most important event in the way of determining the next presidential election, will have met the day before our next issue. It cannot but be regarded, so it seems to us, by men of all parties and of no party, as the oracle, whose word is to decide the impending contest. It strikes us that no American citizen can be indifferent to its issue, and that no one has a right to be so. We are by no means bound to support the nominee of the Buffalo Convention, and there is but one condition upon which we will support him, and that is that he shall in some good degree represent the claims which labor is so signally asserting in all Europe, as well as in these United States. We do not demand that a candidate shall come fully up to our idea in all things, for if we did, we should wait long before rendering our country any service at the ballot box, and in so far as any action were concerned, might as well be dead, as we should be politically.

The question of the non-extension of slavery, taken by itself, provided that could be done, is a great question. But it is only a very small part of the question of which it forms a part, which is the great question of labor—the question of humanity's right to live in its own free impassioned action—by the fruit of its own free and voluntary pursuits. It is not enough to plant oneself against slavery's extension, but upon its extinction; not against negro chattel slavery alone, but also against white and black wage slavery, wherever it exists. It is of no use to say that a man shall not work as a slave, until you can establish conditions whereby he may work as a free man. It is not negro emancipation alone which the age is calling for; but for the universal redemption of labor. It is not fragments of social architecture, built up into detached and isolated individualities, but its unity, integrity, and the synthesis wherein each fragment finds its complement, in its association with each other. We shall await the decision of the Buffalo Convention, and then we shall make ours. We cannot but wish that they may nominate a man who is a whole man. If they only use their best common sense, and leave unprincipled policy to the Whigs and Democrats, they may elect their candidate and rescue the country from further disgrace.

Comfort for the Rich.

When the time drew nigh that the oxy-hydrogen microscope should be shown, at the Newcastle Polytechnic Exhibition, one night last week, a poor old woman, whose riches will never retard her ascent to heaven, took her seat in the lecture room to witness the wonders that were for the first time to meet her sight. A piece of lace was magnified into a salmon net, a flea was metamorphosed into an elephant, and other marvels were performed before the venerable dame, who sat in astonishment, staring open-mouthed at the disk. But when at length, a milliner's needle was transformed into a poplar tree, and confronted her with its huge eye, she could hold in no longer. "My goodness!" she exclaimed, "a camel could get through that! There's some hopes for the rich folks yet."—English paper.2

Declaration of Women's Rights

The women of Seneca County, NY have recently held a convention at Seneca Falls for the discussion of the existing political, social, and religious disabilities to which woman is now subjected. The subject was discussed for two entire days with the greatest candor, intelligence and dignity, by some of the first women, of this or any other country. Mrs. Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia, took a conspicuous part in the proceedings of the Convention. Few are willing to admit the fact, and many are not aware of it, that woman in all civilized countries is politically, religiously, and socially enslaved; but we challenge anyone to deny it, after reading the following statement of her grievances, which we take from the Declaration of Sentiments, put forth by the aforesaid Convention. This Declaration, by the way, is not a parody upon our world-famed Declaration of Independence, as the Transcript calls it, but an improved edition, the complement of that instrument. Deny the truth of the following statements who can! We rejoice in that Convention as a significant indication of the tendencies of this age.

Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled. The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.

He has compelled her to submit to laws in the formation of which she has had no voice.

He has withheld from her rights which have been given to the most ignorant and degraded men, both natives and foreigners.

He, having deprived her of the first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in any house of legislation, has oppressed her on all sides.

He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law civilly dead.

He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.

He has made her morally an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming to all intents and purposes her master, the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty and to administer chastisement.

He has so formed the laws of divorce, as to what should be proper causes of divorce, and in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children should be given, as to be wholly unjust and regardless of the happiness of woman; the law in all cases going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands. After depriving her of all rights as a married woman—if single and the owner of property.

He has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.

He has monopolized nearly all the means of profitable employment, and in those which she is permitted to follow she secures but a scanty remuneration.

He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction which he considers most honorable to himself.

As a teacher of theology, medicine or law, she is not known.

He has deprived her of the facilities for a thorough education, all colleges being closed against her.

He allows her in church as well as state, but a subordinate position, claiming apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and with some exceptions from any public participation in the affairs of the church.

He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for man and woman, by which moral delinquencies [that] exclude woman from society are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.

He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action when that belongs to her conscience and her God.

He has endeavored in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lesser her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

Now in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half of the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, therefore they do insist upon an immediate admission into all those rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States. In entering upon this great work, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation and ridicule, but we shall use every reasonable instrument within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents to circulate tracts, petition the state and National Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and press in our behalf.

Ireland's Prayer. By Augustine Duganne.3

With spirit burning,
For action yearning,
I often think on older Ireland dear,
Whose woes and curses
My heart rehearses,
And weeps forever its bloody tear.
Her brave men dying,
Her maidens sighing,
Her orphans crying,
Great God! to thee,—
Whilst foes insulting,
O'er all exulting,
With shackles bind her who once was free.

O, Power Eternal,
Whose heart supernal
Inclines from heaven when the ravens cry;
Whose arm protects us,
Whose word directs us,
O, God of Justice, look from on high!
Behold a nation,
In tribulation!
In supplication
We bend the knee.
In the name of Jesus,
O God, release us!
From cruel tyrants, O set us free!

O, Christian brothers,
If ye have mothers,—
If ye have sisters or children dear,—
Should famine blight them,
Should plague affright them,
Would ye not call on the world to hear?
O, would ye falter
At Freedom's altar,
When axe and halter
Your eyes might see,
Or cast behind you
The chains that bind you,
And swear by heaven that ye will be free!

O, Ireland! Ireland!
O, suffering sireland!
Arise! arise! from your bloody dust!
No longer single,
Let freemen mingle!
Let green and orange in union trust!
With hands upraising,
With bosoms blazing,
Jehovah praising
For Liberty,—
Once more in grandeur,
Through death and danger,
Our glorious island we'll arise and free!

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1The Chronotype was a reform-minded newspaper published in Boston, MA by Elizur Wright, who was its founder and editor.
• 2This humorous bit is in reference to Luke 18:25, "For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
• 3According to the text, it seems Duganne composed this work for the New Era.

Temperance.

This noble and humane cause which has done so much of late for the elevation, and restoration of the fallen children of earth, we regret to say, is fast being sacrificed upon the glutted alter of the mammon of the age—is fast turning into the great stream of seductive pollution which is poisoning every Christian reform of the day, and impregnating every stream of pure philanthropy with the sickening waters of selfishness, party strife, and avarice.

While spending an evening at Lowell a few weeks since, we went to hear that celebrated champion of temperance, J. B. Gough [John Bartholomew Gough], who was lecturing in that city: and to our surprise, at the very portals of the sanctuary professedly dedicated to God and humanity stood the "golden calf," in the shape of "12 [and] 1/2 cents admittance." What consistency! A virtual prohibition put upon the poor inebriate, from hearing the sad experience of his brother's degradation, and his glorious return to the path to sobriety and happiness. The eloquent appeals, warning reproofs, and cheering invitations of J. B. Gough, to the poor victims of dissipation all sacrificed for the paltry sum of "12 [and] 1/2 cents." The principles of temperance with its numerous blessings, virtue, health and happiness—"The bread of life" offered for sale at "12 [and] 1/2 cents" to him who has spent the last farthing for rum. Whose family is hungry for bread, and destitute of clothes to protect their emaciated bodies. And this merely to cancel a debt that is or may be incurred by temperance societies, composed of the wealth, influence, and aristocracy of Lowell, Boston, or New York—those men perhaps who filled their coffers by selling out the "dead poison," and now ask the victims of their unfeeling avarice to buy back the privileges, health, and happiness of which they have robbed them. Shame on such conduct—such temperance and philanthropy too, will be but a bye-word and hissing sound.

Destructive and Calamitous Fires

Destructive and calamitous fires are daily occurring in all parts of the country, and vast amounts of property being in a few hours reduced to ashes, men of wealth made beggars and the poor reduced to a state of almost wretched starvation—and so long as the present miserable system of isolated capitol [sic]—the present state of extreme luxury and affluence and miserable want and poverty, exist side by side—such results will inevitably follow; wrong jealousy, and penury, will seek some source of gratification, even in the incendiaries' torch.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

On the Existing Evils in Society.

[...]

Under this state of society, from the very nature of things men cannot live at peace with each other. Their interests are antagonizing, and their interests make them enemies, not their natures—hence comes the various train of causes which make labor disreputable, friendship insincere, and religion hypocritical.

From the monopolization of the soil and the common blessings to which every human being is entitled by nature, spring all our isolation of interests and controversies, which are embittering the natural dispositions of mankind, and sowing the thorns of hatred in their hearts.

From the monopolization of the soil and the blessings of life, comes piracies, robberies, murders, prison-houses, mad-houses, poor-houses with all other dens of vice—to which might be added court houses, and tribunals of justice or legislation.

It is the same cause which gathers standing armies, and creates navies, which spreads vice over land and sea, and exhausts the treasures of industry. It is this which keeps the Congress of this nation in session from nearly one year's end to the other, quarreling and fighting about Texas, Western and Eastern boundaries—electioneering for themselves, party, or their favorites—while like vampires they are sucking the best rights, and hard earnings of our people.

The right to the soil by conquest, contract, or hereditary descent has in all ages exerted a baneful and degrading influence upon the political and social system. It has made kings, despots, lords, princes and nabobs of the few; and subject, servants, slaves and beggars, of the many.

In new and sparsely settled countries, where the soil is available by all, the evil is apparently small. (Which shows the correctness of our principles.) But as the population becomes dense, the value of the lands become enhanced, and gradually fall into the hands of rich men and speculators. The unfortunate man, or poor young man, now finds himself deprived of the privileges his ancestors enjoyed, and not having the means to purchase soil that he may call his own, is obliged to sell his labor, or work as a servant, for those into whose possession the soil has fallen. Hence originates servitude—the young man now wears the stigma of a "hired servant"—finding himself degraded by this situation—discarded by those who have inherited an estate, or on whom good fortune has smiled—neglected by society, trammeled in ambition—his nature stifled, his hopes darkened—loses nature's respect—wears out a blighted life, falls into desperation and crime, or sinks into debauchery and dissipation. Thus we see the traffic in the soil, violates the great principle laid down in the declaration "that all men are by nature free and equal"—by denying multitudes of the "rights to life, liberty and the pursuits of happiness," it creates the false relation of master and servant, which makes labor disreputable, and causes ignorance, oppression, idleness and poverty, with all their associate evils among men.

As the country grows older, this state of things becomes more distressing. The landholders, and capitalists, become comparatively less and more powerful. While servants, poor laborers and beggars throng every mart and overflow the country.

This picture of monopolization may be seen in all its real deformity by training our attention to the old world, where beggars lay famishing at the doors of palaces, and poverty starving in the midst of luxury and affluence, where infant princes are salaried with hundreds per day while the offspring of poverty and industry is denied the milk from its mother's breast, who is languishing for bread. Look at England with her genial climate and productive soil, sufficient to provide millions more than now number her population, with all the comforts nay luxuries of life, with her people ground down to abject servitude under this system of monopolization, which has built up a gilded and rotten hearted throne, and drawn around it a horde of lords, dukes and political gormandizers—which has created a system of manufacturing to fill up the coffers of her merchants and speculators, while her populace are living in ignorance and utter dependence, or fainting for the products of the soil which their Creator gave them as a birthright, but of which legal monopolization has robbed them.

Let England boast of having wiped from her national escutcheon the foul stain of black slavery, yet so long as she fosters a system which is making slaves of want, and pinching necessity of millions of her fair sons and daughters and offering their life's blood upon the unhallowed alter of power and avarice, I shall respect her throne as little as the guillotine of the French Revolution or her lords and courtiers, as little as Robespierre, Danton, or Marat.

The same causes, fellow workingmen, exist in America. Yes in New England, and the same results must inevitably follow unless these causes be removed—indeed they are fast developing themselves in our large towns and thickly settled manufacturing districts, and every year finds us nearer the same condition with the mother country.

But tis said "ours is a free republican government, in which the interests of the people are protected." Have we not shown that the interests of our people are as much divided as those of England? Have we not shown that the whole spirit of the declaration that "all men are by nature free and equal" has been violated, and that antagonism, monopoly and oppression are apace of the age of our country? Why boast we of our freedom, and the security of our people from want and oppression, while three million of native born Americans are held in hopeless bondage—born slaves, live slaves, and die slaves, within the guardian walls of our free republic? Why talk we of the security of our people from want and oppression, while millions more are slaves of necessity, whose whole lives and noble natures are narrowed down to the sole object of securing a small pittance of food and raiment to keep the body and soul together? Are not our cities full of paupers, and our country studded with poor houses? Wherein I ask, are our interests united? Our whole political and social fabrics are based upon isolation and there can be no union.

If the better condition of our people compared with England, is the result of our republicanism, why are we not far in advance of our neighbors in Canada, and why are they not reduced to the same state of want and misery as their brethren in England; living as they do under the same government?

It is not owing to the peculiarities of our political organization, that the condition of the people of the United States is more tolerable than those of England; but to the newness of our country, and the same reason holds good with those of Canada. The inhabitants of new and sparsely settled countries digress less from the vital principle of mutuality which we have laid down as essential—their resources being super-abundant, there is very little inducement for monopolization and competition. But as its population increases, and its towns and cities are seen to rise, and as its conflicting and heterogeneous elements approach each other, the result can but be a [constant?] increase of monopolization and antagonism to that deplorable degree witnessed in the old world.

[...]

From this we are led to the final important question, what shall be done? Workingmen of Fitchburg, what shall be done, to rescue yourselves and posterity from the devouring jaws of grasping monopolization?

To this great question, the working people of this country and England are truly waking up, and if they will, they can throw off the unholy shackles which have so long bound them.

Some say we must have a reduction of the hours of labor. So far as relates to corporations, this is just. Governments under the pretense pro bono publico [for the public good] have assumed the authority to grant charters of corporation. These corporations from love of gain institute unjust and cruel laws, rules and regulations compelling their operatives to labor more hours than the health of their physical system will allow. This being true, it is the duty of government to regulate these laws [so] that the laborer may receive protection.

But this relief would only be momentary and extend only to those engaged in corporations, and their immediate vocations—it would crop from the branches of the great tree of oppression, while its base would increase from the effects—it must be dug up, root and branch. The workingmen must be disenthralled from the power of avaricious monopolization and isolated competition, and reinstated into the bond of nature's brotherhood and union of interest.

The beginning of this must be mutual labor associations. The laborers should till their own soil; work their own stock; make their own exchanges; and reap the fruits of their own industry instead of supporting such hordes of useless exchangers and mercenary speculations as are now consuming and luxuriating upon their hard earnings.

Let the laborers put together their means, (though they be small) purchase land and materials for mechanical pursuits—encourage useful industry, by making it respectable—discourage idleness and crime by clothing labor in its just reward.

[...]

- W. F. Young1

A human being...

Negro. A human being treated as a brute because he is black, by inhuman beings and greater brutes, who happen to be white. The Ethiopians paint the devil white; and they have much better reason for making him look like a European, tha[n] we have for giving him an African complexion.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1William F. Young was the editor of the Voice at the time. These extracts are from a speech he delivered at a meeting of the Workingmen's Association of Fitchburg.

An Acrostic.

Voice to voice the echo beareth,
Over mountain, hill and plain,
In gentle tones it ever speaketh
Cheerfully of freedom's reign—
Even now the day is dawning.

Oppressed sons of honest toil,
Freedom soon shall be your song,

Its notes of life, hope and gladness
Nearer now are borne along;
Deep and loud let them swell—
Union let the watchword be;
Strife and discord send away,
Trust in God, he'll set you free—
Rouse then brothers, Now, Today;
Ye are Men, then why delay.

- Ada

A Tool of the Lowell Corporations1

"An Operative. Last evening a female, about 45 years of age, came into our office to purchase a paper. She informed us that she had been an operative in the Lowell mills, nineteen years, and that her health had been good all the time. She said, 'my health is better now than it was when I first began to work in the mill.' She had during the time saved about $2000, which she had safely invested, we think, in the purchase of a farm; and beside she had given her parents who were poor $1150. She had been married and had one son, who was now absent; her name was Mrs Clark. She has worked several years in the Boot mills, and is now about to commence work on the Massachusetts. Her industry, economy and contentment deserve the highest eulogy." - Lowell Courier

"The editor of the Lowell Courier has found a female factory operative who, by toiling like a slave, and denying herself the common comforts of life, for nineteen years, has laid up money enough to buy a farm; and yet she continues to work in the mill. We have heard of prisoners who had been so long deprived of the blessings of light and liberty that they preferred to continue confined the remainder of their days." - Bee [likely a reference to The Boston Daily Bee]

And this same editor is the tool sent by the Lowell Corporations to the Massachusetts legislator, to uphold and foster those rotten hearted, inhuman institutions; who can legislate and give them power to require twelve or thirteen hours labor of their operatives—and this is all just—but when seven or eight thousand operatives ask these privileges taken away, or the number of hours reduced—"this is a subject upon which we cannot legislate"—and this man, the conductor of a public journal which professes to protect the people's rights—"a whig of '76!" It is a libel—what cares he for the thousands of poor men, women and children in Lowell and other manufacturing places, who are wearing out their lives in want, poverty, and degradation, if he can find one in five thousand who has laid up 2000 rusting dollars by depriving herself of the intelligence and comforts of life, to hold up as a talisman for the safety of this slavish system.

Such a man is willing to sacrifice the best interests of our people by defending and perpetuating a heartless system of manufacturing that is filling up the coffers of a few merchants and speculators, and fast reducing the working people of this country to the same deplorable condition as those of Old England. Has he got brothers and sisters? If so, why don't he encourage them to go into these money-making and health preserving hospitals, and spend "nineteen" or twenty of the best years of their lives—"save $2000 and improve their health."

Our Association.

We lay before our readers, this week, the Preamble to the Constitution of our Association, which sets forth some of the fundamental reasons that induced us to commence the publishing of the "Voice of Industry."

What more laudable undertaking can men worthy the name of humanity be engaged in than that of advocating reforms, which are calculated to restore to mankind those natural rights, so indispensable to their moral and physical elevation and Christian progression.

There is nothing which calls so loud upon the philanthropist and Christian as the reform in which we are engaged. The sectarian bigotry, political demagogueism and party proselyting of the present day; shrink into meanness, when contrasted with a cause so purely benevolent and humane in its character and purposes; yet thousands—nay, millions are yearly freely offered as sweet incense upon the unhallowed alters of the political and sectarian mammon, while the cause of freedom and the oppressed famishes for want of support. And all this vast sum from—whom? rich men and women who never earned a flannel jacket, or a calico dress; and yet, are clothed in broadcloths and silks? No! from the poor industrious working people—tillers of the soil—mechanics, and factory operatives, who toil on many of them in want and poverty—sneered at, neglected and treated with more indifference than the beasts of our fields. Yes, fellow workingmen, and sisters of industry, we are building meeting houses, and providing means for the dissemination of hundreds of ecclesiastical dogmas in the land—we are supporting hundreds of political and sectarian presses, to fill the country with contention, strife and discord. We are squandering our scanty substance, in following foolish injurious fashions, to ape aristocracy; or if aristocracy has a scheme; we are ready to act the spaniel and receive "the kick," our V's and X's are free, for this is popular, in fact we are spending our energies, influence and hard earnings in fabricating and supporting a system of things which is making dupes and slaves of us, and beggars of posterity; and thus digging the pit of our own degradation. But notwithstanding all this prodigality, it is almost impossible to find one thousand workingmen and women who are willing to take and pay for a paper devoted to their true interests—who are willing to help themselves and their fellow laborers by aiding the great cause of labor reform.

Workingmen of Fitchburg read the Preamble to our constitution, and give the subject a serious and candid consideration, and then let us see how many are ready to call at our office and subscribe for stock in this paper, at $5 per share payable one half down, and the remainder in installments, as the directors may see fit to require; for which you will be entitled to proportionate representation, and access to such a reading room as our encouragements will allow of our establishing.

Every intelligent workingman must see the importance of supporting their own cause. Idlers, partisans, and speculators, will not assist you—[how] can you better do it, than to co-operate with us, by taking stock in our Voice; or if not able for this; spare one dollar per year, and subscribe for it—by so doing you will be adding to your own treasury, for which you will receive two fold yourself and transmit a blessing to posterity.

Will you do it?

Preamble.

In view of the alarming extent, and rapid increase of sordid, selfish and isolated avarice—the almost universal lust for political and factional power; with all the various forms of unholy aggrandizement which characterize the age; which are filling our fair world—prepared as a fit inheritance for man—with sin, disease, war, and contention with their concomitant train of seductive vices, and heartless crimes. We a portion of the workingmen of Fitchburg feel it a duty incumbent upon us as men, worthy the name of Christians, philanthropists and lovers of the violated rights of mankind, to form ourselves into an Association, for the purpose of establishing a weekly publication, devoted to the true interests of the industrious workingman and woman; as a ready and efficient medium through which they can advocate their physical, moral, and social elevation—enter their heartfelt protests against all systems of political, social, or ecclesiastical aggression; and inculcate and disseminate all those principles which are in accordance with the dictates of true philosophy, religion and the better feelings of human nature. Also as a means of friendly intercourse between us and our brother workingmen, in other parts of the country. And finally as an auxiliary in the great cause of human reform, which is now agitating the working community—in promulgating the principles of peace, love, charity, universal industry, and universal happiness among the children of men.

Anniversary Week.

Seldom has Boston been visited with such a phalanx of talent, moral courage, and true greatness as convened in that city on "anniversary week." The elements are truly in motion which are destined to work out a greater moral, physical and mental revolution than the world ever conceived of.

The strong band of abolitionists—in both name and deed—of New England, are making visible inroads upon the foul and heaven cursed institution of black slavery; and showing up its apologizers and supporters in their true light, before which they are shrinking back, clasping the "darling child" with a demon's love—calling upon the shades of the past, and the political, social and ecclesiastical dogmas of the present for protection.

Our temperance reformers are on the alert, in showing the causes of dissipation; rescuing the fallen victims and slaves of alcohol—and bringing joy and hope to the drunkards' once desolate home.

The workingmen have put on the whole armor, and entered the field of action—combating the powers of white, as well as black slavery—slavery of avarice, want, half paid and oppressive toil; which is fast making us a nation of serfs, and transmitting to posterity a beggar's inheritance.

That inhuman relic of barbarism—the gallows, is fast crumbling away before the reforming light of true Christianity, which begins to beam in upon the understanding of our people.

Our Fourier friends also are fast progressing and perfecting their system of social order and natural arrangement which will ensure a lasting blessing to mankind.

God speed these noble reformers which are working out the salvation of our race—bringing the "bread of life" and opening the "living fountain" to the thirsty, panting, husk-fed souls of men.

They are all acting together in harmony, and will usher in a day of peaceful industry, and happiness to our degenerate world—a day when the gallows shall be exchanged for the platform of Christian intelligence, and the halter for the golden chain of pure friendship—when oppression shall flee away, and the prison house be turned into the abode of liberty and contentment. What true Christian and philanthropist can refuse to co-operate with us?

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1I've provided the heading for this article.

"What do you wish to accomplish?"

From the commencement of the Workingman's movement in this town [Fitchburg], the above question has almost daily greeted our ears. We doubt not there are many people honestly ignorant of the true merits of our cause—its aim and object; who look upon it as akin to the numerous factional and selfish schemes which are continually springing up—full of pretended regard for the "dear people"—overflowing with professional patriotism, philanthropy and love of truth and justice—the sole object of which is to raise some party to political supremacy to promulgate sectarian bigotry or to gratify disaffected aspirancy or personal animosities.

Of this class of inquirers, we would not speak uncharitably, and far be it from us to deal out to them unmeasured censure. There is some foundation for their suspicion; but when they see our cause, as it really is, they will be with us; they cannot help it; their natures will not let them remain in ignorance.

But there is another class of opposers from whom this inquiry comes with quite a disdainful air—whose conduct betrays considerable anxiety and disquietude. No doubt many of them are somewhat alarmed, lest the working people should by some means discover, that they have rights—rights bequeathed to them by virtue of their existence, as nature's inviolate heritage—rights that have been grossly disregarded and trampled upon, by grasping avarice, political monopolization and selfish, heartless aristocracy. Upon the conduct of this class of individuals, we cannot look with any degree of complacency. They are willfully ignorant, and sin against light—they are always ready to speak contemptuously of any cause that is calculated to elevate the mass of mankind and restore their long lost rights. They are a spurred and privileged gang, who wish to make Jackasses of humanity, and with the whip of poverty, the political saddle and the reins of sectarianism ride on roughshod to wealth, fame and glory. Some of these persons are very clamorous in their denunciations, even to profanity and vulgarity. Others more genteel, speak out their slander in a very polite and accomplished manner—"think it very strange that the servants and kitchen maids (what names for humanity and freemen in God's image), the mechanics, factory operatives and laboring people expect to raise themselves to respectable society?" Oh how vulgar! Others "think it wicked to let the poor creatures know how degraded they are; they seem to enjoy themselves pretty well and you ought not to hurt their feelings, by telling them their true condition." How unfeeling and sinful to "let the poor creatures know their condition"—those poor slaves too in the South, how wicked it is to tell them that they, in a land upon whose ensign is encircled—"All men are born free and equal," and that they are slaves sold by freemen and Christians and bought with dust, under a government which declares that "all men are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness"—"they seem to enjoy themselves pretty well, we ought not to let the poor creatures know how degraded they are."

Others who oppose us, enter a very sanctimonious protest against the Workingman's cause—they are fearful that it is of an "irreligious character," and tends to "infidelity." The physical, mental and moral elevation of the working classes, irreligious and tending to infidelity! Well the same has been said of other reforms in ages past; the "Carpenter's Son" was accused of being irreligious, and the doctrines he promulgated for the elevation of the poor and the well being of mankind, it was said "tended to infidelity." Thus it is with our various opponents; who after exhausting all their arguments, blackguardism and ridicule is trying to demolish us, turn away apparently dissatisfied with their success by making the former inquiry. "What do you wish to accomplish?"

Well friends, one and all, if you have been desirous to know "what we desire to accomplish," why have you not taken the requisite measures for this information, instead of going about and dealing out unsparingly your obliquy and misrepresentations—and this too when you were ignorant of our purposes and intentions, according to your own statements? Why have you not come to our meetings as honest, candid hearers and inquirers, instead of open railers or secret enemies, to catch something that you might pervert against us and excite the suspicions of a jealous community? Why are you ever ready to expose and retail our supposed faults, while our good deeds are forgotten or covered up? Where is your Christian charity and noble generous disposition, which ought to characterize men calling themselves intelligent reasoning beings?

Has society reached the acme of perfection, and is there no need of progress, no improvement to be made, no oppressions to complain of, no wrong to be redressed, no hungry to be fed, no naked to be clothed, no disconsolate to cheer and encourage, no ignorant to enlighten, no wandering to reclaim? Are truth, justice, temperance and peace extant in our land and the world? if so, then are our efforts vain, our cause a "man of straw," and we fanatics. But every person of years and understanding knows or ought to know that this is not the case. Ignorance, superstition, want, oppression and misery are on every hand, and the working people are the greatest sufferers. And for these evils, our governments, religious ethics, benevolent and charitable societies, science (as now applied), systems of education, prisons, gallows and houses of correction have failed to prove the antidote; every year finds more oppression, ignorance, want, poverty, crime and almost every other evil. This state of things betrays something wrong, radically wrong. It shows that we are generating and fostering [...] popular evils that are neutralizing all our efforts in suppressing the wrongs of men—evils which like gangrene are eating away upon the very vitals of the physical, mental and moral constitutions of our people. We are daily cultivating and watering every eye the great Umpas [sic] which is already big with the fruits of destruction, that are poisoning the natural, healthful appetites and desires of the race. For these reasons, the laboring people have entered the field that is already overgrown with thorns and thistles. We have long looked to government, church and society to better our condition, but they are fast joining hand in hand to make our condition more intolerable. "We labor for the abolition of idleness, want and oppression, [and] the prevalence of industry, virtue and intelligence." This is what "we wish to accomplish," and this is what we expect to accomplish, ere the workingmen leave the contest. We wish to make people industrious, virtuous and friendly; by placing them in circumstances that encourage industry and friendship. We wish to make people intelligent by giving them opportunities of becoming so, instead of dooming them to servitude, and requiring them to labor twelve or thirteen hours per day, to provide luxuries for the idle, for which they receive a mere subsistence. We wish to make people Christians by placing them in Christian relations, where they will not be induced to cheat, deceive and overreach each other to gain a livelihood, or the great desideratum of the day: wealth. In fine, we labor for universal happiness among mankind, as the legitimate results of obedience to nature's laws. Friends and Christians, cannot this be accomplished here? If not, then call no longer the Bible the "Book of Books" and your Creator a Being of wisdom and benevolent design—say it is all a vain speculation, that nature has no lessons to teach, and that this is a strange, mysterious world of chance.

Address by Robert Owen, On leaving the United States for Europe1

Americans:—After an absence of fifteen years I have again spent nine months in your States, and nearly four months of that period in the city of Washington, during the last session of Congress. I have seen in my travels through New England and the middle States, and presume that the same has occurred in the south and west, a great increase to your cities—to your population, and in the extended cultivation of the soil. I have also ascertained that your means to increase wealth and power, for good or evil, are illimitable for hundreds of thousands of years, and you could now beneficially absorb into your Union the present population of Europe.

You have also progressed in an extraordinary manner in new discoveries in science and in mechanical inventions to render manual labor of diminished value, and to open the path to a new state of things, which will make labor of light or of little or no commercial value, or unsaleable, for the rightful support of the industrious.

In proportion as your scientific power to create wealth has increased, individual competition has increased ignorant selfishness, vice, crime and misery among the masses, as to make all parties blind to their present position of high capabilities and to their interests as individuals and members of society.

Your statesmen are occupied in unprofitable and nationally injurious politics.

Your politicians in petty local party contests useless for the attainment of great results.

Your capitalists and extensive merchants are overwhelmed in speculations, hazardous to themselves, and of little comparative benefit to their country or to the world. There is no foresight, wisdom or order; no permanent, prosperous future in any of their proceedings.

Your traders, wholesale and retail, are wasting, most injuriously, much of the capital talent and industry of your country, and at the same time keeping the mind and morals of the Union upon a low level, most disadvantageous to every class.

Your most industrious classes are kept unnecessarily in toil, ignorance, and consequent degradation.

Senseless superstitions pervade the land without a particle of real charity being created between any of the classes, sects or parties, possessing any one of these monster obstacles to human progress, for any who have been made to differ from them; and religion is perverted to worldly purposes.

Your prisons and punishments increase; and the necessity for more, while the present state of things continues, will daily become stronger.

You have already, to a great extent throughout the Union, ignorance, poverty, division and misery. And yet, as the causes of these evils have been discovered, they may be now easily removed.

For you are in secure possession of a most magnificent country; of a territory, even now more than sufficient to amply supply the population of the world: more than sufficient to ensure high comfort and elevation of mind and feeling for all.

You have all the materials to effect these results in illimitable masses, and surplus power to obtain and apply them.

There is nothing in your position deficient but the knowledge how, peaceably and beneficially for all, to apply the means to accomplish these glorious results.

[...]

- Robert Owen
New York, 24th May, 1845

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1The Voice reprinted this text from the New York Herald.

Capital vs. Labor.

When a man must have work today, or go without bread for himself and family, he is not in a position to make a fair bargain. Capital is able to look about and to take advantage of all the circumstances which will enable it to reduce the wages of labor. The large clothes dealers in the cities have their agents in the country,1 who get work done at the lowest prices. A gentleman told us, the other day, that he saw the daughter of a respectable farmer making shirts for 11 cents a piece, for one of the dealers. He asked her whether she thought it a sufficient price. "No," said she, "if I were obliged to support myself, I could not do it by this work; but I merely employ my time which otherwise I should not use." It had not occurred to her that she was thus lowering the price paid to those who did depend on their labor for subsistence.

Influence of Machinery.

We beseech our brother workingmen not to close their eyes nor their understandings to the tremendous effect which the improvement of machinery is destined to exert on their social condition, unless prevented by wise and vigorous measures on their part. When the common necessaries of life were principally supplied by hand labor, a fair day's work would not only command a fair day's wages, but it was not difficult to find good and suitable employment; and few skillful workmen ever had to complain of having little to do, or of being obliged to throw away their labor for prices scarce sufficient to keep soul and body together. But now that steam, and wind, and water, are made to do the work of many hands, now that so many of the common tools of every handicraft are so perfected, as in fact to give a man a half a dozen pair of hands instead of one, the labor of every trade in which machinery can be introduced takes a far smaller number of persons, and the remainder, who would naturally have been engaged in the same business, being thus thrown out of employment, crowd into other occupations which are carried on in the old mode, until every branch of labor becomes overstocked, so that the best workmen, in many cases, find it hard to get a living, though they sweat and toil till they feel the effects of overexertion in every joint and fibre of their body. Nor is this the hardest part of the case. A man, tending a circular saw or a planing machine, though he finds it not so easy to get employment, as when he drove the saw or plane by hand, and receive no more for his labor, than if he did the work by mere manual strength, actually produces a far greater amount of value, which goes to enrich the owner of the machine, and to widen and make permanent the deep gulf which always divides the rich and the poor. The profits of the machinery go to the capitalist; the operative is becoming more and more to be considered an appendage to the machine; his best qualities are valued principally as they contribute to the pecuniary success of the establishment; it is not expected that he will share in the mass of wealth which he is helping to create; and he thus finds it impossible to obtain the benefits, which are the natural fruit of labor, but which in this case, are given not to him who does the work, but to him who is able to get others to work for him.

This theory of the influence of machinery on the working man is so familiar to all who have reflected on the subject with any attention, that it seems almost like a waste of words to dwell upon it; but the practical confirmation of it is not so evident in this country, as will be; various causes have conspired to postpone the evils which must inevitably come; and for the full illustration of the subject, as seen in the daily life, in the dwelling house, in the family circle of the operative, we must look to the system in the rank, festering ripeness of its operation among the feudal halls of industry in the old world. But the nature of things cannot be changed, and the same cause will produce the same effects here as elsewhere. Already our largest commercial cities, our great manufacturing towns, show clearly the fatal symptoms, which portend the coming of the terrific pestilence. But as yet, there is a deep current of vitality, the red glow of health, in the mass of the workingmen of this country, which will enable them to expel the deadly virus, before it is too late.

The remedy is to be found, not in opposing the improvements in machinery; no yankee will ever do that; not in declaiming in the workshops, and at the corners of the streets, about the hardness of the times; but in vigorous, combined action, in producing a union between capital and labor, thus giving a direct interest in the machines to the men who work them. This union of interest must be brought about. The man who labors with the machine must share its profits, as well as the man who owns it. How far this can or will be done, under the present isolated arrangements of society is a problem, which it behooves the mass of our intelligent workingmen seriously to consider and discuss. In a true Association, where labor, capital, and skill are each represented, and equitable share of the product, where all branches of industry contribute to swell the amount not only of the general stock, but of personal returns, the difficulty is at once set aside; the great problem of modern society is solved; and a sure foundation laid for an enormous increase in the production of wealth, for its impartial distribution, for its immediate application to the greater purposes of social life, and thus for the establishment of mutual kindness, perpetual peace, and pure harmony in all the relations of men.

In this point of view, no one can be surprised that we advocate so earnestly, and with all the ability we posses, a practical trial of the benefits of systematic Association. We are convinced, not only from a deep sense of the prevailing evils of society, not only from theoretical demonstration resting on exact principles of science, but from a pretty extensive experience of the effects of combination, that the true remedy for our social ills is to be found here, and that an experiment to this end, provided with sufficient means, engaged in by competent persons, and conducted with ordinary discretion, would terminate, not in disappointment or disaster, but in triumphant success.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1See also the putting-out system, which was gradually replaced by factory production.

From the Lowell Journal.

Meeting our friend, Horace Greeley, of New York, and learning that he was to attend the workingmen's convention, I thought I would attend it. It was held in the Chapel, under the museum. I should think that about twenty men and about ten women attended as delegates. Robert Owen, John A. Collins, Albert Brisbane, W. H. Channing and Horace Greeley addressed them. A banner was presented by a lady from Lowell. She made quite a pretty speech, which was answered by the president and W. H. Channing. Much complaint was made by the members about the want of interest felt by the workingmen for the cause of reform. I am not in the least surprised that the workingmen of Massachusetts care nothing for such reforms as were proposed by some of the members. A member from your city made a speech in which he said that capitalists and priests had joined hands to put down, grind and oppress the laboring men—that commerce, manufacturing and foreign emigration were killing them—that there were ten times more slavery in Lowell, than on the Southern Plantations—that Lowell manufactured the prostitutes of New York, and that the first thing that must be done to elevate the workingmen was to collect and burn the Sunday School books, which were poisoning the minds of the young. Such sentiments were listened to without rebuke by men calling themselves reformers—the friends of the laboring classes. No wonder the meeting was thinly attended—no wonder the clear-headed, stout-hearted practical workingmen of Massachusetts, who have been reared in our free schools and Sabbath Schools and churches, should care nothing for such reforms. This talk about slavery in the Lowell mills is one of the smallest humbugs of the day. Slaves in Lowell! Farmers' daughters, educated in our district schools, free to go where they please and to work where they please, held up to the world as ten times greater slaves than the poor girls who are bought and sold—and treated like brutes, and that too in a convention of workingmen. My feelings and sympathies are with the workingmen of the country. Every thing should be done that can be to aid them to improve their moral, intellectual and social powers. The mechanics and laboring men of Massachusetts have, during the last few years, made greater progress than any other class of men. And the very causes which have produced that progress are denounced by some professed friends of the laboring classes as they call them. It is all humbug and some of them know it. Some of the speeches were full of hatred and littleness—not one generous and noble sentiment redeemed them. Some of the speakers were men of large and generous hearts, and showed that they had a sincere desire to promote the interests and happiness of all mankind. Albert Brisbane brought forward a plan which he said he had well matured. I have not time nor inclination to state its provisions at this time, but, it seemed to me one of the greatest pieces of folly I ever heard propounded by a man out of a madhouse.

Yours, H. W. [- Lowell Courier]1

Some few weeks since the above unjust and one-sided article appeared in the Lowell Journal; a print zealously devoted to the support of the present degrading system of manufacturing, as it exists in this country and Europe—as a part of a communication characterized throughout for its narrowness, and disposition to misrepresent and stigmatize every philanthropic movement of the day, under the garb of "Law, order and our free republican institutions"—from a correspondent of that paper at Natick Mass.

From the well known character of the Lowell Journal, its reckless adherence to the vassal systems of modern servitude in all their guilded forms—its open defense of wealth, aristocracy and the rights of the "few to govern the many"—its readiness to denounce every reform which is calculated to elevate the downtrodden, and restore to the working classes those rights, of which past and present feudalism have robbed them, we did not deem it necessary to notice the communication from this "sympathizing friend to the workingmen of this country." But finding it endorsed by other prints professedly friendly to the workingmen's cause, by copying it into their columns, without even one comment as to its probable truth or falsity, we feel it a duty we owe to our position, to justice and humanity, to give it a candid consideration. The first Christian thrust at the New England Workingmen's Convention, by our "sympathizing" friend is in that characteristic style of low vulgar ridicule, so much resorted to by our opposers in other parts of the country—"I should think that about twenty men, and about ten women attended as delegates—Robert Owen, John A. Collins, Albert Brisbane, W. H. Channing, and Horace Greeley addressed them"—as though it was enough to condemn the whole object that had called together those self-sacrificing, and generous-hearted men and women, who had left their workshops and homes to consult together for humanity's good, and devise means to impede the progress of the great juggernaut of heartless servitude which is crushing by inches, the moral, physical and mental prosperity of the race—because their numbers were few, and "Robert Owen, John A. Collins, Albert Brisbane, W. H. Channing and Horace Greeley addressed them."

Such a man would have opposed the introduction of the principles and teachings of Christ, because instead of the humble band of "fishermen," a clamorous train, and an enthusiastic multitude were not ready to receive them. Such a disposition would surely have denounced every philanthropist that ever blest the world, and every human reform because they were unpopular in their infancy, promulgated by humble individuals, or conflicted with some long-established system or generally acknowledged opinions, that the light of Christian progression had proved to be erroneous and opposed to the elevation of mankind.

The friendly correspondent knew well if he knew anything about the apparent want of numbers or interest, that it resulted through some misunderstanding in giving due and extensive notice of the meeting, rather than apathy on the part of the workingmen. Also had our friends been fully represented; according to our present regulations each Association is entitled to but as many delegates as their respective towns send members to the State legislature; consequently had the various associations sent full delegations our meeting must have been small unless made up of promiscuous spectators. Our cause being in its infancy compared with many other reforms, it is not at all strange that our convention was thinly attended at times, as the city was full of more exciting meetings which drew the multitude. He that will condemn and deride any subject for the want of numbers, must be driven to the last resort, and to small things to sustain a crumbling system. In such a course there is nothing manly, nothing charitable or Christian-like, but full of "littleness" and contempt.

The next point worthy of notice is the "speech" of the member from Lowell. We know not who the member alluded to is, or what his sentiments or opinions are farther than our Natick friend has reported them; neither shall we endorse any sentiments because they were uttered in the New England workingmen's convention that cannot be sustained by facts and arguments on Christian principles. But what are the charges prefered against the Lowell delegate which so shook the sensibilities of the Journal correspondent? "That capitalists and priests had joined hands to put down, grind and oppress the laboring men." We have no tirade of abuse or denunciation to offer against the clergy, or the church, nor shall we screen them from just censure and exposure in any works of iniquity or oppression, to which they may be accessory, on account of the sacredness that custom has thrown around them. That capital and the church are to a great degree united in perpetuating systems which "grind and oppress the working people," we have no doubt—facts will bear us out in this position. The church and clergy, with few noble exceptions, have been the last to embrace and co-operate in the various reforms of the age, for the elevation of the mass. The church is governed by capital, and all the clerical sophistry and sectarian logic in Christendom cannot do away with this fact. What builds churches, pays ministers and supports the different ecclesiastical organizations in Lowell? Capital! Capital builds factories which "grind and oppress laboring men," and this capital in the hands of the same individuals; manufacturers, agents, superintendants, bankers, merchants, speculators, and others who live upon the producing classes. Hence capital and church must be united from the very nature of the case; and the clergy being the "head of the church," must serve capital or be dethroned. Capital as it now exists, is opposed to the workingmen's cause, their intelligence, elevation and happiness. Isolated capital, wants slavery, servitude and dependence—capital wants rulers, lords, and feudalism—capital establishes an aristocracy of wealth which reduces the working people to drudges, and builds up a dynasty of luxuriating idlers, and if the clergy will not sanction the dictates of capital, or keep silence like "dumb dogs," they are anathematized as infidels, fanatics and mad-men.

The next charge is, "that commerce, manufacturing and foreign emigration were killing them." This is so substantially true that it needs no comments. Every person of understanding who will investigate the subject without prejudice will not fail in the conclusion that manufacturing and commerce, as now conducted, are acting together to impoverish the laboring people and fill up the treasury of speculation and unproductive gain. Foreign emigration also has created a destructive war of competition among the working classes of this country which is fast paralyzing all their efforts and natural enterprise; and this emigration is the result of the same system of capital against labor, and slavish manufacturing operation in England and other countries that our "friend to the workingmen of this country" is laboring to entail upon them.

"That there is ten times more slavery in Lowell, than on the Southern plantations." It is not our wish to measure the comparative difference between Lowell and southern slavery. It is enough for us to know that there is slavery both in Lowell and the South, and he who professes to be an abolitionist, and at the same time fosters the manufacturing slavery of the north disgraces the name. A true abolitionist is ready to oppose all kinds of slavery, wherever it exists. True there is some difference between northern and southern slavery. The slaves of the South are sold by others to the highest bidder, who after they become disabled are obliged to support them the remainder of their lives—While the slaves of the north, sell themselves to the highest bidder so long as they are fit for service, and when they have worn themselves out in the service of their masters, and no longer able to labor, inherit a beggar's fortune, go to the poor house or do worse. If the poor people of the north are not slaves to capital, then there is no slavery.

"That Lowell manufactures the prostitutes of New York." For any person to contend that the Lowell manufactories are not demoralizing in their tendencies, and the influences sent out from our manufacturing districts are not poisoning to the virtue and chastity of the community, is to stand out against truth, supported by the strongest possible evidence—facts. We have not time or room to refer to the many heart-sickening testimonies within our knowledge; but he who would cover up the vices, corruptions and many causes which lead astray unprotected virtue and unsuspecting innocence, in the manufactories of this country, is willing to see our cities filled with licentiousness and our prisons, houses of correction and reformation overflowed with its unhappy victims. Will the Natick correspondent, or the Lowell Journal, so far stifle their reason and sense of truth, as to argue that Lowell does not create vice in a greater proportion, than other sections of the country where there is little or no manufacturing? Why appeared the article headed "licentiousness," a few weeks since in the Journal, if a lively sense of its ravaging increase did not prompt it?

The females of Lowell, who are congregated from various parts of New England and the world, are naturally as virtuous as any class; but the circumstances they are placed in, render them more liable to go astray.

Here they are unguarded, away from their homes and watchful friends, a majority of them young and unsophisticated, full of youthful hilarity upon which the various seductive influences work with fearful rapidity. Aside from the numerous lateral influences which everywhere surround our manufacturing towns—the very seeds of licentiousness are within their organization—tedious, continued and unrequited toil is not conducive to virtue and charity, and will exchange itself for almost any other situation in life—many are drawn away unconsciously by artful seduction, while others leave, knowing the road, but choose a life of prospective ease though stained with dishonor to one of hopeless servitude.

And this system of things which is filling the country with vice and offering the fair daughters as a willing sacrifice upon its polluted altar, the Lowell Journal and his feeling correspondent is striving to foster and build up.

"The first thing that must be done to elevate the workingmen, was to collect and burn the Sunday School books, which were poisoning the minds of the young."

Here comes the great engine brought to bear against almost every reform of the day—an appeal to the religious predilections, prejudices and superstitions of the community. "Our glorious institutions, Sabbath Schools and churches are in jeopardy."

Are our anxious friends afraid that the truth will overthrow "our free institutions"? If so, let them go. But we do not wish to "collect and burn" any school books, nor do the workingmen of New England—or any other books though they may be "poisoning the minds of the young"—but with the fire of truth. But this is the refuge, and has been for ages past for the workers of iniquity—behind the religious prejudices of the people, and from thence goes out the cry of "heresy and ultraism." So it was with Judaism, Muhammadanism and Romanism, and so it is at the present day.

What are the Sabbath School libraries of our country, that are so sacred in the eyes of our Natick friend? A portion of them are works to prove that endless misery is true—another that all men will be saved—another that slavery is Bible doctrine—another that Romanism is the only true doctrine—some that sprinkling is baptism, and others that immersion is the only true mode, and so on. Is the Journal correspondent a believer in all of these doctrines? Does he believe that a large portion of the race will be eternally lost? If so, don't he think those Sunday School books, (which are many), that teach and inculcate a different belief, are "poisoning the minds of the young"! Does he believe in universal salvation?—then are not those Sunday School books which encourage a contrary belief "poisoning the minds of the young"! Look at the consistency of this talk about Sunday School books!—it is all for effect, and we venture the assertion—that this vigilant guardian of the religious teaching of the rising generation, is a railing unbeliever in the teachings and doctrines of Christ. This philanthropic correspondent of the Journal talks largely about "the clear-headed and stout-hearted practical workingmen of Massachusetts," that his sympathies are with them.

He tells us that "this talk about slavery in the Lowell mills is all a humbug. Farmers' daughters—educated in our district schools—free to go where they please, and to work where they please." One would suppose by the above glowing description that the Lowell mills were filled with "farmers' daughters" who could live without labor, and go there merely as a resort for health and recreation; instead of a large portion of poverty's daughters, whose fathers do not possess one foot of land, but work day by day for the bread that feeds their families. Indeed, many of the operatives of Lowell have no fathers or homes, and many are foreigners who are free to work there according to the mandates of heartless power, or go to the poor house, beg, or do worse.

How long will the working people of this country be duped by such barking spaniels of wealth and aristocracy? How long will the operatives of Lowell receive such fulsom flattery by a hireling press to decoy them to hopeless oppression, and build a throne of lordly wealth upon their bones and sinews? Would to heaven they were all "farmers daughters" and never had departed from the land of their nativity to taste the sickly atmosphere of the manufactories of Lowell. Lowell contains many a brilliant genius, and noble nature cooped up within those walls, fading away by gradual innovations upon body and mind [sic] that are worthy of elevated stations in the world and would be a blessing to their friends and society had not poverty been their lot. May they soon come out and declare their rights and assume the position that God designed they should occupy.

The pretended sympathy and regard for the working people of this country and "the clear-headed and stout-headed workingmen of Massachusetts" expressed in the communication we have copied, clearly betrays the garb of hypocrisy, for we do not believe any friend to the workingmen could be so ignorant of their true interests, and it is our candid opinion, that the individual in question, is now living (perhaps luxuriating) upon the fruits of their labor. We expect the opposition and derision of such men, and such papers as the Lowell Journal for they are wedded to the "powers that be," and sold soul and body to the service of wealth and oppression. We have dwelt longer than we designed upon this article, but felt that truth and justice to the cause of equal rights, demand a deliberate review of the subject.

Who Suffers!2

It has been shown, over and over again, in this paper, that there are large classes of persons in this republican community who do not receive enough for their labor to furnish themselves and families with food, clothing, and the commonest education, so that a large proportion of them are necessarily paupers! And yet those classes do three or four times the amount of labor that, if justice prevailed, would furnish them with all the necessaries and comforts of life! At present each of them is compelled to carry an idle loafer on his back, who consumes more than twice as much as the producer that carries him. These classes are, first, the farm laborers; secondly, the mechanics; thirdly, factory operatives; and fourthly, the day laborers. There is another class, of whom less has been said, the seamen; in relation to whom something interesting and instructive may be found in a sketch of a speech of Captain Kempton at the last meeting of the National Reform Association. The classes here enumerated must comprise a majority of the population. There are two other large classes who are scarcely less sufferers by the present system of legalized monopoly and plunder which pampers the idle few, the farmers and the small traders. It is the interest of all these classes to unite, without respect to old party ties or prejudices, and abolish the monopoly of the soil, which is the basis of the whole plundering system. - Young America

Poor in England.

Such is the oppressive character of land-stealing in England, upon the laboring poor, that the most disastrous and unnatural consequences are produced. Men who have large families, find themselves unable to support them, and are therefore driven to the unnatural resort of desertion or starvation. A late English paper states,

"The parish of Clerkenwell has lately suffered severely from the wholesale desertion by men belonging to this parish of their wives and families, some of them leaving as many as six children—thus casting a heavy and permanent burden upon the ratepayers. Within the last few days 12 men have thus absconded; and to such an extent has it been carried, that the parish has determined to adopt vigorous measures to check the practice, if possible, and intend to offer handsome rewards for their apprehension."

How to be Rich.

Nothing is more easy, says Paulding, than to grow rich. It is to trust nobody—to befriend none—to get every thing, and save all we get—to stint ourselves and every body belonging to us, to heap interest upon interest, cent upon cent, to be mean, miserable, and despised, for some 20 or 30 years, and riches will come as sure as disease and disappointment.

The Harbinger.

We have received the first number of this ably conducted paper, published alternately at New York and Boston by the Brook Farm Association. It is devoted to social science, practical literature, and elevation of the mass. Its contributors stand high as philanthropists, patriots and men of science, among whom are Park Goodwine, W. H. Channing, Albert Brisbane, Osborne Macdaniel, Horace Greeley, George Ripley, Charles A. Dana, John S. Dwight, L. W. Ryekman, John Allen and Francis G. Shaw.

Terms, $2.00 per year.

Our Voice wishes you success as an able co-worker in humanity's neglected field.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1This article or correspondence (which the Voice excerpted from the full article) appeared in the Lowell Courier on 3 June 1845.
• 2The Voice reprinted this text from Young America.

Our National Anniversary.

This eventful day, so hallowed by the American people has again returned and passed us by. Its joys and its sorrows, its clamor and its reflections, its festivities and privations have all fled upon the rapid wings of time, and how much have we, as a nation or individuals, profited by their teachings? This national jubilee with its thousands of orations, speeches and sentiments, have sown seeds that the future will reap in gladness or sorrow. They will bring forth temperance or dissipation, freedom or oppression, intelligence or ignorance, religion or infidelity, virtue or vice, human elevation or degradation. Fellow countrymen, have these considerations had their just weight upon our minds, and due consideration in all our acts? Ye who move the people's will, guide their physical, mental and moral destinies, have you been true to yourselves, your fellow men and your God? Have you spurned the seductive influences of party aggrandizement? Has the unhallowed lust for sordid wealth and ignoble power been overruled by a love of justice and humanity? Have sectarian strife and dogmatical partialisms been absorbed by that universal piety, which regards every son and daughter of the race, as children of our common family "entitled to life, liberty and the pursuits of happiness?" Have you been thoughtful of the poor, the industrious, the downtrodden, the oppressed and afflicted, and have your voices been heard on their behalf, and your arms been stretched out to help? If so, your country will rejoice and all who worship at the shrine of universal freedom, will invoke a blessing upon your efforts and memories. But we fear, that the records of this day's transactions would develop its usual amount of party littleness, bloated patriotism, sordid contention and high sounding, heartless panegyrics upon our "nation's glories," its "free institutions," "our national defence" and the freedom and happiness of our people, while their very bones are daily crying out—want, and oppression, and stall-fed patriots, like vampires, are sucking away their life's blood. Far be it from us, to say aught against the inborn love of our people for republicanism, their national character and the fundamental principles inculcated by the fathers of our country—their aims were high and many of their deeds virtuous. But have we proved true to their charge and the treasure entrusted to our care? Have we made that progress in the path of Christian freedom, which we as a nation and individuals are capable of making? Are our people daily growing wiser and happier, and want, crime and oppression wearing away from our land? These reflections are worthy the consideration of every American and lover of his race.

Every American, man and woman should ask themselves the question, seriously and candidly, are we a free people? Are we realizing that freedom, and enjoying those "inalienable rights" so much lauded, and so often sounded by the trumpet of every political and social demagogue throughout the length and breadth of the land? Is it not important that we investigate this matter, every man and woman for themselves, and know why there is so much want, dependence and misery among us, if forsooth, we are freemen and freewomen, and that freedom worth enjoying?

For this purpose, a portion of the workingmen and women of Massachusetts met in a mass convention at Woburn, on the fourth. Not as Whigs, Democrats, abolitionists, orthodox or heterodox; but as men and women, to exercise the powers that God has given them, for the abolition of all wrong and oppression from among our people and from off the earth. The occasion exceeded the sanguine expectations of its most ardent friends and was well worthy the noble and philanthropic cause. The day was delightful and the grove one of nature's most beautiful, which together with the peace, order, harmony and temperance that everywhere prevailed, strikingly contrasted with the clamor and dissipation which usually characterizes this day. Most of the addresses were high-toned, charitable and eloquent, evincing a deep degree of feeling and encouragement. The audience were attentive and courteous, and the meeting adjourned with a renewed degree of courage, interest and perseverance in the great warfare of human rights. Let the working people of New England take new courage and when another fourth of July shall roll round, instead of one, let our vales in many places resound with the workingmen's meetings. The groves are fit places for such meetings, and though we have no splendid palaces, the God of the just has provided these his temples, where the wrongs of the oppressed may be proclaimed. We give way to the proceedings as reported by the Secretary, John McMullen, and shall notice the subject hereafter.

Report.

A convention of the workingmen and women of New England, was held on the 4th inst at Woburn in a beautiful grove. Delegates from the vicinity continued to arrive until about 11 o'clock, principally from Lowell, Boston and Lynn, numbering in the aggregate about 2,000. The delegation from Boston and Lowell were escorted by a band of music from the cars to the grove, which was tastefully arranged for the occasion.

[...]

Mr. Dana, of Brook Farm, was called for and responded in an elegant and truthful speech—he gloried in the achievements of our fathers who left their heirs so choice an inheritance, as that which we possess—but we are bound to ensure to our children with interest those patrimonial legacies—rights recognized by nature—rights to labor and its products and to a development of all our faculties. He opposed the prevailing system of hired labor, which generates hostility, and recommended unity of interests in an organized form, as the panacea to cure the infection of oppressed labor and capital.

[...]

Mr. Mellen, of Boston, followed. His remarks brought a reply from Mr. Linsley, of Charlestown, and Miss S[arah] G. Bagley, of Lowell, a lady of superior talents and accomplishments, whose refined and delicate feelings gave a thrilling power to her language and spell-bound this large auditory, so that the rustling of the leaves might be heard softly playing with the wind between the intervals of speech. She spoke of the Lowell Offering—that it was not the voice of the operatives—it gave a false representation to the truth—it was controlled by the manufacturing interest to give a gloss to their inhumanity, and anything calling in question the factory system, or a vindication of operatives' rights, was neglected. She had written several pieces of this character, which were rejected [by the Lowell Offering]. She said she had served an apprenticeship of 10 years in the mills, and by her experience claimed to know something about it—and that many of the operatives were doomed to eternal slavery in consequence of their ignorance—not knowing how to do the most common domestic work. Many could not do the most common sewing, and notwithstanding the present lengthened time of labor, which deprived them of the most human comfort, the proprietors or agents of these mills were striving to add 2 hours more to their time of labor thus cutting off all hope of bettering their condition; but said she, the girls have united against this measure, and formed a society [the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association] to repel this movement. She took her seat amidst the loud and unanimous huzzas of the deep[ly] moved throng, and was followed by some closing remarks from Mr. Albert Brisbane of New York, after which adjournment was called for and adopted.

We would say to our city readers...

We would say to our city readers that we shall soon investigate some of the peculiar evils which afflict the laboring people within their immediate vicinity, such as the trucking off order system, which is getting to be quite a fashionable and genteel manner of swindling the workingmen and women out of a portion of their hard earnings, in both city and country. The Lien Law which aims to protect the laborer from the fraud and cunning of dishonest employers, we shall notice and urge. Those thieving establishments, commonly known as "Intelligence Offices" which are picking the pockets and preying upon thousands of unsuspecting, needy males and females by hanging out their sign of friendship, also "Oak Hall" humbugs and various other humanity-grinding systems which are making sad havoc with the health, happiness and virtue of our people, we shall expose and hold up to the view of the public, as soon as our arrangements will permit.

The Natick Correspondent of the Lowell Journal.

We have it from undoubted authority, that his report; that a delegate from Lowell to the New England Workingmen's Convention, held at Boston in May last, stated "that the first thing that must be done to elevate the workingmen, was to collect and burn the Sunday School Books, which were poisoning the minds of the young," was a falsehood.1 Such is the man so anxious for the welfare of our Sunday Schools.

Christian Benevolence.

Christian Benevolence.—Paying a rich minister one hundred dollars to attend the funeral services of a relative, and the poor sexton one dollar for tolling the bell.

To the Working People.

Why is it that your servant the Boston Postmaster receives $8,000 a year for doing nothing, while you are obliged to work early and late from one year's end to another, for a bare subsistence?

Constitution of the New England Workingmen's Association.

Preamble.

Whereas we, the mechanics and workingmen of New England, are convinced by the sad experience of years, that, under the present arrangements of society, labor is and must be the slave of wealth; and whereas the producers of all wealth are deprived not merely of its enjoyment, but also of the social and civil rights which belong to humanity and the race; and whereas we are convinced that the reform of these abuses must depend upon ourselves and ourselves only; and whereas we believe that intelligent union alone is strength, we hereby declare our object to be "union for power, power to bless humanity," and to further this object resolve ourselves into an association under the following.

Article 1. This association shall be called the "New England Workingmen's Association."

Article 2. The object of this association shall be to extend the knowledge of the evil of our present social condition, and the best method of reform, and in every way to secure the highest good and well-being of our class and of society.

Article 3. The officers of this association shall consist of a President, two or more Vice President, a recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretary, Treasurer, and an Executive Committee seven in number of which the President, Corresponding Secretary, and Treasurer, shall be member ex officio.

Article 4. The above officers will be expected to discharge faithfully the duties incident to the several stations. It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to superintend the general interests of the association, to appropriate its funds for the publishment of papers, tracts, lectures, and such other documents as they may deem useful for the success of the ca[u]se, and to present a faithful report of their doings thereon, at the annual meeting of the association.

Article 5. The officers of the association shall be chosen at the annual meeting. The Executive Committee shall have the power to fill any vacancies which may occur in this body.

Article 6. The annual meeting shall be held at Boston, during the anniversary week in May. The Executive Committee shall have the power to call a Mass Convention at such time and place as they shall think proper.

Article 7. Any person may become a member of this Association by paying into the Treasury the sum of twenty-five cents and signing this Constitution.

Article 8. This Constitution may be altered or amended by a vote of two thirds of the members present at the annual meeting.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1See the previous issue, Vol. 1 No. 6, for what this is in reference to.

The following from the pen...

The following from the pen of Miss S. G. Bagley, and published in the Lowell Advertiser, was called forth in reply to a statement of Miss Farley's, editress of the Lowell Offering, which appeared in the Courier, reflecting somewhat upon Miss Bagley's remarks at Woburn on the fourth. We had the pleasure of listening to Miss Bagley's remarks at Woburn, and can testify that she spoke in kind and courteous terms of the present editress—brought no charge whatever against the Offering, further than it was controlled by corporation influences—stated that she had written articles for the Offering, which were rejected because they spoke of factory-girls wrongs—but by whom rejected she did not inform us—nor was it the least consequence whether by Miss Farley or some of her predecessors, as it was the general character of the Offering that she wished to illustrate.

We hold the literary merits of the Offering in high esteem—it reflects much honor upon its talented conductors—but still we were pleased to hear this exposition in relation to its true character and standing. It is, and always has been under the fostering care of the Lowell Corporations, as a literary repository for the mental gems of those operatives who have ability, time and inclination to write—and the tendency of it ever has been to varnish over the evils, wrongs, and privations of [...] factory life. This is undeniable, and we wish to have the Offering stand upon its own bottom, instead of going out as the united voice of the Lowell Operatives, while it wears the Corporation lock and their apologizers hold the keys.

In looking over the Courier of Wednesday last, we found our name in connection with the Lowell Offering saying that we had never presented an article that had been refused since Miss Farley had been its editress. Well, as we did not say that we had we do not see any chance for controversy. But we did say (and we hold ourselves responsible) that we have written articles for the Offering that have been rejected because they would make the Offering "controversial" and would change its "original design," which was that there is "mind among the spindles."

If any one will take the trouble to look at No. 2, specimen copy, that was published previous to the commencement of Vol. 1, they will find that controversy has not always been studiously avoided, and that the defence made was against O. A. Brownson and not corporation rules, which would change the propriety of "controversy" very materially. We preferred no charge against Miss Farley, but spoke respectfully of her, and should not have spoken of her or the Offering, had not Mr. Mellen, of Boston, made an attack upon the operatives of our city, and as an argument in favor of our excellent rules, stated that we had the Offering under our control, and had never made one word of complaint through its columns.

We were called upon to state the original design of the Offering; and gave it in nearly the same language in which it was expressed in a note by the editor in the No. referred to.

We stated that it had never been an organ through which the abuses of oppressive rules or unreasonable hours might be complained of; but that both exist cannot be denied by the editress—and stranger still it has been admitted by the editor of the Courier. We stated that the number of subscribers to the Offering among the operatives was very limited; we were authorized to make such an assertion in conversation with Miss Farley a few months ago; and we would not charge her with telling an untruth either directly or indirectly, lest we should be deemed unlady-like.

We asked the question what kind of an organ of defence would the operatives find with Mr. Schouler1 for a proprietor and publisher? We repeat that question, and if any one should look for an article in the publisher's columns, they would find something like the following:

"Lowell is the Garden of Eden (except the serpent) the gates thereof are fine gold. The tree of knowledge of good is there, but the evil is avoided through the judicious management of the superintendents. Females may work nineteen years without fear of injuring their health, or impairing their intellectual and moral powers. They may accumulate large fortunes, marry and educate children, build houses, and buy farms, and all the while be operatives ." Thus would the Offering under such a control, and those who are as stupid as Mr. Mellen made himself, would believe it. We have not written this article to evince that there is "mind among the spindles," but to show that the minds here are not all spindles.

- Sarah G. Bagley

To the Working People and Their Friends of New England.

To the working people and their friends of New England.—We ask your attention for the last time, at present, to the pecuniary concerns of our paper, hoping that our call will not fall upon indifferent ears, or be read with neglect and forgetfulness.

As we stated in our introductory address, our object in bringing into existence and continuing the Voice of Industry, never was prompted by any desire of personal aggrandizement, or self-emolument; but a sincere regard for the best possible good of the class whose true interests it advocates, and a heart-felt wish to promote the great principles of universal love, charity, good-will, [and] just, equal and productive industry among mankind. As we approximate towards such a state of society, will our country and world be blest, our race enjoy the happiness their natures crave, and the fruits of our labor yield rational pleasure and a Christian satisfaction? To bring about so desirable a state of things, we must use means—means adapted to the object we wish to accomplish—and what is more potent and effectual in all great warfares than the press?

The press is the great engine which moves the mental, political and religious world. It has scattered abroad destruction, blight and mildew, and it has borne the balm "for the healing of the people." There is no way by which mind will act upon mind and community with so great facility and power as through the medium of the press. Politicians, sectarians and the various agitators and reformers of the day, are well aware of this fact, and consequently the press is their favorite resort, through which they can reach and elicit the attention of the people. Therefore we call upon the working people to rally around the press—not because we are publishing a workingman's paper, but because it is the most efficient means within your power to protect your rights, throw off the incubus of unjust servitude which is fast weighing you down, and of elevating your condition, as moral, physical and intellectual beings—through the press let your voices be heard, throughout the land on all questions, which affect your well-being, and in this way exert the influence which your stations demand, instead of remaining silent sinecures, while avarice and unholy power are doing their deeds of darkness, or using you as dupes to accomplish their favorite ends.

The Voice of Industry has now reached its eighth number and its reception has been all we could expect, for a workingman's paper. We have no high sounding boasts to make or visionary anticipations to cherish, but to all who have seen the Voice, it will speak for itself; and to all others interested for its prosperity, and the success of the cause in which we are engaged—we say earnestly and hopefully, give us your aid, promising that it shall be what it has been, (so long as it remains in our charge), open, frank and fearless, and if it should receive that support which a workingman's paper ought to receive—which we confidently believe it will—it shall be made all its readers can ask for or require.

The great mission of the Voice upon the sea of public existence, is to oppose the many grievous evils which afflict the working classes and to do battle with the great flood of error, which is overwhelming our land and the world, swallowing up the happiness of our people and reducing a large portion of workingmen and women to slaves, serfs and drudges, while a few rule and roll in unsatisfying degrading luxury. We shall also give our readers a variety of miscellaneous matter, news items, statistical and such other information as will interest, inform and be of value to our working friends in all conditions or circumstances, always evading that which tends to corrupt and vitiate the public mind. We also contemplate as soon as sufficient encouragement is given of devoting a portion of our paper to scientific information respecting the various arts and trades, their rise, progress and numerous improvements—the best means of sustaining and protecting them, which cannot fail to elicit the attention of the mechanic, artisan, farmer and all other sons and daughters of industry. Now when it is recollected that we are all workingmen, who earn our substance by our daily toil; the importance of our receiving the aid and support of our brother workingmen and all interested in the just distribution of earth's blessings becomes very apparent. If the workingmen of New England expect to accomplish anything in the work which they have begun, they must sustain papers, devoted to their cause—papers that can and will speak out freely, fearlessly, and untrammeled—papers devoted from noble principle to justice and the good of man. To this subject, we seriously call your attention—as you value your rights, and as you regard the good of your fellows and posterity so may you act. If the Voice of Industry is what you want, give it your cheerful and hearty support; if not, will you enable us to make it so? We ask the attention of the Christian and philanthropist to our enterprise. Can you expect to improve the moral and religious condition of the world and elevate mankind, while a large portion are grovelling in poverty and dependence, their physical and temporal rights disregarded and trampled upon and their natures violated and degraded? Can men become Christians and moralists, while their insatiable love of power and wealth overrules and stifles all their regard for the laws of God and their neighbors? We ask the statesman if he can expect to see a happy, virtuous, republican and an intelligent nation, where men are slaves to wealth and factional usurpations? Where money buys power, office, respectability and servile obedience, and honest poverty is scorned and loaded with contempt? If so let us go on with our system of plunder and at the present rate, our nation will soon be a republican paradise, and our people fit subjects for heavenly rest; but if otherwise, let us stop and consider our condition and future destiny. To the workingmen who have thus far stood by us (among whom are some generous souls), we tender our heartfelt thanks, hoping they will continue firm and stout-hearted in the great battle for equal and just rights, and if consistent with their circumstances, give us further aid and support. And to all our patrons, without distinction of party, condition, sex, or color, we render due acknowledgements for their favors, and ask a continuation of the same, trusting their influence will be exerted in circulating their paper (the Voice) throughout the New England states, that it may prove an able champion of the workingmen's rights, unawed by the fear of proscription and independent of the powers that would gladly seek its destruction.

Mechanics, Laborers, and Useful Persons.

The following spirited call for a workingman's meeting in New York City, will be read with interest.

Mechanics, Laborers, and Useful Persons.

These things are fact. In this city of New York are 65,000 paupers, that is one-seventh of the entire population; in the state one in 17 is a pauper, and ratios, in city and county, are increasing year by year. The compensation for labor is steadily sinking, until thousands are now reduced to the starvation point. Labor and laborer—it is useless to deny it—are, in this republican country even, subject to a subtle, indirect slavery, rarely acknowledged, but everywhere felt. And in this respect the white laborer of the north is in a worse state than [the] slave of the south, for while the condition of the slave remains pretty much the same from year to year, that of the supposed free man is growing constantly worse. Is there under heaven any help for this? Who dares to doubt it?

Therefore we, a committee appointed at the General Meeting of the Trades and Useful Classes, held at National Hall on the evening of the 6th of June, do invite all persons of whatever description, but especially all workingmen, to assemble at Croton Hall, head of Chatham Square, on Wednesday evening next July 16, at half-past seven o'clock, when and where we propose to report to them the result of our labors.

Ira B. Davis, carpenter; G. H. Evans, printer; A. E. Bovay, teacher; Wm. Wilson, saddler; John Gould, cigar maker; T. A. Devyr, editor; Henry Beeny, shoemaker; Ransom Smith, clockmaker; J. D. Pearson, cabinet maker; J. Spencer, tailor; John Commerford, chair maker; Robert Beatty, bookbinder; Albert G. Rudolph, cooper; Dr. Newberry, physician; Jesse Ferguson, blacksmith; Samuel Janes, granite cutter; James Steward, locksmith; John Cann, silversmith; John Sherlock, iron rail maker; Charles Holden, piano forte maker; Henry Hughes, bricklayer; George Oaks, painter; John R. Smith, scene painter; James Maxwell, machinist.

Remember, rents are going up, and wages are going down: we believe we have discovered the cause and cure. Come.

Expenses of Monarchy.

Expenses of Monarchy.—The half-pay of the civil and military establishment of Great Britain is $24,000,000 annually. The royal family receive whole pay for whole idleness—amounting to $7,000,000.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1Editor of the Courier.

The Natick Correspondent and the Lowell Journal.1

Someone has sent us a copy of the last week's Journal, which contains a long and sophistical production from its correspondent at Natick, Mass., signed H. W., whom it will be recollected, sent out through the same medium a most unjust and illiberal report of the late Workingmen's Convention at Boston, and which we noticed at considerable length in a previous number of the Voice. The article purports to be an answer, or a "passing notice" upon our review of that uncalled for, false colored, and dishonorable attack upon the New England Workingmen's Association; and the writer expresses, as in his former communication an unbounded regard for the "clear headed and stout hearted workingmen of Massachusetts," but proves himself to be one of their greatest enemies, or totally ignorant of their true interests, and the principles and feelings which govern their present movement. Our friend complains of our "misrepresenting" him in stating that he condemned and derided the convention because its numbers were few and "Robert Owen, John A. Collins, Albert Brisbane, W. H. Channing and Horace Greeley addressed them." We hope for his sake we did, for it was one of the smallest tricks that a man could be guilty of under such circumstances. But still we could not shake off the conviction, that this remarkable minuteness, both in numbers and speakers—knowing as he must, that considerable prejudice already existed against some of them on account of their peculiar views on certain subjects—enough to condemn any cause, however pure and philanthropic with which they may be connected in the estimation of a portion of the community who are quite jealous of innovations upon their long cherished doctrines and predilections—was prompted by none other than a desire to bring the meeting into reproach before the clamorous popularity of the day, which seeks numbers rather than virtues and external show before inborn principles and love of truth. By reading the communication before us, we feel our opinion in this respect strongly confirmed, for a more inconsistent and uncharitable series of perversions and sheer misrepresentations than it contains, it has not been our misfortune to read. The writer tells us that he "believes in the progress and improvement of the race"—that he honors and reveres those "noble and generous spirits that, true to their convictions, act and speak out, in spite of the preconceived opinions, sentiments and prejudices of their age." And yet we find him using his time, abilities and the powers his maker has given him in opposing and ridiculing the band of "noble generous spirits," which are "speaking and acting out" in opposition to the combined evils and influences of society which are making men enemies and Ishmaelites and destroying their natural good will and sympathy; causing them to prey upon each other's rights as Christians and citizens, and offering them for sale in the market, or freely sacrificing them upon the bigoted mammons of the age. We find him eager to catch every little seeming wrong and inconsistency, whether true or not, by which he may influence and excite the religious and social prejudices of the people against the workingmen's movement. We find him willfully misrepresenting their sentiments, and misconstruing their language and proclaiming it abroad through the land. We find him upholding and fostering the present laws and customs in this and other countries, which are creating unhappy distinctions between the rich and the poor; making one arrogant, neglectful, sordid and tyrannical; and the other envious, jealous, revengeful, miserably poor and dependent, causing wickedness, crime and bitter contentions in society. In fact we do not hesitate to pronounce this interested friend to the workingmen, opposed to any reform that is calculated to progress and elevate the race—opposed to the "gospel of truth"—a willing slave to party littleness, a devotee to avarice, a bigot to sectarianism, and if we do not mistake a clamorous political demagogue, who made himself quite notorious in 1840, for his party zeal and electioneering greatness. And such is the man, calling himself a patriot! Who "believes in the progress and improvement of the race"; a friend to the workingmen—a lover of truth and Christian friendship, and talks fluently of the high standing and future glories of the working people of America! Shame on such patriotism and friendship. It would lull the working people of New England into lethargy with the delusive idea, that they live in a republican paradise, where they can be statesmen, scholars, and enjoy the fruits of their own labor—educate their children, all of whom can arrive to posts of honor and distinctions, "if they will be industrious, honest, economical" and in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, "place themselves beyond the reach of want in a few years"—and the while, this same friendship would reduce them to serfs, deplorable dependence and hopeless vassalage. We contend that the same causes are at work in this country, that has made England and some of her sister countries, nations of starving beggars and living skeletons, that too, in a land where there is plenty; and we challenge this Natick correspondent or any other person, to show any valid reason why the working people of New England shall not ultimately become as miserable, should these causes continue to exist and augment. H. W. charges us with being "vexed and disturbed" at the exposure of certain "infamous sentiments"—says that we "re-stated, adopted, defended and endorsed them." These "infamous sentiments" in his first communication were that he heard a delegate from Lowell to the Workingmen's Convention at Boston, in May last, state, (mark that), that "Capitalists and priests had joined hands to put down, grind and oppress the laboring men; that commerce, manufacturing and foreign emigration were killing them; that there was ten times more slavery in Lowell than on the Southern plantations; that Lowell manufactured the prostitutes of New York; and that the first thing to be done to elevate the workingmen, was to collect and burn the Sunday School books, which were poisoning the minds of the young."

Now in the article before us it will be noticed that the writer has left his first position and considerably modified his charge; in as much as he uses the term substance instead of a positive declaration that this was the precise language used by the Lowell delegate—of course taking the responsibility of being his own interpreter, and construing it to suit his own peculiar case. We deny the charge of endorsing all of the above assertions; and had H. W. exercised a liberal and Christian spirit while [writing] his reply, he would not have thus falsely represented our remarks. We did not endorse the statement that, "there was ten times more slavery in Lowell than on the Southern plantations," but asserted that we believed there was slavery both at Lowell and on the Southern plantations, signifying no disposition whatever to uphold either, or to measure their difference, but a sincere wish to do away with both. The operatives in our mills are not slaves in the same sense that we understand Southern slavery, they are nominally free, but that they are to a great degree slaves, together with a large portion of the working people of the North is undeniable—slaves of necessity and want—slaves to capital, and obliged to obey its dictates, or suffer; and it is our honest conviction that a portion of our northern laborers suffer more mental anxiety and enjoy less annual happiness, than the favored class among the slave population of the South. Not that we would entertain even one apology for Southern slavery—God forbid—we are opposed to slavery in every and all forms, and while we sympathize for one portion of our brothers in bondage, we would not be neglectful of others who toil and suffer under the garb of freedom. We did not endorse the sentiment, "that the first thing to be done to elevate the workingmen was to collect and burn the Sunday School books, which were poisoning the minds of the young," but promptly denied it, stating that we, or the New England Workingmen's Association, cherished no such desire or thought, though it was stated by a delegate in that Convention. But we have since learned from those present during the entire session, that no such sentiment was offered not even in "substance." In our previous remarks upon this point we merely showed up the absurdity of resorting to such means to awaken the opposition of the religious community against the workingmen's cause, and that it was a mere subterfuge without a shadow of reason or good sense, and that Sunday School books were as various and conflicting as sects and doctrines in the world.

The other "infamous sentiments" we "adopted and defended" without any "vexation" or "disturbance," because we believed them to be truths which interested the workingmen of the country. And what are these "infamous sentiments"? Simply, that the church and capital were to a great degree united in supporting systems to the injury of the workingmen—that commerce, manufacturing and foreign emigration, as they now exist, are in opposition to their true interests—that the manufacturing system of Lowell, as now conducted, is not conducive to the virtue and chastity of its population.

We endorsed and defended openly and boldly the above sentiments and are willing to have our views go abroad, believing that the workingmen of New England, who are free to think and act, will acknowledge with us that they are truths, however "infamous" they may appear to the tender sensibilities of our Natick friend, the Lowell Journal and all those who are engaged in rearing and nourishing the feudal systems of America, in opposition to the industrial classes. As the Journal correspondent has left these sentiments entirely uncontroverted we shall not continue their consideration further; and for want of room shall defer the remainder of his article, which consists of a train of unfounded assertions and grave declarations false, and inconsistent, until next week, when we design giving it another notice.

"Poor but Honest."

"Poor but Honest."—The newspapers, and other equally great authorities, make use of this phrase in biographical notices—"He was born of poor but honest parents"! Poor but honest! That is to infer that the parents ought to have been dishonest because they were poor; but that in the particular case they were honest [in] spite of their poverty. This common phrase is a direct insult to the condition of ninety-nine men out of the hundred, and an indignity to human nature. There might be, considering the manner in which many fortunes are acquired, some little shade of meaning in saying of the heir of fortune—"He was born of rich but honest parents"!—but the "poor but honest" phrase is atrocious.

Poverty.2

It is not necessary to recapitulate the horrors I have witnessed in the regions of poverty. It is said that the eras of pestilence and famine are passed, but so will not those say who have visited the dwellings of the operatives of our great manufacturing towns, when the markets are glutted, and the mills and manufactories are closed. Pestilence still rages fiercely as ever, in the form of typhus, engendered by want. In the mission I have called myself to, I have stood upon the mud floor, over the corpse of the mother and the newborn child—both the victims of want. I have seen a man (God's image) stretched on straw, wrapped only in a mat, resign his breath, from starvation, in the prime of age. I have entered on a sultry Summer's night, a small house, situated on the banks of a common sewer, wherein one hundred and twenty-seven human beings, of both sexes and all ages, where indiscriminately crowded. I have been in the pestilential hovels of our great manufacturing cities, where life was corrupted in every possible mode from the malaria of the sewer to the poison of the gin bottle. I have been in sheds of the peasant, worse than the hovel of the Russian, where eight squalid, dirty, boorish creatures were to be kept alive by eight shillings per week irregularly paid. I have seen the humanities of life desecrated in every way. I have seen father snatch the bread from the child, and the mother offer the gin bottle for the breast. I have seen too, generous sacrifices and tender considerations, to which the boasted chivalries of Sydney and Edward were childish ostentation. I have found wrong so exalted, and right so debased—I have seen and known of so much misery, that the faith in good has shivered within me.

- Douglas Jerrold's Magazine

Despatch.

A gentleman left Lowell the 16th of May, went to England, remained there about a week, went to Scotland, and had a machine built, remained there ten days, learned how to work the machine, and got back to Lowell on the 3rd of July.3

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1See the Vol. 1 No. 6 issue of the Voice for what this article is in reference to.
• 2Text reprinted from Douglas Jerrold's Magazine.
• 3This could be a direct or indirect reference to how American manufacturers copied/stole machine designs from the British (e.g. Samuel Slater, Francis Cabot Lowell, etc...).

The Natick Correspondent and the Lowell Journal.1

Agreeable to our notice last week, we resume the consideration of an article in the July 18th No. of the Lowell Journal, from the pen of a correspondent at Natick, Mass., signed H. W., being a wholesale denunciation of the present workingmen's movement in New England and other parts of the country, and also in the old world, for their physical, mental and moral amelioration.

We do not give the article this protracted review, because it contains either truthfulness or logic, worthy our attention; but as it embraces the stereotyped edition of charges usually preferred against the laborer's reform, we deem it a duty to our cause and truth to show its fallacy, hoping the community will be led to look upon us and our cause as we really are, instead of viewing us through such an uncharitable and selfish medium of error and prejudice.

We showed conclusively last week, that the position we first took in relation to this controversy remains unharmed, and our sentiments uncontroverted. We stated nothing that facts, reason and Christian principles will not support us in; and though we are a mechanic and obliged to toil for our daily support, yet we are willing to devote a few moments "from nature stolen" to defend any sentiments we have advanced or endorsed against the combined talent, sophistry, party tact and smooth hypocrisy of all the powers opposed to universal justice, humanity and the inalienable rights of man, "to life, liberty and the pursuits of happiness," upon which our reform is founded. We now pass to notice that portion of H. W.'s communication which refers to the general character of the workingmen's reform. He tells us, that our "views of society here are incorrect. Society is not what we represent it to be. Our views and opinions are all imported." What are our views of society here?—that we are the "most degraded, depraved, brutalized and oppressed people on the face of the globe," as our Natick friend represents them? No, we believe no such thing—we have no desire to color or exaggerate the evils of New England society, the plain unvarnished truth is bad enough, and this we wish to bring before the working people and the whole population in the spirit of Christian kindness. Ours is no partial fragmentary reform which takes hold and excites the passions without appealing to the reason and better judgement of the people—we do not wish to array one class against another, but have ever repudiated such a spirit. We do not wish to benefit the laborer at the expense of the employer, but to benefit both, not merely so far as dollars and cents are concerned, but in point of true human elevation, that man—all men, without distinction of color or capacity may live out what they were designed to, and realize that degree of happiness they are capable of enjoying, that this world may not prove a "vale of tears"—made so by the sins of devastation of its children, but a beautiful world "wherein dwelleth righteousness." Our reform is broad and universal, excluding none who wears the semblance of humanity; it is based deep down upon the eternal principles of truth and justice, which we believe should and will be acknowledged and made practical ere men will live at peace with each other. New England society and policy are at war with these principles; selfishness predominates over charity and benevolence; her mad avariciousness is swallowing up and poisoning all her philanthropy and love for the good of the race. She acts from the impulse of avarice and self-aggrandizing, as our friend H. W.'s article clearly evinces, rather than justice and regard for the happiness of her people—her rail roads have been built by avarice, her commerce and manufactories are the works of avarice—her "cities and villages that are springing up around all her waterfalls, the busy abodes of toiling thousands," are reared by avarice—avarice has raised many of her spires and founded many of her systems of education; avarice and selfish party ambition legislate in her councils, as the treatment of numerous petitions for the reduction of the hours of labor in our manufactories, and the "Lien Law" at the last session of the Massachusetts Legislature, strongly demonstrate. In fact our whole political and social organizations are full of the seeds of avarice and selfishness, which are fast developing themselves every year, in the various forms of vice, wickedness, poverty, strife and bitterness, which we daily witness around us. We are not deceived in our views of society, facts and sad experience daily press them home to our sensibilities. The condition of the laboring people as a class of this country is constantly growing worse; they are becoming more and more dependent upon capital; their resources are being curtailed, the price of their labor [left] more uncertain and difficult to obtain, which causes an increase of idleness, want, crime and the numerous dissipations and immoralities of society. These things are not mere assertions, but facts of which statistical proof can be adduced, and he who would cover them up, or unhesitatingly deny their existence, is an enemy to his race and devoted to the perpetuation of oppression. Still the Journal correspondent has the hardihood to assert, that the condition of our laboring people is "rapidly improving," that "labor is better rewarded than formerly," that "all men are equal before the state, that labor is honored and respected, and that there is social equality in our society"! How absurd for a man to call himself a friend to the workingman and throw out such unqualified, false and prejudiced statements as to their condition and prosperity! Will he inform us how many honest laboring men there are "before the states"? Will he tell us what ratio of the national and state offices are filled by the "bone and sinew of the country"? Will he tell us where labor is "honored and respected," and where there is social equality between the rich and the poor? For it is what we are striving for, what we should delight to see and what we expect to accomplish. These statements are false—capitalists and conning, intriguing demagogues and their immediate tools and favorites fill the offices of our country, and social equality is not to be found, even in New England society. The factory girl, the seamstress and "hired maid" are not regarded as equals, nor admitted into the society of the daughters of wealth, who lounge about in idleness and luxury; [unless] they possess some superior and uncommon natural talent and grace that finally triumphs over the distinctions of society. The great majority of the operatives are scorned and despised for no other reason, than that they labor. We know this, for we have seen it with our own eyes—we have seen them insulted and neglected by the very persons they had made wealthy through their industry and toil; and the same results to a great degree attend the success of our indigent workingmen, however meritorious they may be.

We think the Journal correspondent is not so far lost to the true state of our society as to deny these things, were he free from selfishness and party influences; for we notice in his article an unconscious admission, that there are "fictitious distinctions" in society and that "moral and intellectual worth" are disregarded or trampled upon and this too, after he had extolled our society for its "social equality," and the respect it pays to man and labor, thereby acknowledging our views of society in part, and for which [he] had denounced us. H. W.'s remarks about "petty aristocrats, petty tyrants and demagogues," come with quite an ill grace from a man who is engaged in upholding and apologizing for the present systems in society, which are filling it with demagogues, tyrants and aristocrats. We would ask him what kind of a demagogue he is, who is inflaming the community with political strife, "arraying one portion of the people against the other," that one set of hungry aspirants may rule, reign and fill their pockets with the people's money instead of another equally deserving? What kind of tyranny is heartless capital arrayed against the poor and dependent, regarding them as tools and treating them as beasts of burden? What kind of aristocracy is that which builds up casts of respectability, founded upon wealth, and denies the honest workingmen and women admission because they are poor and labor for a living? Our society is full of this demagogueism, tyranny and aristocracy and our friend at Natick is striving to perpetuate them and, we predict that an industrious poor man or woman would be treated with coldness if not contempt by this sympathetic brother should they consider themselves his equals or associates.

The writer has an abundance of good advice that he would deal out to the laboring men, among which is the following: "If I could speak to every laboring man in the land I would say to him, be industrious and honest, cultivate your moral, social and intellectual powers, regard all men as brothers of one great family, and treat them as equals whether rich or poor." Good advice indeed—and what would he say to the capitalist and rich idler? Has he not a little good advice for them? Should they not be "industrious and honest, and regard all men as brothers of one great family whether rich or poor"? The laboring men have well nigh starved upon such heartless advice, without one jot of precept—the cry of demagogues, capitalists and their numerous speaking-trumpets has ever been, "be honest, be industrious, be contented you are the bone and sinew of the country, the country's pride and glory," while they have been sucking away their hard earnings and raising themselves to wealth and distinction by the industry and suffrages of the honest laborer; whose good they disregard; whose health and happiness, they trample upon, and whose society they shun and despise. What is it that causes idleness and dishonesty among the poor people? The disgrace that fashionable society has placed upon honest industry. Hence they resort to all means, honest or dishonest, to gain a livelihood and the trappings of society, without actual producing-labor—by fraud, trickery and speculation. And for this state of things society is culpable; for she has erected this standard of excellence and respectability. How are the laboring men to cultivate their moral, social and intellectual powers" while they are obliged to labor six days of the week, twelve or fourteen hours per day, to supply their immediate physical wants—and this fast becoming precarious by surplus laborers and reduced wages, and in many cases on the seventh listen to sectarian dogmas or that they should "bear their afflictions with Christian fortitude, thank God that their condition is no worse, and hope on for a better world of rest from their labors and trials"?

Who is it that is indisposed to "regard all men as brothers of one family, and treat them as equals whether rich or poor"? He who is living in splendor upon the toil of the poor. The workingmen have not created this distinction; it is the false arrangement of the products of labor, which bestows the largest portion upon those who do the least work, and induces them to treat the poor laborer as a drudge and slave, not worthy their society; but an underling who should do their bidding. The laborers are cast out from this aristocracy of wealth which makes them servants and slaves, instead of equals and brothers; and yet the Natick friend is urging them to be industrious, honest, brotherly, and cherish good will, while he is defending the very system and causes, which make them otherwise, and render them jealous, dishonest, unkind, and prevent them from cultivating their moral, physical, social and intellectual powers. Let it be understood that the workingmen's warfare is not with individuals but systems—systems which make the rich tyrannical, powerful, haughty, aristocratic, hardened and neglectful of the duties they owe to their race and their fellow men around them; and the poor, envious and contentious, or servile and obedient to the mandates of wealth, and those more favored. It is capital and power, in the hands of the non-producers, that arrays the poor against the rich, and one class of laborers against the other; or in other words, the capitalists and non-producers are arrayed against the laborers, by depriving them of their just claims to the products of their own toil, which is indispensably requisite to their peace and happiness. That the laboring man stands upon an equal before the state with wealth and political craft, that labor is rewarded and honored, and that the poor workingmen, if he is industrious and honest, "can place himself beyond the reach of want in a few years" is false and unfounded; merely the demagogues flourish to keep the laborer quiet that he may continue his system of wrong and self-aggrandizement. The laborer is not honored, or labor respected. Labor is not as well rewarded now as formerly; the physical condition of laboring men and women is not improving, but the tendency of society is to bring reproach upon honest industry, and disrespect upon those who produce the wealth of the land, and we pity the disposition, so recreant to truth, justice, humanity and the welfare of its country and the race as to oppose and vilify the hand of philanthropic and Christian-hearted workingmen and women who have associated themselves together for their own elevation and to lift up their brothers and sisters whom the car of oppression has debased—to make labor ennobling, and multiply its blessings—to inculcate brotherly love and mutual interests—to embrace and adopt all that is true and elevating, and abandon all error, wrong and that which degrades the human character—to render science and philosophy a universal good, instead of instruments in the hands of the few to oppress the many, and to assuage and reconcile all the elements of discord and hatred among men, that they may live out their native dignity, a blessing to themselves and others, and an honor to human excellence.

A Letter from the Secretary of the L. L. R. A.

Mr. Editor:—At the last meeting of the Ladies Labor Reform Association in this city, it was voted that "we appoint some lady of this Association, a correspondent of your valuable paper, who shall furnish articles herself, and receive them from others who may feel disposed to contribute to the support and interest of the same, by giving interesting items and facts, which may come under their observation." Miss H. J. Stone was accordingly chosen to act in the capacity of correspondent from this Association. She will endeavor in future to furnish an article herself, for every paper if desirable, and obtain as many others as may be. Her influence will ever be given on the side of equal rights, and the just claims of humanity whether black or white, living at the North or South, whether friends smile or frown on her humble efforts! She feels that there is a great work to be accomplished through the humble instrumentality of means ere our nation is elevated to that high and sublimely glorious pinnacle of fame, which it is her privilege, nay, her imperative duty to attain! Believing as she does, that each and every individual has some duty to perform, some mission to accomplish for the great good of all, and the elevation of the mass to a position worthy our far famed and republican nation, she will gladly contribute her "two mites" to strengthen that "voice" which has been heard above the roar of elements, and the discordant sounds of human degradation and woe, that it may be enabled to speak in tones which shall cause the flinty heart to quake, the stubborn knee to bow, before the mighty and all conquering power of eternal truth and justice!

God speed thee in thy holy mission gentle "voice," mayest thou speak comfort to the despairing—whisper hope to the ear, and pour balm into the heart lacerated and festering with the cankering cares of life—reclaim the wandering, sin-enslaved, wretched and lost ones of our Father's family, and write them in the bonds of fraternal love and union—thus shalt thou be a blessing in thy day and generation! And when thy "voice" shall be hushed in death, its soothing tones, and encouraging words, shall thrill through every heart, while life or being lasts!

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1See Vol. 1 No. 6 of the Voice for what this article is in reference to.

The Working Classes in England.1

Mr. Willis, in a letter to the Mirror, gives the following account of the working classes of England:

During the four or five hours that I was playing the hanger-on to a vulgar and saucy custom house officer at Liverpool, one or two contrasts crept in at my dull eyes—contrasts between what I had left, and what was before me. The most striking was the utter want of hope in the countenances of the working classes—the look of dogged submission and animal endurance of their condition of life. They act like horses and cows. A showy equipage goes by, and they have not the curiosity to look up. Their gait is that of tired donkeys, saving as much trouble at leg-lifting as possible. Their mouths and eyes are wholly sensual, expressing no capability of a want above food. Their dress is without a thought of more than warmth and covering, drab covered with dirt.

Their voices are a half-note above a grunt. Indeed, comparing their condition with the horse, I would prefer being an English horse to being an English workingman. And you will easily see the very strong contrast there is between this picture, and that of the ambitious and lively workingmen of our country.

Another contrast strikes, probably, all Americans on first landing—that of female dress. The entire absence of that ornamental—of anything indeed, except decent covering—in all classes below the wealthy, is particularly English and particularly un-American. I do not believe you would find ten female servants in New York without (pardon my naming it), a "bustle." Yet I saw as many as two hundred women in the streets of Liverpool, and not one with a bustle! I saw some ladies get out of carriages who wore them, so that it is not because it is not the fashion, but simply because the pride (of those whose backs form but one line) does not outweigh the price of the bran. They wore thick shoes, such as scarcely a man would wear with us, no gloves of course, and their whole appearance was that of females in whose minds never entered the thought of ornament on week days. This trifling exponent of the condition of women in England, has a large field of speculation within and around it, and the result of philosophizing on it would be vastly in favor of our side of the water.

The Workingmen of the East.2

Large meetings of the workingmen have been held lately in Boston, New York, and other places on the Atlantic border. On Friday evening the 6th ult., a general meeting of the trades was held at National Hall, New York, and arrangements made for future operations. The speeches and general proceedings of the meeting exhibit much talent and energy of action. The chief reform advocated by this and other assemblages of the working classes of the East is to make the public lands free to actual settlers, and thereby remove honest, poverty-stricken industry beyond the reach of concentrated capital. In the older portions of the country labor is daily becoming more servile, and capital more tyrannical. If the proposed reform will tend to the emancipation of labor, (and who can doubt this?) the Democratic Party will give it a warm support. Hitherto the conflict between capital and labor has been most unequal. Capital, which ought to be left to take care of itself, has been nursed and pampered by legislation and public opinion, till it has become as proud and insolent as Lucifer himself, and now demands as a right, what it formerly prayed for as a privilege. All the profits of labor must be thrown into the hands of incorporated capital, while labor itself is insulted, spit upon, and too frequently turned out to starve.

If there is a constitutional remedy for this—a reform which will give to every man, however poor, the privilege of being a freeman in fact, as well as in name—by all that is just let it come. The freedom of the public lands would be a small price for the freedom of millions of men, who would otherwise become the spirit-broken slaves of concentrated capital.

We shall endeavor hereafter to notice more particularly the doings of the workingmen of the Atlantic states. No subject so well deserves our attention. The laboring classes, have few chroniclers and fewer eulogists, while the doings of the commercial, financial and fashionable world are duly narrated by the press with the most exact particularity. Yet, among the laboring classes is there to be found more virtue and patriotism, than in any other. Why then should we regard their complaints and plans of reform with indifference and contempt? They are weak—weak in action, patient in suffering. That is the reason. Might then commands respect! Even so. Yes, might gets wealth, and wealth buys up all opposition to the unjust exactions of might. The laboring classes have only to get might (which they can have any moment) to command respect, and enforce their just demands. Let them show that they have might on their side, (numbers and concert of action) and the learned trumpeters of public opinion will proclaim their greatness far and wide. Let them also remember that truth and justice alone endure forever.

In seeking a remedy for the evils that so grievously oppress them, the laboring classes may indeed, as they have, commit great errors. They may pursue illusory phantoms, and deceptive reforms, yet they are not on that account to be treated with contempt. For, remember, these laboring men, so toil-worn, are the wealth producers of the land, and that you Mr. Capitalist, you Mr. Banker, and you Mr. Merchant, Mr. Speculator, Mr. Preacher, Mr. Office-holder, and all you other Misters and Squires who follow well paid and "genteel" callings—remember, sirs, you live, laugh and grow fat by means of their skill and labor, and but for them would have either to go work yourselves, or roam the face of the earth naked and shelterless.

God consecrated labor to noble ends—man alone, by making it the slave of capital, degrades it to base and wicked purposes.

The Approaching Convention at Fall River.

What has been done preparatory to this meeting of the New England Workingmen? Are our brothers and sisters of the different Associations awake to the subject? We must be active, vigilant and persevering. We must have union of action, and concentration of purpose. Our ranks are weak and confused, while they might be strong and harmonious. We have long been our own enemies and oppressors, by refusing to use the just means within our power to free ourselves from the clutches of misused avarice, and the various insidious influences which are making bondsmen, dupes, slaves and dependents of those whom God created free, with capacities of self-government, self-protection, and self-elevation. Come brothers, let us arouse to a true sense of our present situation and the great mission which devolves upon us, to forward as friends of justice, truth, our fellow beings around us, and ourselves. Let us not waste our time and energies in contending for petty differences of opinion on trivial points of action; but lay hold of the great fundamentals upon which our reform is based—the best good of the race, and work together like Christians, friends and brothers, engaged in one noble cause, with one final end—the redemption of humanity from the thraldom of unholy servitude, slavery and oppression in all their hydra forms. Our field of labor is at present circumscribed; but while we are striving to stay the onward progress of tyranny and lust for wealth and self-aggrandizement, which are sacrificing the happiness, prosperity and lives of our people, (in our own country) our sympathies will extend to the victims of wrong wherever they exist, of whatever name, nation or color. The antidote which we apply to remedy the evils that afflict the laboring people of New England, and America, must be universal in its application; as all wrong emanates from the same source—whether in America, or England, in kingdoms or republics, at the North or the South, or among Christians or heathens. Anything short of this will fail to accomplish the philanthropic purpose we have in view—by anything short of this, we shall fail to witness the fruits of our labors upon the action and interest of our generation. We hope our friends at Boston, Lowell, Lynn, Woburn, Fall River, and many other places will see that nothing is wanting on their part, to make the coming Convention what it should be, and what it may be, if the workingmen are true to their trust. Let them prepare themselves to meet together with a firm determination to do what within them lies, to advance the cause of Christian, self-evident equality and justice among men, throwing aside all narrow policies and selfish motives, and viewing their present and future course with large and liberal feelings, exercising the spirit of charity towards those who are opposed to them, but with an uncompromising hostility towards every known encroachment upon the already fully acknowledged and attested rights of mankind at large. Thus may the Convention at Fall River tell upon the future prosperity of our cause—prove a blessing, and send a new ray of hope to those who are looking for a brighter day, when labor shall be honored, its fruits dispensed in righteous profusion, and its followers elevated, ennobled and made truly happy.

Pauperism alias Fourierism.3

Nearly $310,000 is annually paid by the tax payers of Massachusetts for the support of paupers. In the new state of society proposed by Robert Owen, Fourier, and their associates, it is contemplated to do away with not less than nineteen-twentieths of this expense by making all men industrious, temperate and frugal. By giving to all suitable employment and adequate remuneration, it can be readily seen how easily this may be effected. But a moral revolution, such as the world has never yet undergone, and which, when once fully commenced, can never be stayed short of the consummation of its glorious designs, will be necessary to effect this one, to say nothing of a thousand other desirable objects. The combined efforts of "Religion, Liberty and Law"—each for more than 1800 years, professing to aim at man's moral and physical elevation—have proved abortive in ridding the world of misery, though each in its turn has brought to its aid torture and death in every form to effect the object. How much more sublime and beautiful then will this new system for man's redemption from the thraldom of "inevitable woe" appear, if without the shedding of blood, in the noiseless course of harmony and love, it gloriously triumphs over the pride and prejudice of a cankering aristocracy, the haughty self-conceit of salaried idlers and the pompous insolence of the bar. God speed the reformation.

- Vox Populi

There is not a brainless...

There is not a brainless rich man but what thinks himself the superior of the man whom he employs, and that he it is, who favors them, [by] giving them work solely for the purpose of supporting them! Did he know anything of the relative value of labor and capital he would perceive that he was the receiver, not the dispenser, of favors.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1Letter from American writer Nathaniel Parker Willis that appeared in the New York Mirror. I used the version of this quote/letter as it appears in Famous Persons and Places (1854 book by Willis), since the Voice's quote contains some errors.
• 2Text reprinted from the Ohio Eagle.
• 3Text reprinted from Vox Populi.

Workingmen.1

We heartily approve of the sentiments contained in the following extract from the Washington Constitution. We believe the farmers, mechanics, and other workingmen of our country have almost everywhere been treated with less respect than their merits deserve. If their claims are presented for any respectable or lucrative station, they are told to go to work; while some idle aristocrat, no more competent, and not half so deserving, is given the preference. This should not be; and we rejoice to see that public sentiment in various sections is manifesting itself in favor of a reform in this respect. We shall ever deem it our duty and privilege to advocate and defend the rights of the toiling millions who are the chief source of our country's wealth and power—in whose hands rest the future destinies of the nation.

We know that the organic principle of our government is one of social and political equality. Theoretically, we acknowledge the doctrine of equal rights, equal obligations, and exact justice to all—but in its practical workings, this principle of just equality is somehow or other most woefully violated. In the hour of peril to our country or to our party, we mainly depend for succor and success upon the faithfulness and efforts of the workingmen. We invoke his aid—we rely upon his constancy—and by the strength of his arm, or the strength of his principles, we are saved. His labor cultivates the earth, his art fashions the most costly articles, and the most valuable products and their richest sources of the country are created by the toils of the workingman. Yet it too often happens, that in the hour of political victory, his services and his merits are alike forgotten, and the honors and rewards of the government are but too frequently bestowed upon those who neither exerted their efforts nor risked their means to ensure success. We do not hesitate to say that all the social virtues and the most enlarged patriotism preeminently dwell with those who cultivate the soil and work at the various mechanical trades. And we are sustained by high authority when we affirm that the aggregate wisdom of these classes is greater than the wisdom of the selfish and eschewing few, who usually assume to control and direct them. Whilst they exert themselves, then, for the maintenance and advancement of free principles—whilst they contribute their efforts and their means to strengthen and support our noble form of government, let them freely and equally participate in the rewards and the honors of the highest offices. All employments are alike honorable, when honorably pursued. Honesty, integrity, and ability constitute the true qualifications for office, and not the mere condition in life, or the peculiar employment or profession of the individual. - New Haven Democrat

Labor Reform.2

The question is often asked: What do those who belong to this association expect to accomplish? Answer: Tall trees from little acorns grow, and they expect to see grow out of this small beginning a great and mighty blessing; even the liberation of millions from cruel bondage, to an equal footing with our aristocratic nabobs and slaveholders! They expect to be the humble means of planting the little acorn of individual right and individual independence, which will produce a tree whose leaves shall be for the healing of the domestic maladies and moral evils of community. They expect to open the eyes of the blind, who are now being led by the nose, whithersoever the monied few list, to unstop the ears of the deaf, who having ears hear not the death warrant in every bell which summons them to the different places of thirteen and sixteen hours' toil, there wearing out the very vital energies of nature, to the entire neglect of all that which distinguishes man from the brute creation, or constitutes him an intellectual moral being. They expect to awaken the minds of the worthy laborers to a sense of their own inherent powers—their capabilities for moral and intellectual improvement—their own worth and the high-table land of promise which they are able to go up and possess!

They expect to give such an impetus to the spirit and progress of reform, that after having set free the white slaves of the North, its influence shall cause the chains to fall from the groaning millions of colored brethren at the South! They expect and confidently hope to instill into the hearts of poor, but virtuous, worthy females, enough of that moral courage and independence of soul, which shall enable them to dare go in and out, even at a minister's front door, in whose pious family they labor faithfully and unremittingly. They expect to live until that time, when the workingmen and women of our republican nation will become the truly educated part of the people—combining the theoretical with the practical, the useful with the agreeable—thereby exhibiting in beauty and harmony the full developing of all those powers, both mental and physical, which give dignity and superior grace to the whole being! They hope to live and enjoy a better state of society, where virtue and honesty shall no longer be clothed as it now too often is, in rags, while vice and unblushing meanness rustles in silks and fine linen, and looks plain unsophisticated truth and honest integrity out of countenance! These are a few of the good things which they confidently hope and expect to see result from the united labors of the different associations formed throughout our land. God speed them on in their noble work. Let their motto with its deep, meaning tone and spirit pervade and animate every faculty of the great heart of associations! "Union for power—Power to bless Humanity." - Vox Populi

For the Voice of Industry.

Mr. Editor: As I have been invited to furnish something for the readers of your pleasant and useful "Voice," I thought it might interest them to learn that Lowell is onward.

True there is not the general interest manifested, that we should be glad to witness; but our cause is progressing, and a commendable degree of zeal among the friends of true liberty exists. The discussion going on about the Lowell Offering has been useful as an impetus to action, and the pretended friends of reform have had an opportunity to define their true position. The readers of the Offering have generally been able to decide where to find the Offering and its influence, but its publisher has settled the question if any doubt has existed.

It requires some moral courage to speak and act independently in Lowell, as those who have made the experiment know full well. Those who possess a firm adherence to the good and true, whether approved or censured, will not be turned aside by contumely or abuse in any form. Such are some of the friends of reform in Lowell.

There are many, very many here, who are prepared to allow others to think and act for them; and themselves be only the machines to give expression to the will and opinions of others.

If there is a state of servitude more servile than slavery itself, it is that to which I have alluded. A man who in addition to being a servant physically will be one mentally; has descended a little lower than any man could possibly descend who has a decent amount of self-respect.

We feel very much the need of a periodical here devoted to our cause. We are determined to speak here more clearly with your "Voice" in the future, and see if we cannot awaken a more general interest.

You will hear from us and be apprised of things in general and some things in particular every week. I will give you a brief sketch of our Union Meeting last week.

We appointed a committee of investigation for the purpose of tracing some of the false stories published in some of the papers of this city, and exposing them to the public. I trust if they had been appointed three months past, they would have had an abundance of material furnished them. You will hear from our committee in future.

We wish you much success in your efforts to be useful, and remain

Yours in the cause of humanity,

- Oliva [Olivia?]

We find announced in the Lowell papers...

We find announced in the Lowell papers a work entitled "Lowell as it was, and as it is," by the Rev. H. A. Miles,3 of that city, and regret much to learn from some notices of the work, that he has been disposed to gloss over the present system of manufacturing. It is lamentable that men who occupy such responsible stations in society should be so blinded to the great source of evil, and the fruitful causes of man's misery and degradation. The great preacher to the gentiles set us an example that is plain and intelligible, which needs no college education, or theological finish, to prepare the understanding to receive it. The enlightened mind naturally perceives it, and the enlightened conscience feels it. "As ye would that others should do unto you, do ye even so to them." Has our reverend friend been governed by this great principle of universal law and justice, while writing the work above referred to? Has love of popular favors, and the perverting effects of wealth and power had no influence over his pen? While asking divine blessing upon his bounteous repasts which were eaten in peace and leisure, has he thought of those whose blessing is the factory bell, and whose stomachs are the receptacles of half masticated food, and whose daily meditations and nightly dreams are visited with the horrors of indigestion, causing diseases, prostration and oftentimes premature death? While receiving his thousand dollars or upwards annually for his services, has he given a thought to those whose physical requirements are no less, and receive but seventy-five cents or one dollar per day, subject to lost time and misfortunes? These things should not be brooked, they are too true; and we should not be too sensitive about investigating the subject. Should the work alluded to come within our possession we shall notice it hereafter.

The Offering for August is before us...

The [Lowell] Offering for August is before us in its usual neat and tasty form. We notice that the editorial articles are strongly imbued with corporation flattery and praise; a disposition to cloak and shroud the evils of the present factory system, with the scanty garb of apparent good which hangs around it, is clearly visible. We quote the following to show the error that the fair editress has fallen into. In speaking of her factory life she remarks—

She has never regretted this step—and those who think and speak of a factory life as the darkest lot, view it in a different light from that in which it has appeared to her. She could have earned a livelihood by her needle; but to do that she must sit at work as many hours as she would be confined in the mill. To teach a country school was to have a paltry pittance a few months in the year, and be destitute of employment the remainder of it. To write "silly stories" for a living was what she never dreamed of, though she possibly might have done it. For several years she labored at the loom "unnoticed and unknown."

What does this show? that the factory system is better than it has been represented? Surely not, but that other systems of labor are wrong. Because females are obliged to labor with the needle as many hours as they labor in the mills to gain a livelihood—teach school for a "paltry pittance, or write silly stories for a living," does not argue anything in favor of a factory life, that there are not wrongs in the system, or oppression in Lowell. The editress of the Offering is only contrasting one bad feature of our system of labor, with others alike disastrous (though more limited and less powerful) to the prosperity of the females of our country, and we think she must discover the fallacy of her reasoning after candid reflection.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1Text reprinted from the New Haven Democrat.
• 2The Voice reprinted this article, originally authored by the penname "Veritas," from the newspaper Vox Populi.
• 3See also Vol. 1 No. 17 of the Voice for another critique of Miles' account of the Lowell mills, which the Voice reprinted from the Harbinger.

Labor.

Within the range of human conception, perhaps there is nothing which impresses itself more intuitively upon the understanding than the law of natural, physical, and mental activity. That man by nature is a working being; constituted with the powers and capabilities to produce something that shall satisfy all his various wants and requirements. Should all that is necessary to nourish and sustain his physical system grow spontaneously over the earth, he must gather and eat or famish, and he must gather in the season thereof; if he collects the fruits of the earth, he must have a store-house, which requires activity and opens new fields for physical and mental labor. Thus man's first instinctive animal wants lead him by degrees from the first stages of his existence to a superior state of civilization and excellence. Man's nature demands activity—he must have it and he will have it—upon his every limb and function is inscribed "industry"; the thousands of little nerves and muscles, which ramify his system all strive together to put in motion the "living clay"—they all work together in unison, each one (when healthy) contributing its due share towards giving life, health, and energy to the whole body. Corresponding to the natural wants of man is external creation—the earth, nature's great laboratory, abounding with treasures vast and rich, enough to satisfy all his demands. But to develop its resources requires labor, to bring them forth; man must be active, he must put into operation the powers of his nature which crave exercise and whose legitimate offices are to administer to the comforts, pleasures, and joys of life. How sublime and ennobling is the contemplation of man—his wonderful adaptation to the natural circumstances around him; his progressive capabilities and everywhere-revealed high destiny. It is a subject which has employed the pen of the philosopher, and inspired the song of the poet, that he was created to labor—that labor is honorable, aye divine. We are told that labor is a Christian duty, that we shall not fulfill the great end of life, unless we contribute our part to the products of society. But how many there are, who are loud and eloquent in sounding forth the praises of labor, its dignity and nobility, who are drones and hangers-on in society; who are living in affluence and luxury without adding one farthing to its wealth, and who are greedy to devour and monopolize the treasure of honest industry. If man is a laboring being by nature, what kind of philosophy is that which exempts a portion from fulfilling this law of their natures and allows them to live upon the products of others' labor, while they lounge about in idleness or waste their energies in unproductive amusements? If labor is honorable and ennobling, should not all become honest and noble by becoming its votaries? and is it not dishonest and degrading to live upon the fruits of others? If labor is a Christian duty, are those Christians, who live without it, or are engaged in vocations useless and injurious to society? We believe that man is by nature an industrious being, fond of life and activity, of mind and body, that if he follows the dictates of his natural unperverted impulses and inclinations, he will produce a superabundance of all that can add to his happiness and make him truly great, physically and intellectually. We further believe that all who are not disabled should labor.

No sound reason can be adduced, that one man should inherit the privilege of being idle, or engage in worthless labor, because his father or friends bequeathed to him an estate, while another is born of poverty and obliged to drag out an existence in oppressive servitude. Suppose two children are born into the world, one of rich parents and the other of poor. The former, according to custom, by virtue of his parents' wealth, inherits an education, all the trappings of fashionable society, and a life of ease and inactivity, while the [latter], by the virtue of his parents' poverty, inherits ignorance, privation, want, and a life of slavish unrequited toil. Look at this picture friends, and see if there is not something unnatural and absurd in it? something contrary to common sense and a natural understanding of justice and the "inalienable rights" of mankind. Should circumstances over which man has no control seal his destiny for life? Is the child of fortune any more "entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness," because his father's testament declares him an heir, than the son of poverty who had no agency in his own existence on the circumstances in which he is placed. Has society a right to repeal nature's laws which grant to all at all times "life, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness," and substitute a system of partialism?—a hocus-pocus grab-game system, which violates the self-evident order, harmony, and relation of things and introduces mysticism, chance, confusion, and anarchy among men. Had nature designed one portion of the human family for workingmen and women, and the other for rulers, masters, capitalists, and idlers, she would not have been guilty of omitting certain very important distinctions, by which the servant might be known from his lord. Nature's nabobs would have been born with whips and spurs and their slaves with less brains that they might be submissive and servile, and that no such struggling for freedom and elevation should occur as are now manifested among the working population—that there should be no demand for "reduction of the hours of labor" or advanced wages, but that all should move along in peace and quietude, the master to his luxury and the slave to his task. That labor is a Christian duty, cannot be denied; it is embodied in the great law of love, that "whatsoever ye would, that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them"; hence the duty is binding upon all—all should fulfill their part and receive their share of its products and blessings, and that state of society which encourages a different state of things is wrong and will generate strife, idleness, and vice. We do not charge the present false state of labor directly upon individuals; society is culpable, and those who are best informed, who move and guide public opinion, those who set up standards of right, such as statesmen, teachers, and preachers, are most accountable for palpable evils which exist in society. A person who is engaged in a certain vocation which is injurious to the well-being of the community and mankind at large feels justified in his cause because society sanctions it; he looks no further, for society has created a standard of excellence which education has taught him to reverence and regard, or at least he will indulge in it so long as public sentiment flatters and tolerates. Thus it is with hordes of unproducing exchangers, speculators, and idlers which are living upon the producing classes and oppressing the real workingmen of the country. Let society make honest industry popular and reputable and all would be anxious to work, not from mere necessity to supply their immediate wants and gain wealth, but to gratify their natural desires and inclinations and gain the good will and applause of their fellows. It is a libel upon the character of free labor, that it should be an irksome task, performed with reluctance by menials and slaves. It is made tedious by abuses, protracted duration, and the stigma popularity has placed upon it, and until society washes away this stain, will it be shunned, despised, and avoided.

The following is from the pen...

The following is from the pen of a correspondent to the New York Tribune. We copy to expose its falsity. The writer has recently visited Lowell and after giving various statistics and extolling her factory system to the skies, remarks as follows:

As regards physical condition, from all that I could learn, two-thirds of the females have improved in health while employed in the Mills; and the same fact will apply to one-half of the males. The toil is more constant than heavy or sedentary, and is limited to ten hours in the day. All New England—indeed all the North bears on its face the Tariff argument, but at Lowell it is condensed to a conviction.

The above clearly betrays the Tariff mania, and shows how far party prejudice will cause a man to misrepresent and pervert the true condition of things, or how party eyes will see things to suit their peculiar vision. "Two-thirds of the females have improved in health while employed in the Mills." Let all the hospitals and various institutions of health be turned into factories and let invalids, instead of wasting away their strength and lives in seeking for health in distant climes, by the seashore or by inhaling the pure breezes of heaven, immediately fly to these hygeias of health, these panaceas for the ills to which "flesh is heir," and spend their days amid the din, gaseous air, and dust of "temples glittering with trophies of happy industry," and gain immortal life. But why do "those fresh spirits, gathered down from the Granite Hills and from the green peaceful valleys," those who have improved their health while employed in the mills, "return with renewed strength to the pleasures of toil"?—strange infatuation this! "And is limited to ten hours in the day." That the operative labors but ten hours per day is so abundantly false, that it needs no refutation—every person who is sufficiently informed to attempt to make it public knows, or should know, that the Lowell mills are in operation twelve and a half hours each day, and that the operatives average twelve hours, and most of them work during the whole time, twelve and a half hours.

We were surprised to find such a barefaced falsehood admitted into the Tribune, in fact, the whole article widely contrasts with the expressed sentiments of its philanthropic and liberal editor, and we trust he will be inclined to make a correction.

What Next?1

What Next?—A couple of machines which are intended to perform the work now done by some hundreds of poor sweepers have lately been tried—with what success I am not yet aware. Alderman Briggs, the modest deputy surveyor, is straining heaven and earth in endeavoring to induce the Common Council to adopt one of them, and in case of success he is to be rewarded for his disinterested exertions by the proprietor, with the paltry sum of one thousand dollars. Dan, is this the way you intend showing your oft-expressed love for the poor dupes, by whose exertions you have been made Alderman and deputy surveyor? Have you not made enough already and are you not yet making enough to satisfy your sordid thirst for pelf, without pocketing a thousand dollars more by taking the least crust out of the mouths of the most helpless and impoverished portion of your constituents? Answer this, you shameless, shallow-brained sycophant! Let the members of the Common Council be cautious how they listen to the selfish suggestions of this pitiful wretch; if not, I may make them remember their foolish villainy. When the earth is thrown open to all who are willing to labor on it, or when plenty of justly compensated employment is procured for every man who wants to work, then you may set as many street-sweeping machines in operation as you please; but until then I am inclined to doubt the democracy or justice of turning several hundred families on the world to further swell the already overflowing mass of misery and destitution by which we are already surrounded. - Subterranean

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1Article reprinted by the Voice from the newspaper Subterranean.

Political Action among the Workingmen.

This is a subject upon which there is as yet quite a diversity of honest opinion. It is a subject which we wish to treat with due candor and consideration; having nothing to advance or no convictions to utter, but those prompted from a sincere desire to advocate the best, most efficient, rational and self-evident means for the abolition of oppression in all its degrading features, and the redemption of the bones and sinews, health and happiness of the working population of our country and the world, from the power of isolated avarice and accidental fortunes, which has created a false state of society, in which the natural rights of man are trampled upon and violated, religion poisoned, philosophy perverted, government prostituted and the natural order of creation reversed, subjecting humanity to ignorance, slavery and superstition.

We have never believed that political strife and supremacy was the great object which has given rise to the present workingmen's reform—that they wish to avail themselves of certain privileges which others possess through the power of the ballot-box, without regard to universal right and justice. We have no fellowship with the idea that the workingmen should combine together, to be seen and known as a political faction, whose object shall be to dethrone other political parties and usurp to themselves the same unhallowed power to gratify a spirit of revenge or retaliation. It is power gained in this way which is oppressing, and of which we are complaining—shall we unite together and resort to the same means to gain the ascendancy that we may have "our turn" at ruling, while others are oppressed and wronged? This is not the aim or purpose of the workingmen's reform; the doctrine as we understand it is "equal justice," justice to all, that all are entitled to certain great and "inalienable rights," which are indispensably requisite to their happiness—to the perfection of their natures and to their individual and collective peace, prosperity, mental, physical and spiritual progress. [...] Now all alike are entitled to such a portion of nature's fruits as will conduce in the highest degree to their happiness, which will secure individual rights and collective order and tranquility, and should any, from physical disarrangement or accidental causality fail to contribute their share to the aggregate of human products, they are entitled to such a portion of the products of the mass—(not one individual), as will satisfy their every want and add to their comfort. This natural state of things does not exist, and society is cursed with the results; wrong, strife, confusion and wickedness—while one class is prodigally living in luxury which they never produced, another is in squalid poverty, robbed of the proceeds of their toil and made the servile instruments of tyranny and their own unhappy condition.

This state of society, which falls with such destructive weight upon those who are obliged to labor for a living and is casting a blight and mildew over the race, the workingmen of New England wish to remedy; and the question comes up at this time: Is political action the antidote? What has made society thus? ignorance and misused power; then is it not to be feared, that the same results will follow, so long as the cause exists? Suppose the workingmen organize into a political party and go up to do battle and contend with other parties for power; is there not danger of their being guilty of the same injustice that we now complain of should they gain the ascendancy? Although government at present is recreant to the true interests of the working classes, would they not be likely to become corrupt and oppressive once in power? Would it not be a warfare for might, rather than right, in which the victorious party claims the privilege of "legally" oppressing the other and violating their right by legislative enactments? So long as the inducement exists for men to abuse power gained by political action, there is danger in relying too much upon it to renovate society. The workingmen have certain great principles which they wish to establish, the prevalence of which would secure to all their natural rights and banish from community much of its poverty, vice and misery. Now before these principles can be applied, they must be understood; hence the necessity of intelligent action and moral power. Should we arouse the working class by exciting their prejudices and appealing to their passions and selfish feelings merely to a hot-headed political combat, in which the chief object should be power, a desire to avail themselves of the same opportunities and monopolizing privileges which their opposers enjoy, and should they succeed, no permanent good can be accomplished, for the same evil still exists, only in a different form; the oppressed now become oppressors, and those that ruled are now subjects. Now this evil should be eradicated; we must introduce these vital reconciling principles, which are universal in their application, seeking the good of all. To do this, the rights of all must be known and acknowledged, the community must be enlightened, and public opinion set at work—wrong exposed and right rewarded. But that the working classes of this country should have a firm, united and comprehensive organization is beyond a doubt. They suffer more from a want of union than all other causes combined; we are confused and divided; no confidence and without concentration of action or purpose. The various necessary offices of the country should be filled with workingmen, men who understand the wants of the people and will use their time and influence to encourage producing industry, who will legislate for humanity and virtue and aid on a speedy union between capital and labor; when the great principles of human rights to which we have alluded shall be made practical. Any measures that shall aim to bring about this happy result, we shall advocate and urge; anything that shall tend to introduce honest legislation and do away with party shuffling and trickery which characterize the politics of the day, we shall hail with joy. We confidently believe the day is not far distant when the workingmen will mature and unite upon such rational an efficient plans for operation, as shall effect a radical and permanent change in our present oppressive and degrading system of labor; we do not like to call it "political action"; society has debased this, it wears the demagogue's stain—it had been prostituted and despoiled of its virtue by party contention and lustful ambition, and the mere mention seems to imply unholy, sectarian controversy, factional aspirancy and Jacobinical usurpation; all the vice, wrong and uncharitable littleness which have disgraced the elective franchise, seems associated with it. Let us have some term more pure—rational, intelligent, brotherly action, Christian action; terms upon which all the friends of truth and goodness can unite; which shall make practical the beautiful truths of "equal rights" and mutual interests, and build to heaven the noble structure of humanity's brotherhood. Let the workingmen continue to organize and agitate throughout the various towns, states and countries, and let all well-digested measures founded upon justice and human rights be adopted and vigilantly prosecuted until labor shall receive its just reward and the heart of humanity made glad. Our cause is onward as sure as knowledge and truth will triumph over error and superstition. We should be happy to hear from any of our friends upon this subject.

We are publishing...

We are publishing a series of articles from the New York Tribune upon the state of "female labor" in that city, which develops a most deplorable degree of servitude, privation and misery among this helpless and dependent class of people. And yet they are famishing half-fed, half-clothed, and half-sheltered in the midst of extreme affluence and luxury! Their unmitigated, ill-rewarded and slavish toil has raised to lordly wealth a horde of merchants and speculators, who add nothing to the real wealth of the country, while these poor defenseless victims of avarice drudge on in miserable cooped-up, ill-ventilated cellars and garrets, pining away, heart-broken, in want, disease and wretchedness. The same to a great degree is true in other cities and towns; many of our New England cities have their thousands in a similar condition, were the truth known, who are increasing every year. Still we are unblushingly told that labor at the North is well rewarded; that "labor is honored, rewarded and respected," that "the masses are progressing in all that can refine, improve and elevate," and we are denounced as "fools, petty reformers, recreant knaves, and fit subjects to echo the sentiments of the nabobs of the South," because we show it to be false and are using our efforts to banish such heart-sickening misery, together with its causes.

Labor in New York: Its Circumstances, Conditions and Rewards.1

The Amazone braid weavers, a large and ill-paid class of working females, begin work at 7 in the evening, with not intermissions save to swallow a hasty morsel. They earn when in full employment $2 and 2.50 per week. Out of this they must pay their board, washing (for they have no time to wash their own clothes), medical and other incidental expenses, and purchase their clothes—to say nothing of the total absence of all healthy recreation and of all mental and moral culture, which such a condition naturally implies. They have many of them no rooms of their own, but board with some poor family, sleeping anyhow and anywhere. For these accommodations they pay $1.60 per week—some of the worst and filthiest boarding-houses, however, charging as low as $1 per week. The "living" here must be imagined.

The artificial-flower makers present a greater variety. The trade, as will readily be perceived, is one requiring great skill and delicacy in the finishing part of the work. Girls who had served five years' apprenticeship at the business and are very expert, if they work constantly, can make $3.50 per week. The flowers and wreaths which under the name of "French Flower Work" sell so dear and are so highly valued by our fashionable ladies, are mostly made here, although many of the materials are imported from France. The principle part of the work is done by young girls from eleven to thirteen years of age, "apprentices" as they are termed, who receive seventy-five cents, and a few, one dollar, per week! They of course live at home with their parents, for the most part, and have no time to go to school, to grow or to think. These "apprentices" as soon as they are out of their time are told that there is no more for them to do, and their places are supplied by fresh recruits who are taken and paid of course as apprentices. Every few days you may notice in the papers an advertisement something like this—"Wanted—Fifty Young Girls as Apprentices to the Artificial-Flower Making Business." These portend that a number of girls have become journey-women, and are consequently to be pushed out of work to make room for apprentices, who will receive but 75 cents or $1 per week. Many a five-dollar wreath and expensive flower, purchased [by] the Misses Lawsons, Madame Deuel, or Madame Godefroy, has been wrought into beauty by these little fingers, for perhaps two shillings, or half a dollar.

The artificial-flower business is extensively carried on here, and the product is deemed quite equal in finish and grace to the best Parisian or German flowers. We believe, from the most reliable data in our possession, that there are fifteen hundred or two thousand girls engaged in this department of labor in New York.

A great many women who make matchboxes receive but five cents per gross—or thirty boxes for a single cent! We knew of a mother of a family who supported her little children by this kind of work, who used to walk two miles to a starch factory to obtain the refuse for pasting the boxes—for which she paid a penny a pail. When she could succeed in doing this she said she could make a little profit, but when she had to buy flour to make paste with—then, she said, it was a losing business! Her little children thought so too.

We have already mentioned the cap makers, of which we suppose there are between one and two thousand. They earn on the average about two shillings per day, although there are many who do not make eighteen pence. They are thrust into a dark back room on a second, third, fourth, or fifth story chamber, thirty or forty together, and work from sunrise to sundown. There is too often not a human being in the world who has the slightest care or responsibility over the morals, manners or comforts of these unfortunate girls. If many of them become degraded and brutalized in taste, manners, habits and conversation, who can wonder?

These facts and remarks apply with equal force to the hundreds and thousands of shoebinders, type-rubbers and other girls employed on labor of this kind. In addition to the constant supply to the ranks of these classes furnished by the poor population of our city, poor girls continually flock to the city from every part of the country, either because their friends are dead and they have no home, or because they have certain vague dreams of city life. Arriving here they soon find how bitterly they have deceived themselves, and how rashly they have entered a condition where it is almost impossible for them to subsist, and where want and starvation are their only companions. They have been educated and reared in such a manner as to render the idea of servitude unendurable, and their only resort is the needle or some similar employment. Here they find the demand for work greatly over-supplied and competition so keen that they are at the mercy of employers, and are obliged to snatch at the privilege of working on any terms. They find that by working from fifteen to eighteen hours a day they can not possibly earn more than from one to three dollars a week, and this, deducting the time they are out of employment every year, will barely serve to furnish them the scantiest food, which from its unhealthy quality induces to disgust, loathing and disease. They have thus absolutely nothing left for clothes, recreation, sickness, books or intellectual improvement, and the buoyancy and exquisite animality of youth become a slow torturing fever from which death is a too-welcome relief. Their frames are bent by incessant and stooping toil, their health destroyed by want of rest and proper exercise, and their minds as effectually stunted, brutalized and destroyed over their momentous tasks, as if they were doomed to count the bricks in a prison wall: for what is life to them but a fearful and endless imprisonment with all its horrors and privations?—N. Y. Tribune

The Claims of Labor.2

A few days since in the columns of our paper, we earnestly asked our readers' attention to the condition of an interesting class of laborers, the females in our manufactories. In another article, upon professional men, we trust that we showed ourselves actuated by no mean, illiberal, or narrow-minded spirit, but rather by a disposition to do justice to the labors and merits of all; and with an honest belief that our sympathies are with the worthy of every class, and that our prejudices are against none, we venture upon the discussion more generally of the claims of labor.

We suppose there are those who believe in the inherent necessity in every State for a class of persons to exist in extreme poverty. As such a class has always existed, they regard it a law of man's life on earth that it shall exist. They suppose such a class indispensable to the comfort and refinement of other classes. They hate, perhaps, black slavery, but must have forsooth a class of white slaves.

Let us define what we mean by poor. We mean the condition of those who have not property enough to provide for their bodily wants, to ward off or alleviate the ills of disease, accidents or old age; to gratify a cultivated taste without any servile and unmanly dependence on a patron, or that most tyrannical of all patrons, the public.

We hold that there is no necessity for such a class; for that every industrious man produces so much more than he consumes, that each person may have all that is necessary to lift him above poverty, and society be able to support its unfortunate members, its young, and its aged, with ease.

Add to this the still producing labor of dead generations, and there is enough and to spare for the living. Consider too the immense amount of work and labor done by machinery, by the elements—fire, wind, and water—for man, and it is clear that the rigor of the curse is mitigating, and if wealth were more equally shared all might be rich together. There is no antecedent iron necessity that there should be a class bowed down with a heavy load of poverty. The Creator has not, we think, so ordained. Nor is such a class necessary for the perfection of the rest. There is nothing man does for man, in a spirit of love, that is degrading. The meanest offices are holy and honorable when done in a spirit of kindness and mercy. Many of the offices a physician performs are disgusting; much of the lawyer's labor is servile drudgery, yet these professions are respected, and other considerations impart dignity to their members. It is a great truth that a great soul will not shrink from doing anything for man. The Son of God washed the feet of the sons of men. Since those things are so, those offices which are now assigned to the poor will continue to be done so far as they are useful, however the condition of the poor may be ameliorated. The dependence of all classes upon all classes will continue forever. The effect as we suppose of ameliorating the condition of the poor will be that all things which are done will be done more readily, better, and at less cost. We are also of opinion that those delicate and refined pursuits which require a life-time of application, as music, painting, sculpture, so far from being injured were there no poor would find a new class of patrons and a wider field for exertion. The patronage of the arts, which under a better constitution of things might come from the laboring classes, is worthy of thought.

How to elevate the working classes is a more difficult problem to solve, than to prove that it would be safe to elevate even the poorest of the poor. One thing however is certain, no class of serfs should be created where none exists.

When there is danger of such a class being created, as in the factories, let legislation interfere to prevent. Let society at least hold what she has got.—Weekly Bee

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1This article is a report on labor conditions in New York. The Voice reprinted it from the New York Tribune.
• 2The Voice reprinted this article from the Weekly Bee.

Gradual Abasement of the Producing Classes.1

We have explained in the two preceding numbers of the Phalanx two of the great social evils with which we believe this country is threatened: first, violence, sectional dissension, and revolutionary ferment growing out of the question of slavery in the South; and second, a commercial feudalism and the subjection of the producing classes to the absolute control and tyranny of capital—to a vast financial and commercial oligarchy—and the indirect slavery of the mass; and we pointed out some of the elements at work in society to bring about these great social calamities.

We will point out in the present article the third great evil which menaces this country; it is the gradual sinking of the great body of the people into poverty and a state of degrading dependence—a result of the present false system of industry, based upon competitive strife, conflict of interest and an inequitable division of profits. To a great extent the laboring classes are already poor and the serfs of capital, but when we speak of the poverty and degradation which the future has in store for the laboring or producing classes, we mean a far more extended state of poverty and servile dependence than that which now exists; we mean that the great majority of the people, the producing classes, the farmers, the mechanics and the laborers, will all be gradually despoiled of the property they now possess and become the poor dependents of a small minority who will absorb and concentrate in their own hands the wealth of the country. The producing classes, the great body of the people in this country, are tending—slowly it may be, but surely—towards that poverty, pecuniary dependence, and industrial bondage, which exists in Europe, and which will necessarily bring with it that degradation of the masses, and that industrial oppression, which characterize the older countries, where the pernicious influence of the false system of society, called civilization, under which we live, has been more fully realized in practice. The causes which are to produce the result are clearly to be seen in action, the principles at work in society to produce it are evident, and although the practical effects are not so numerous and striking as to attract general attention or gain credence when pointed out, yet the discerning mind cannot but perceive [the] tendency of things, nor fail to note the great and all-important fact of a gradual abasement of the laboring classes in this country.

We might cite many facts in proof of this, but our object at present is more to illustrate from principles, which are universal and uniform in their action and effects, than to point out facts of a fragmental nature and bearing.

We will speak in the present article of four principal influences which are operating to produce the gradual abasement of the working or producing classes of this country and their subjection to a state of poverty and abject industrial servitude.

1st. The power of capital and its control over labor.

2nd. Free competition or hostile strife among the working classes to obtain the work which capitalists and employers require, the effect of which is a constant reduction of wages, or a decrease in the price of labor, which is the poor man's only property.

3rd. Machinery owned by the few, which works against the laboring classes instead of for them.

4th. Isolation; want of combination and concert of action among the working classes and consequent weakness and helplessness, which make them an easy prey to the combined and more intelligent action of those who have the capital and credit of society in their hands.

1st. The power of capital and its control over labor.

The power of capital is almost boundless and absolute, and as it controls labor, it controls indirectly as a consequence the classes who live by labor. Now the question is to what end will this power of capital and its control over the labor classes be exercised? The answer is simple; the owners of capital will aim to obtain complete and absolute supremacy. By every means that have the least coloring of legitimacy, direct and indirect, by legislation of which the moneyed interests are now the masters, monopoly, usury and extortion, by every device of cunning and legalized fraud and hidden injustice and oppression, capital will seek to obtain the largest portion possible of the fruits of labor, and to reduce the producing classes to that state of dependence and subservience, which will render it undisputed sovereign of industry, and the classes, the small minority who possess it, the rulers of society. And it will succeed, for its power is as inherently irresistible as it is selfishly unscrupulous. As society is now constituted, with "individualism" for its basis and the right of every man to take care of himself at the expense of his neighbor acknowledged and acted upon universally, the class of persons who are benefited by the usurpation of capital will neither be blamed nor blameable—the wealth and power which accident of birth or good fortune confer are possessions which all desire and all would obtain if possible.

The aim of capital is to amass, to accumulate; and ambition and cupidity combine to give intensity to the desire of accumulation. In this modern age, riches confer respectability and standing, as did in former days military skill and exploits, and men now combat fortune, especially in this country where hereditary rank does not exist and the glory of war has departed, as they did formerly for the bloody laurels of carnage. Wealth is now the main standard of distinction in society, and as a consequence the desire to possess it is strong and the struggle to obtain it fierce and unrelenting.

Whence do riches come? from what source does capital draw its income? From labor, from productive, creative labor, which is the sole and only source of wealth. From labor must be drawn the riches which are to satisfy the cupidity or the ambition of the men of this age—an age of financial and industrial war, in which the laurels are money bags, and the victims the poor toilers of industry.

The object of capital, therefore, is to draw all it can from labor, to amass, to absorb as much as possible of the wealth created by human industry. We find, consequently, capital arrayed against labor, and labor in its despair endeavoring to react against capital, and opposition, or a regularly organized warfare is waged between them. On the one hand, capital seeks to oppress and spoilate labor, and on the other hand, labor strives to resist the encroachments of capital. Capital is represented in this country by the merchants, bankers, financiers and master-manufacturers; in Europe, by these classes and the nobility. Labor is represented by the agricultural, manufacturing and mechanical classes. This relation of the two classes of capitalist and laborers renders them opponents and enemies of each other, and while the first class is prosecuting extensive speculations, securing privileges and planning monopolies, the second class by feeble and impotent shifts are endeavoring to increase slightly the price of wages or maintain the pitiful modicum which they receive. But capital is all-powerful, and as it accumulates, labor must be impoverished, and the result must inevitably be that capital will absorb and monopolize the wealth of society, whilst the immense majority who perform the labor will be deprived of everything and sunk into dependence and destitution.

How can it be otherwise? Labor cannot maintain its ground against the encroachments of powerful capital. The only property of the working classes is their labor, which they must sell day by day in order to obtain the means of existence. Employment and life are one with the laboring classes; the laboring classes cannot wait and force capital to buy their labor at a fair price; they must have work, and the labor of their hands must be realized at once in a shape which will give them the means of subsistence. Not so with the class of capitalists; they can afford to wait, having ample means of living, and thus while half-starved labor is urged by want to sell itself at any price, capital at its leisure can plan schemes and dictate terms, which suit its own interests. Labor must accept the terms which capital lays down; the producing classes must either take the wages which capital will give if they are its hirelings, or they must sell the products of their industry at the prices which capital establishes and will pay, and buy what they consume at the prices it asks. In either case the effect is the same, to impoverish the producing classes. In regard to the effect upon wages, where capital operates upon masses of hired laborers, the result is well known, but in all the ramifications of business, agricultural and manufacturing, the process of spoilation is constantly in operation. The producer everywhere is forced to sell the products of his industry cheap, and to buy what he consumes dear. Thus he pays a tribute to capital, whether employed in finance or commerce, which in time enables it to eat up his substance. Do not mechanics and small manufacturers see and know this when they take their wares to a market to sell? Do not farmers see and feel it when they take their products to the country merchants to dispose of? to say nothing of the extensive and powerful leagues among millers, drovers and butchers, which fleece them upon a large scale out of their heavier products, their corn and their cattle, by taking every advantage which circumstances offer?

They who have the active capital and wield the credit of society—the bankers, merchants and master-manufacturers—buy and sell the products of labor; and they are thus enabled to levy a tax upon both producer and consumer, and in time to become the possessors of the means of production and distribution, the whole capital of society—the soil, workshops, &c., the means of transportation, ships, steamboats, canals and railroads—besides controlling and directing the money-power through the agency of banks and other moneyed institutions, which they also own. Thus they have completely in their power labor or production, and those who are engaged in it.

With this power and these advantages, possessed by capital, and the weakness and the dependence of labor, it is evident that the producing or laboring classes who compose the great body of the people must in time be impoverished, reduced to dependence and become the lowly hirelings and serfs—the "living machines" of capital.

Our remarks upon the other three divisions of this subject are postponed to the next number.—Phalanx

Our Manufacturing System.

Much has been said and written upon the present system of manufacturing in America and England, and much still remains to be written and spoken before the American people will awake to [a] true and rational sense of its enormity and paralyzing effects upon the health, virtue, national and individual prosperity of our people.

We are well aware that much has been said and written for selfish party purposes; much has been done to inflame the community against "corporation monopoly" and "chartered monsters," merely to gain party ends, and for this reason every honest effort to show the true state of the system as it really exists has encountered the prejudices and political understanding of a portion of our citizens and been denounced as "humbugs" and their advocates as "petty reformers" and "addle-pated exciters." Thus people suffer themselves to be chained to their sectarian notions and selfish and party interests, blinding their understanding and rejecting everything that conflicts with their circumscribed bounds and dogmatical opinions. There is nothing that so stifles and perverts the truth and hinders the mental, physical and moral progression of the race as modern sectarianism and party allegiance. A young man through some influence or other comes upon the stage of action a full-rigged Whig, he of course, must be in favor of the present system of manufacturing, a "national bank," "distribution of the public lands," and many other great and vital "Whig principles" and opposed to "annexation," and why? for the very sound and cogent reason that "our party" is. Another young man takes his stand upon the political platform a thorough Democrat, he (certainly) must be opposed to the "factory system," a "national bank," "distribution" and all other Whig measures and in favor of "annexation," because "our party" is. Every subject must be measured by "our party" or "our sect" and if they agree, they are adopted and defended, right or wrong, if not they are discarded and rejected. So it is; ambition—misguided philosophy and blinded theology have concerted certain great system; society has gradually adopted—embraced them, until they are interwoven into her texture and have become the very filling of the sacred fabric which so miserably supplies the wants and covers the bare necessities of mankind, and he that steps forwards to introduce some new material that shall clothe humanity in her own beautiful garments is assailed as an infidel, fanatic and a mad man. We have no sympathy with parties, sects and creeds, which tend to trammel the free legitimate action of the natural understanding, causing a man to do violence to his own being and disregarding the rights of others—we are as free as the winds that fan our hills—free to believe truth from whatever source it may come—free to believe all truths, because they are truths. Therefore we believe the present factory system is wrong—wrong in principle and injurious in its results, subverting the natural rights of man, dooming one class of our fellows to wretched, degraded servitude, while another lives in ill-gotten affluence and vicious excess. We do not speak against the factory system because we are a Whig, or a Democrat, a tariff or anti-tariff advocate, but because we are a man and wish to see truth prevail, the doctrines of Christ made practical and mankind universally enjoy heaven's natural blessings. That much disquietude exists among the advocates and votaries of the factory system, as now organized, is very apparent. The great revolution that is now gathering among the laboring people speaks in portentous accents, that unfeeling capital shall not always rule; rioting and fattening upon the bones and sinews and life blood of the indigent working people; that a brighter day will dawn before long when man—his immortal soul and body's best good shall be primary and capital—the dust of the earth, woods and bounding streams, shall become secondary—governed by his enlightened will and administering to his rational wants—a day when human flesh and blood shall not be sold in the market or put in material competition with the mechanical devices of men. A great effort is now being made by the various friends and advocates of manufacturing monopoly to forestall public opinion in its favor, to ingratiate it into the good will of the American people by holding up its most beautiful features and extolling the factories above every institution in the country for moral, physical and intellectual improvement. But what seems to us quite strange and inconsistent is that these same eulogists should send their sons and daughters to other institutions for cultivation and improvement, while these are so far superior. Why are not the daughters of the manufacturers, agents and superintendents to be found over the loom, the spindling frame, in the carding or dressing rooms, beside "these fresh spirits, gathered down from the green mountains and peaceful valleys," gaining an education, "improving their health" and laying up their "two thousand dollars," after buying a farm worth eleven hundred? Why are not the factory girls to be found in the parlors and at the social gatherings of these same individuals, if they hold their characters and accomplishments in such high esteem? It requires no extraordinary amount of discernment to develop the true cause of the present effort, on the part of the community, to render our manufacturing system popular—the working people have taken this matter into their own hands, and avarice fears the result. Consequently the "free, contented and well-paid operatives" are loaded with heartless praises and fulsome flattery (which reminds us very much of the fable about the spider and the fly); the press is bought up to do the bidding of capital, and sounds forth its high panegyrics upon the superior excellencies of factory life, and is ready to brand all as "deluded and fanatical fools" who stand out, and show by sound philosophy and from Christian principles, that the tendency of the system is wrong and pernicious to the prosperity of a large class of our people. Political scribblers, to accomplish some dastardly party purpose, are lavish with their false and high-colored encomiums upon the "free spirits and glittering temples of happy industry"—men in "high places" are ready to throw their influence and clerical weight in favor of oppression and soul-corrupting power, and a horde of underlings, expectants and crumb-catchers are all quite anxious, lest the workingmen's movement and the spirit of investigation and reform which now prevails to a great extent among the laboring people, shall disrobe the factory system of its false garb when it shall be seen and known as it really is—a manufacturing feudalism, building up a throne of lordly wealth and luxurious superabundance for the few, at the physical, mental and moral sacrifice of the mass. The great hobby of the advocates of the system at this time is to hold up the superior condition of the American operatives compared with the miserable, half-starved slaves and serfs of the Old World, as a quietus to our workingmen and women, who may entertain the apprehension at times, that all is not so republican and Christian as many would have them believe; and they are insultingly asked to be thankful for their high privileges and "free institutions" and advised to be contended, industrious, economical and let "well enough alone." Now all this is very fine talk for those persons who are living in splendor, upon the hard earnings of others, but the free-thinking, industrious operatives and working men are sick of such hollow-hearted good will—they are not content with the privilege of working twelve or thirteen hours per day, making slaves of their bodies and minds, that a gang of capitalists and speculators may live in elegant mansions, ride in splendid coaches, build rail roads, rear cities, construct costly sanctuaries, support a popular and gold-serving clergy and "fare sumptuously every day"; while a portion of them receive a bare subsistence, and perhaps a few of life's dispensables and others live in constant want, anxiety and privation. The American workingmen and women will not long suffer this gradual system of republican encroachment, which is fast reducing them to dependence, vassalage and slavery, because the English, Irish or French operatives are greater slaves, their condition more deplorable, or English capitalists and task masters have the power to be more tyrannical and oppressive. They will not have their rights thus measured—they are men and women—the children of humanity, and claim the rights that God has given to all of earth's offspring—"the right to life, liberty and the pursuits of happiness," and they will be content with nothing short of this. The condition of the working classes, of many of the old countries is sad and distressing in the extreme, and they should have the sympathy and commiseration of every working man and woman in America, but while we feel for them, we should not become blind to our own true condition and suffer the same system which has thus degraded them, to steal gradually upon our people, and the same wide-spreading Upas tree of oppression to overshadow our fair land. This is not fanciful—it is no hot-headed undeliberate assertion of ours, that the same evil is already rooted in our soil which has made them nations of luxurious lords and starving beggars—'tis too true and we are not alone in the belief. In view of these things we call upon the operatives and working classes of New England to organize and investigate the present state of society and see why it is that our country is growing in wealth and opulence, its cities and manufactories rising, its capital reaping vast dividends, while its laboring, producing sons and daughters are constantly becoming more dependent and want, poverty, crime and misery are daily increasing. Operatives and workingmen of America!—it is by your industry that these cities and manufactories are reared, by your toil, the nation grows in wealth, by your bones and sinews that columns of brick and stone tower towards the heavens, by you this vast complication of machinery is kept in daily motion, and the beautiful production is displayed to the world; you clothe the idle and feed the indolent and unproducing; then consider that, by your will, they can subserve the true interests of mankind and become a blessing to humanity, by your united and intelligent action and vigilance a valuable heritage will be transmitted to posterity; but by your apathy and neglect, slavery and oppression will inevitably follow.

We take the liberty...

We take the liberty of publishing the following extract from a private letter of a friend written from the West:

I have taken pleasure in perusing the Voice of Industry; the theory there laid down and defended is for the benefit of nine-tenths of the community,* if they but reflect, and are guided by reason. But I fear the mass of mankind will be led along by the few until they find themselves bound, both body and mind. We have here in this part of the country men who stand high in popular favor, who scruple not at robbing the widow and fatherless of their mite, to fill their already overflowing coffers obtained by robbery. Now if such things continue to progress, the workingmen will soon find themselves on a level with the slaves of the South. I am right glad that the wise men of the East (pardon the expression) have independence of mind enough to come out in their own defense, at least some of them, and proclaim themselves free. I as one who toils for his bread wish them God speed in their noble undertaking, and hope their labors will not cease until they have opened the prison doors and set the captives free.

* Yes ten-tenths—humanity and the true principles of right and justice are universal, "the greatest good of the greatest number" is a bad maxim—the greatest good of ALL.

For the Voice of Industry.

Mr. Editor: I noticed in the Voice, not long since, a short article on the work just published, entitled "Lowell as it was and as it is." It would seem as though the author of that work would make the public believe that he is perfectly acquainted with the laws of health, when he very coolly tells us that factory labor is conducive to health. If lamp smoke, cotton dust, the nausea of miserable oil, and wet walls from the effects of steam, are congenial elements of life and health, then will the author of that work be abundantly sustained in the position he has chosen. But are these really what he claims for them; is half-masticated food and badly ventilated rooms in addition to all the unwholesome materials with which they are in constant contact, in reality, elements of life; if so we shall see the reverend author of that little work, on the first indication of ill health, place his own children within the walls of one of these hospitals where they may have their health perfected without any fears of the morals or intellects in any way being injured, placing them at the same time in the care of the "moral police" of the corporations.

So far as the health of the operatives is concerned, anyone blessed with common observation cannot be ignorant of the fact that the operatives are obliged to go into the country almost universally to improve their health, and that with a few weeks' stay, they return much better than when they leave. If they are improved by working in the mills, it is strange that they should be under the necessity of going into the country for such a purpose. Can the health of the operatives as stated by the work alluded to be harmonized with the physical laws? we think not; are not these laws immutable? Can they be violated at the bidding of the corporations without the penalty being inflicted? Is not God their author? If so "let God be true though every man be a liar." More anon. - Olivia

The papers are full...

The papers are full of "War with Mexico." The slave republic of the United States, going to war with the anti-slavery republic of Mexico, and calling it a contest for liberty! Our government had better take care of what territory she already possesses instead of fighting for more.

If there is anything disagreeable...

If there is anything disagreeable in the social circle, really loathsome in any kind of society, it is to hear a poverty-stricken aristocrat, too lazy to work, and ashamed to beg, talk of what he once was; of rich uncles, aunts and cousins; of the splendor of his father's mansion, and his mother's first society.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1The Voice reprinted this article from the Phalanx.

Practical Operations.

Theory is of much importance, but without practice, it is of very little avail. Now the workingmen of New England have before them a great problem—they have studied, examined, investigated and theorized; yes they have solved it—that God never created a slave; that all men by nature are heirs to freedom—freedom of body and mind; consequently entitled to the natural enjoyment and voluntary disposal of the products of their physical and mental labor. Society does not recognize this great and vital truth, or refuses to practically acknowledge it; hence we have slavery, oppression, want and misery. Labor is despoiled of its dignity and the laborer robbed, degraded and made a beggar. To reform this disastrous and unnatural state of things, and make practical the cardinal principles of "equal rights," justice and mutual interests; and introduce a new state of society, in which labor shall be respected and rewarded, and the laborer ennobled and made happy, requires no little amount of energy, moral courage and self-sacrifice; and he who steps out to reform the present system of labor cannot expect to glide smoothly along in the sunshine of popular favor, praised and applauded by the falsely named wise and great, lay upon beds of down or live in ease and inactivity. Every workingman who feels an interest in the present movement among the friends of labor reform should be active, vigilant and industrious. There is much to be done, a great work is before us, many obstacles to surmount and numerous long-standing and deep-rooted customs and inveteracies to encounter. The first and most important measure towards a permanent and successful reform in our present system of labor is

an intelligent and comprehensive organization

among the producing classes. Let associations be formed in every town, city and village throughout New England; and shame on the man or woman who would refuse to join, lest their popularity should be impeached, and they receive the very vulgar opprobrium of "laborers" or friends and associates of the "working people"—shocking! Such people are unworthy the name of men and women and should receive the just contempt of every honest and high-minded toiler. It is of the utmost importance that the working classes unite together—not to rob, plunder or wrong any man or class of men; but to assert their self-evident and acknowledged rights, and peaceably remove the oppressive burdens which unjust laws, superstition, ambition and ignorance have brought upon them. Workingmen's meetings should be held in all parts of the country, and all questions touching the welfare of the laboring population and the elevation of mankind, openly, freely and plainly discussed. Let not the love of false praise, flattery and pretended sympathy deter any from giving their influence and cheerful support to the cause of human rights. Many there are who would gladly destroy and overthrow the cause in which we are engaged by their hollow-hearted demagogism and hypocritical encomiums upon the virtue, intelligence and exalted condition of the American operatives and working classes—heed them not, our word for it, they are political aspirants, social aristocrats, mercenary tyrants, or those who are willing to do their bidding and be their slaves for the "crumbs that fall from their master's table." Our voice warns you to beware of such "wolves in sheep's clothing"—let them not inveigle you into the delusive idea that all is well, while they are fleecing the product of your honest toil and faithful industry, upon which they live in vicious excess. We say to the workingmen of New England, come up to the rescue! Justice says come, humanity says come, your own best good and the well-being of posterity demands your immediate attention. Let us unite into one strong, active and united band of brothers—friends to virtue, goodness and the violated rights of mankind everywhere and under all circumstances; and uncompromising enemies to oppression of every form and in every clime. The working classes of New England demand a reform and their voices will not cease until it is accomplished. There are several well-matured and concerted measures, which require their united and harmonious action. The workingmen of New England demand

a reduction in the expenses of our national government

to a just and relative proportion with the usual wages of the common laborer. They demand

a reduction of the hours of labor in our manufactories

and the right to mutual contract, between the employer and the employed, which the present system of manufacturing virtually abrogates. They demand

a protective lien law

that shall guard the rights of many of our hard-working mechanics against the fraudulent cupidity of unprincipled "jobbers." They demand

the abolition of the "order system"

which is swindling the laboring out of their scanty wages, to fill the coffers of speculation and mercantile exchanges—and many other measures are now ripe for honest, intelligent and united action. Hence we urge the workingmen and women to organize without delay, that our theories may practically tell upon the physical, mental and moral condition of our race.

The author of the following...

The author of the following extract will pardon us for bringing it before the public without special permission. The tone and sentiments are so correct that we take the liberty, feeling that it might stimulate other sympathizing minds to do likewise.

Manchester, Sept. 6, 1845.

Mr. Editor.—I am a workingman, and as such, am willing to do all I can for the support of such papers as advocate the workingman's rights. I have seen several numbers of your paper and like its contents and the spirit with which it is conducted. It is a subject in which I am deeply interested—it has been my study for many years, and it should interest every man; yet how few there are in our ranks that are sensible that they have any rights, or that ever bestow a thought on the subject. Strange indeed that the producers of all the wealth should suffer themselves to be thus down-trodden, and but a solitary "Voice" raised against it. I have done all that I could [to] sustain the "Laborer" (published by Mr. Cox) by obtaining subscribers &c. And I regret that the workingmen cannot, or will not lift up a united voice that must and shall be heard. If aught is ever done to ameliorate the condition of the toil-worn laborer, it must be through the medium of the press. The pulpit could do much, but the clergy are ever enemies to reform; but public meetings can be held, lectures and addresses given to call attention of people to the subject. Would to heaven I could speak and write all that I think, and feel, on the rights of humanity—cheerfully would I wear out myself in the cause, for I know from sad experience what it is to toil incessantly for a bare subsistence.

Fifteen years have I labored for a corporation, and with rigid economy can little more than live, as my health from constant toil and confinement is consequently poor.

Cannot Congress be called in, to act on the subject of the hours of labor? I think the next Congress will be friendly, and if petitions were carried in something might be done. For myself I look to associated industry as the only alternative for the crying evils of the day, yet a reduction of the hours of labor would do much towards lessening our burden.

* We have but little hopes of Congress doing anything to abolish white slavery at the North, so long as her capital is stained with the blood of suffering negroes.

We find the following paragraph...1

We find the following paragraph going the rounds of the papers:

Factory girls' savings.—It is stated that the amount of money deposited by female operatives in the Lowell Savings Bank is equal to twelve hundred and fifty dollars for every factory girl in the place. Some of them have saved two thousand dollars each! the interest of which would yield a handsome support.

A more barefaced and foolish lie—an emanation from a knave or a fool—never before appeared in the public papers. Now look at the facts. There are employed in the Lowell factories (incorporated mills) 6,320 girls. Perhaps we may say, in all the manufactories in Lowell there are 7,000 females. Seven thousand multiplied by twelve hundred and fifty gives $8,750,000; or within about two millions of the whole incorporated capital of Lowell! This, then, must be the gross amount on deposit by the factory girls of Lowell. On the 30th of April last, a statement of the Treasurer of the Lowell Savings Institution was published in most of the papers of this city. By this statement it appears that there are 4,079 depositors, and that the whole amount deposited is $674,624.82; or the smart sum of $8,075,317.18 less than the amount above reported to be on deposit by the factory girls of Lowell. Nor should it be forgotten either that of the money deposited in the Lowell Savings Bank, perhaps one half is deposited by male operatives in the mills, and by mechanics, laborers, &c., out of the mills.

We respect the Lowell factory girls. They are generally females of exemplary character. Few of them are natives of our city. They come from distant towns, and from neighboring states. They have brought with them the virtues, the economies and the industrious habits of the country farm house. In their present employment we sincerely sympathize with them. Their task is a hard one, and they need no false sympathy—no quondam friendship. By such they are injured and debased. It is the tendency of such articles as we have quoted above to do this. None but a person interested in procuring a surplus of help—which must inevitably break down the wages of labor—could have been the instrument of putting it forth in its present form. Nor is this the only article of the same character that has been published respecting the profits of factory labor. In one instance a story got into the papers of a woman who had laid up in a given time about three thousand dollars by factory labor. The story was false in more instances than one. In the first place the female had not laid by more than half the amount stated, and about half of this sum it has been strongly suspected was obtained as hush money of a prominent factory man, who had been intimate with her, and who was the father of her "boy now living in the country." We do not object to the publication of facts. Let them come. No one will be injured by them. But falsehoods injure the whole community, and it is the duty of honest men to correct them.—Vox Populi

Remarks on the Object of the "Voice."2

No. I "What we labor for—the abolition of idleness."

Noble object! The fields are white already for the harvest. Idleness has already become a monster in the earth; and but for the industrious would bring its devoted subjects to a "morsel of bread." Then the industrious are indirectly the supporters of that abominable evil, which if practiced, renders its practitioners dependent upon his neighbor. Yes, the idle man lives upon the hard earnings of the poor laborer.

If the laborer would not work, the idle must, or starve. And hence to shield the poor laborer from an unrighteous tax "grievous to be borne," it wisely decreed in the scriptures of old—"if a man will not work, neither shall he eat."

The laborer, though guilty of violating this heavenly impulse to activity and usefulness, by feeding the idle, still is not equally guilty with his opulent pensioner or temporal lord, who has broken both the commands to obtain his bread by the "sweat of his brow," and to abstain from eating when he abstains from working.

Laborers, it is for you to say whether idleness shall continue to dwell in your midst. They only have a right to be idle who cannot labor. The sick and the lame, the maimed, halt and the blind—these are objects of charity. The healthy, robust and able, continually idle, it is sinful to feed. Then lift higher and swell louder your "Voice" till the idler trembles and idleness dies.

No. II "What we labor for—the abolition of want."

"Voice," your cause is a good one. God labors for this—"the abolition of want." "He openeth his hand and satisfieth the desires (wants) of every living thing." Not the artificial wants, but such as he originates. He makes provision for the natural wants of all his children—not directly, now, as in the days gone by when he withdrew the windows of heaven and the wilderness became a table of manna; but through the instrumentality of his faithful to labor. Thus God provides a plenty. Albeit, the aristocracy claims the honor of dividing. Hence want reigns around—ragged the laborer, and breadless and naked his family.

The aristocracy divides! No wonder there is want.

Laborers, your employers must have their "luxuries"—it is folly to talk of equality to the proud and the haughty, your temporal lords. But away with such lords—"there is bread enough and to spare"—why do ye "perish with hunger."

It is for the wanting today whether want shall abound. Then lift higher and swell louder your "Voice," till the pampering haughty are brought to a level with thee, and thou aboundest with the fat of the land.

No. III "What we labor for—the abolition of oppression."

"Voice," for this, the savior came; for this, he suffered; for this, he labored; for this, he died and rose again. To relieve the oppressed is, therefore Christian—is the cause of God, of Christ and humanity. Goodness and justice demand it—so also does reason, the handmaid of heaven. "Come now let us reason together," saith the lord, "wash you, make you clean: your hands are full of blood: put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow; and though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

"To improve the condition of the least fortunate laboring classes, is inevitably infidel and can't be anything else," says the editor of the N. Y. Tribune. But what affinity hath this reasoning with the reasoning of the almighty, as above noticed? Will the editor please compare notes; and having discovered his error, "wash and be clean"—relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow; for these are among the least fortunate of the laboring classes.

The abolition of oppression demands the united energies of a Christian people. And surely the oppressed themselves should not tamely submit to their chains. It is for the oppressed to say whether oppression shall continue in the land of the freeborn. Then lift higher and swell louder your "Voice," till oppression shall cease and the oppressed go free.

Chelmsford, Ms.
Industry.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1The Voice reprinted this article from Vox Populi.
• 2This text references the slogan of the Voice: "What we labor for—the abolition of idleness, want and oppression; the prevalence of industry, virtue and intelligence."

Voluntarily!1

American Factories and Their Female Operatives. By the Rev. [William] Scoresby, D. D., Vicar of Bradford, Yorkshire, England. From the London edition. Boston: [William] D. Ticknor and Co. 1845, pp. 133.

Lowell as It Was, and as It Is. By Rev. Henry A. Miles. Lowell: Powers and Bagley, and N. L. Dayton. 1845, pp. 234.

New York Daily Tribune. Saturday August 16, 1845. Visit to Lowell, &c.

To judge from the description of these writers, Lowell is rather nearer a paradisaical condition than most places. They are unanimous in holding it up as one of the most perfect localities that do the sun honor, by receiving his diurnal contributions of light and heat. The correspondent of the Tribune especially, cannot contain his astonishment at the spectacle. He grows eloquent and sentimental, and even classical under its influence, and lets himself out into full flourishes of that peculiar enthusiasm in which correspondents of the daily presses are apt to take satisfaction. We make room for a sample of his delight.

[...]

Mr. Miles [...] seems to suppose that a reasonable degree of justice to man is realized when the laborer is shut up in a close room from ten to twelve hours a day in the most monotonous and tedious of employments. This is not wrong, we shall be told; they come voluntarily and leave when they will. Voluntarily! we might reply, so much the worse if they do; but let us look a little at this remarkable form of human freedom. Do they from mere choice leave their fathers' dwellings, the firesides where are all their friends, where too their earliest and fondest recollections cluster, for the factory and the corporation boarding house? By what charm do these great companies immure human creatures in the bloom of youth and first glow of life within their mills, away from their homes and kindred? A slave too goes voluntarily to his task, but his will is in some manner quickened by the whip of the overseer. The whip which brings laborers to Lowell is necessity. They must have money; a father's debts are to be paid, an aged mother is to be supported, a brother's ambition is to be aided, and so the factories are supplied. Is this to act from free will? When a man is starving he is compelled to pay his neighbor, who happens to have bread, the most exorbitant price for it, and his neighbor may appease his conscience, if conscience he chance to have, by the reflection that it is altogether a voluntary bargain. Is any one such a fool as to suppose that out of six thousand factory girls of Lowell, sixty would be there if they could help it? Every body knows that it is necessity alone, in some form or other, that takes them to Lowell and that keeps them there. Is this freedom? To our minds it is slavery quite as really as any in Turkey [the Ottoman Empire] or Carolina. It matters little as to the fact of slavery, whether the slave be compelled to his tasks by the whip of the overseer or the wages of the Lowell corporations. In either case it is not his own free will, leading him to work, but an outward necessity that puts free will out of the question.

[...]

We do not attack the Lowell corporations in particular. It is the whole system of modern industry with which we are at war, and we have chosen to suppose the example we are considering to be as free from objections as possible. We wish to show that even at Lowell the existing system of labor and the relations between the work[wo]men and their employers are full of the foulest wrongs, that it cannot stand for an instant before the bar of justice. Did we desire to examine the final fruits of the system, we should have taken Manchester, or Leeds, with English Parliamentary reports for our guides, rather than Lowell, and the Rev. Mr. Miles. There the wages system has had its complete operation and fully worked out its tendencies. But we do not need to unfold the vice, the degradation, and the misery in which industrial feudalism has steeped the manufacturing laborers of England, in order to convince candid and humane persons that, judged by any other standard than that of worldly selfishness, the whole system of factory labor is unnatural, oppressive and unjust. That in New England it has not yet reached its climax, that we have not seen all or the foulest of the Hydra's heads, is owing to the youth of the system amongst us, and to the peculiarly favorable circumstances, which diminish every day. That gloomy era approaches, in our manufacturing towns we see more than mere premonitions of its coming, when the pale sky of New England shall look down on men, women, and children ground to the very dust by feudal monopoly. Perhaps there are some laborers already, who are inclined to complain that the iron foot of capital is laid upon their necks. What foolish repining! Friends, be contented with the lot in which you are placed! Would you rebel against the decrees of Providence?

[...]

We are engaged in a movement, the aim of which, is the elevation of the whole human race into a social condition of complete and universal justice. While thus seeking the good of all men, of all orders and conditions, we cannot be blind to the fact that the laboring classes are everywhere greater suffers than any other. In Barbarian society, the slaves of arbitrary power and of brute force, in Civilized society, the slaves of money and their physical necessities, they are universally oppressed, degraded, and regarded as an inferior order of beings. But they are beginning to understand that they have all the attributes of men, and will soon demand their rights so clearly, that the moral sense of the world can no longer refuse them. To their cause we are bound, heart and soul. While we have a voice it shall never be silent on their behalf. Upon our banner are inscribed the sacred words, which to them have a nearer meaning than to other men, "The Right to Educate; the Right to Labor; the Right to just Compensation; Association." Let the cowardly and the heartless be doubtful as to the result. [- The Harbinger]

Our Real Necessities.

Is it really necessary that men and women should toil and labor twelve, sixteen, and even eighteen hours, to obtain the mere sustenance of their physical natures? Have they no other wants which call as loudly for satisfaction as those? Call ye this life—to labor, eat, drink and die, without knowing any thing comparatively speaking, of our mysterious natures—of the object of our creation and preservation and final destination? No! 'tis not life. It is merely existing in common with the inanimate and senseless part of creation. Life is earnest! Not to obtain the perishing things which pertain to the outward; but, earnest in procuring the riches of enduring, unfading and ever increasing goodness and true wisdom! Goodness and wisdom are among the real necessities of life. In truth there can be no life without them—all is darkness and death where these are wanting. True wisdom will lead us to cultivate all our faculties in that way and manner which shall most increase our own usefulness—add to the good of our fellow creatures and honor the great Creator. In order to increase the former, a portion of time must be devoted to moral and intellectual culture corresponding with the importance of the object. When I hear people say they have no time to read—O, how does the thought come home to my heart—"in Heaven's name what do they live for." No time to read! What in mercy's name do they do for thoughts, for the ever active and restless mind to feast upon from day to day! What do they do with that starving intellect which is ever crying give, give, as the wonders and sublimities in the vast creation, unfold themselves to view and which requires knowledge to satisfy its unbounded wishes. Is it possible that any can be satisfied to exist only in a physical sense, entirely neglecting the cultivation of the noblest powers which God has given them? Rather we say, let the old tabernacle of clay be clothed in rags, and enjoy but two meals per day, than suffer the intellect to dwindle—the moral and religious capacities to remain uncultivated—the affections unfurnished, the charity limited—the mind contracted with blind bigotry and ignorance! Oh! toiling fellow mortal, if thou by hard and unremitting labor eight hours out of the twenty-four, canst not provide for thy physical wants—resolve from this time hence forth and ever to give thy influence on the side of Labor Reform!

- Miss H. J. Stone

"We're All Poor People Here"2

The Boston Sun says, "how often may we hear the remark in every manufacturing village in New England, 'Oh, she's nothing but a factory girl,' in contempt." Whereupon the Sun delivers a lecture upon labor and aristocracy. We do not know how often such a remark may be heard, but we never recollect having heard anything like it in the New England manufacturing villages, in which we have passed nearly all our days; and we do not believe a word about labor or factory girls being spoken of with "contempt." As the old saying is, "we're all poor people here, and all work for a living."—L. Journal [Lowell Journal—likely a reference to the Lowell Daily Courier]

We cut the above from a paper which professes much regard for the factory girls and the laborer, and labors hard to convince the community that the present manufacturing system is the handmaid of health, virtue and happiness, that labor in New England is honored and rewarded and the operative and laborer happy and contented. Now it requires but the simple fact, that the Lowell Journal is fed upon corporation pap, and is fostered, nourished and flattered by the smiles and influences of aristocracy to account for all this pretended respect and sympathy for factory girls, workingmen and dignity of labor, hence it [i.e. such journals like the Lowell Journal] is down upon every print that attempts to speak out upon the factory system, and every person who raises his voice against its evil tendencies and wrongs in society, while it is loud in defending and eulogizing the "peculiar institutions" of the day. "We're all poor people here and work for a living." This is truly a new and important fact, for which the editor of the Journal should have the entire credit and we wish it to go abroad throughout the country, that all the people in Lowell "work for a living" and still are poor; that the splendid mansions beautiful gardens and costly equipages which Lowell contains are all owned by poor workingmen, that the agents, speculators and capitalists of Lowell who are receiving the trifling dividends of thirty or forty percent, together with those who are getting their lean salaries of from one to three thousand annually are all poor workingmen. But what has become of the "industrious and enterprising operative," with her "two thousand dollar farm," and the "eleven hundred" which she gave her father; all earned in the Lowell mills in "nineteen years," which amounts to thirty two hundred dollars or about three dollars and a quarter for every week during the nineteen years after paying all her expenses and bringing up a family? What has become of the "eight millions" deposited in the Savings Bank; all from the savings of the operatives?—and the grave statement of the "Natick cobbler" which appeared a short time since in the Journal; that "honest industrious" workingmen can become "rich" and place themselves "beyond the reach of want within a few years"; what has become of this, or how is it reconciled with this universal industry and poverty in Lowell?—are the Lowell people all so dishonest and prodigal even to the editor of the Journal, that they have wasted and squandered the products of their "well paid" labor? We advise the editor of the Journal to notice the ridiculous position this statement has placed him in, and when he again attempts to defend his rotten cause by "throwing dust" or issuing falsehoods, to give something that has the semblance of truth and common sense, and not to shoot down his own ranks. A man who has spent "nearly all his days," to middle age in manufacturing villages without having heard labor and factory girls spoken of with derision and contempt, is totally unqualified to speak and write upon the subject; much less to contend that no such state of feelings exist. But "none are so blind as those who won't see"—the slave holder and apologizer sees no evil in black slavery; the rum seller sees no wrong in the traffic because gold and its blinding influences have obscured their vision, and the editor of the Journal has had the misfortune to get on the same kind of spectacles.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1According to the website industrialrevolution.org, this text could have possibly been written by the American journalist and reformer Charles Anderson Dana. However, there is no attribution in the Voice, nor in the Harbinger. The text is actually a critical review of a handful of positive or misleading accounts of the Lowell textile mills, which Dana believed to be sympathetic to the corporations rather than the operatives. Dana's review first appeared in the American newspaper The Harbinger (Vol. 1 No. 12) on 30 August 1845 and was reprinted in the Voice of Industry. In addition to giving it its title, I have only posted extracts of this text, since the original review is quite long.
• 2I've provided this article with a title.

Factory Boarding Houses—Exciting Meeting at the City Hall to Consider the Present Depressed Condition of the Boarding-House Keepers of Lowell.

In accordance with previous announcement by hand-bills posted in various parts of the city, a respectable number of the keepers of the corporation boarding houses in Lowell met at the City Hall on Friday last to take into consideration their lamentable and grievous condition, in consequence of the low price of operatives' board and the enhanced prices of provisions. From what we have received upon the subject, we learn the occasion was one of interest and enthusiasm, and called forth many noble and spirited sentiments from this class of wronged, corporation-oppressed and capital-bound citizens.

We cannot let this opportunity pass without expressing our entire approbation of the movement. The poor men and widow women who keep the factory boarding houses have long suffered and been shamefully deceived by fair promises and heartless predictions of "better times" to come. In 1840, when manufacturing was less prosperous than at the present time, the corporations reduced the operatives' board 12.5 cts. per week, with the promise that it should be added as soon as they obtained a tariff. But now they have got the tariff, and are declaring their thirty and forty per cent dividends, plundered from the poor widow women, boarding-house keepers and hard-working operatives. They have neglected their promises and even amid their avaricious gluttony, they together with a host of spaniels, brass speaking-trumpets and a few professed "men of God," are striving to convince the world, especially such a portion of "those fresh spirits gathered down from the Granite Hills and the green peaceful valleys by their own will," as is necessary to keep the "glittering temples of happy industry" in successful operation, and such a number of poor defenseless widow women as will be required to keep the boarding houses, that they have found a paradise—a heaven on earth, located between the "Pawtucket Falls" and the junction of the Concord River—the "New Jerusalem," with streets paved with gold, filled with angels, saints and spiritual watchmen or sanctified apostles.

The favorite policy of manufacturers ever has been to procure widow women with families and defenseless females, as keepers of corporation boarding houses, whose circumstances would require them to submit to any burdens they saw fit to impose and obey any mandates they might issue, without a murmur or a struggle. But the time has come—the oppression is too grievous to be longer borne in silence and apparent content. The boarding-house keepers of Lowell have commenced the good fight with heartless capital and misused power—a fight for the rights which God has given them, viz.: the right to such a share of the products of their labor, as will make them comfortable and happy and protect them and their children from anxious want, and their goods from the gambling auctioneer's hammer. Let this good work go on throughout every manufacturing town in New England; let the boarding-house keepers combine with the operatives against the gradual system of manufacturing oppression and unceasingly advocate the reduction of the hours of labor, so that the night may bring rest from their daily labors, and quiet sleep to their eyelids, instead as now, new toil and renewed hardship. The God of humanity gave the night for rest, but the customs of men and the rules and laws of corporations abrogate this wise design by compelling the operatives to labor such a number of hours that the boarding houses must consequently be confused and unsettled to nearly midnight, and at a very early hour in the morning; hence the office of keeping a factory boarding house is one of continued servitude and drudgery, and for which, some poor women by rigid economy get a bare subsistence, while others less fortunate toil on a few years, become involved and their household furniture is sacrificed upon the auction stand to secure debts, which were contracted in good faith.

Americans! sons of free New England! citizens of Lowell! will you turn a deaf ear to the voices that are raised in your very midst, for aid and sympathy? Have you any humanity; any manhood?—aye Christianity?—then do not set supinely down while widows are robbed and the fatherless and dependent, neglected and trampled, because the Hydra destroyer is clothed in a silken garb or pated on the main by the professed ambassadors of him, who has commended us to "love our neighbors as ourselves," and not devour widows' houses, or distress the poor and fatherless.

We have received the following report of the Saturday's meeting from the pen of a female friend who was present. Another meeting is to be held this day (Thursday), the transactions of which we shall give our readers as soon as possible.

The Workingmen's Convention at N. York.1

The time is at hand—workingmen and working women! The time when in one mighty phalanx, you are to go up to the great emporium of our nation, with hearts steeled for the combat between unholy oppression and equal rights for all—with the true spirit of philanthropy warming and expanding your hearts—with the united cry to the God of might and justice for assistance, go up—fear not—the arm of almighty "God is not shortened that it cannot save! Neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear!" Let every soul feel as did the fathers' of the [American] Revolution, that they will undertake no work, which they do and cannot ask God to assist and bless! Let us go to that Convention feeling that on a right and faithful discharge of our duties, hangs the destiny of those thousands and hundreds of thousands in our "free country," who are now toiling and wearing out a miserable existence, in laboring from ten to eighteen hours of the twenty [four] to keep soul and body a little longer in the same latitude! Let us endeavor to devise some plan, which shall reach in its beneficent results and effects, the condition of the industrious poor in our cities. Poor females who are compelled by soulless employers to make men's shirts for eight cents a piece and everything else accordingly!

Merciful heaven has it come to this! Here in happy, proud America!—Can it be that we are destined to see the same tragedies acted on these western shores, which have cast blight and mildew over the fairest portion of the old world? Forbid it righteous father! Forbid it ye who have hearts to feel, or heads to think, or power to act. Heed not the cry "there is no remedy"—there is a remedy. Let the toiling millions arise in their might of union for power—power to bless humanity—and elect men to fill the places of honor and trust who have souls in which the pure flame of patriotism burns brightly—men who, like true patriots, will stand firm in their integrity, and act for the nation's weal, if all the hosts of darkness should combine against them! Yea, though they stand alone on the broad platform of eternal truth and equality! Men who cannot be bought and sold with fair promises , or bribed with gold.

There is a remedy, if there is any power in the nation to grant protection to her own suffering people! Do the strong cry out for protection against foreign monopolies, lo! it is immediately granted. And shall the weak be left to contend alone in their weakness against not only foreign, but home monopolies? Oh justice where hast thou fled? What! protect the strong against the weak? Republicanism, is this thy spirit and policy? Surely thy nature has changed, since our heroic fathers set thee up as the guardian and safe-guide to the growing nation's interests! No! toiling mortals this is not the birthright which the blood of our ancestors bequeathed to us! It was, that equality and justice might here be ever administered—that industry should meet with a competent reward—and not as it now does, walk the streets with haggard visage—trembling limbs, and shivering beneath tattered rags—while the drones in society are rolling in splendid equipage and luxurious laziness through the world—no! no! God forbid ! Go up, ye working men and women, and let your voices be heard in that convention —plead your own cause, in heaven's name, nerve your hearts for the combat. Truth and error must grapple, but fear not—truth is mighty, and must and will prevail! Remember the time for action is come, be united—be firm—be fearless, and in the omnipotency of truth and justice trusting, you will ere long reap the reward of all your toils—see the down-trodden elevated, the suffering poor made partakers of the liberal bounties of providence—the vicious who were driven away from virtue's flowery paths by the iron hand of want, reclaimed, and the despairing mother, no longer clasp her starving babes to her breast in frantic agony, not knowing where to procure a morsel of bread to save them from the lean jaws of death! Oh laborers I beseech you be faithful, and in God's name move forward in this noble enterprise until triumph shall crown your labors with abundant success.—Veritus.

Having received intimation from my friends...

Mr. Editor:—Having received intimation from my friends in your place that should I happen there while our pro-slavery friends from the South are visiting there, I must keep quiet on the subject of slavery, if I wish to keep in their good graces, as they do not like to hear anything against their "peculiar institutions."

Lest our pro-slavery friends should return to the South without having heard one word of anti-slavery truth, I hope they will pardon me, if through your invaluable sheet, I should offer a few ingenuous remarks on a subject which I fear has never been very fully presented to them. Were I to attempt to move the heart of the slave holder and call forth his sympathies for those he so unjustly and inhumanly tyrannizes over—would be folly—I can only utter what has already been reiterated throughout the length and breadth of the land on this and the other side of the Atlantic.

There is a depth in slavery beyond the reach of any, but those who have been made the recipients of its horrors—words have not the power to express its meaning. Were we to listen to that fugitive from the galling chains and fetters of the South, Frederic Douglass, whose eloquent appeals have caused the tear of sympathy to course down the furrowed and blooming cheek of thousands who have listened to the sad recital of his woes, we should see but the shadow, while the substance of slavery lies beyond the power of description. Were we to imagine ourselves reduced to a level with the brutes—robbed of self, and all that elevates mankind above the lower order of creation, our very soul would shrink at the idea, and life itself appear loathsome.

Consider and contrast the condition of the slave with that of your own; while you enjoy the liberty of conscience, and possess all the natural and enduring relations of human existence, the slave who is made in the image of God who "made of one blood all the nations of the earth," is denied the rights, aye the name of human beings—are bought and sold like cattle—families scattered, and hearths made desolate—infants torn from the fond embrace of a mother and sold by the pound!

[...]

While we wear the image of the God who made us, and profess to love his son, who died to save us, let us not compromise with our pro-slavery and slave-holding friends, nor sacrifice principle upon the altar of popularity, but show our love for the three millions of our brothers and sisters who are dying the living death of slavery.

Yours truly, G. H. Merriam

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1Article written for the Voice by the pen name Veritus.

Mass Turn Out At Pittsburgh—Demand for a Reduction in Hours of Labor, by the Factory Girls of Allegheny City, and Pittsburgh—the Cause of the Laborer Onward!

We are happy to lay before our readers the late proceedings of the operatives of Pittsburgh and Allegheny City, towards the reduction of the hours of labor and the establishment of a "ten-hour system" among the incorporated manufactories of those places. That any system of incorporation, or association which virtually obliges workingmen and women to labor more hours than their physical strength will allow, is unnatural, unjust and un-Christian, is beyond controversy. It violates every principle of equality among men, by taking advantage of the necessities and conditions of the poor and dependent, and making them slaves to capital and unjust combinations.

We deny the right of any man, body of men or government, to constitute any number of hours a natural and general day's work; this can be regulated only by the age, condition, constitution and nature of the employment of the operative. Hence the power granted to corporate bodies by legislative enactments through which they can require the unjust and oppressive number of twelve and thirteen hours per day from their operatives, is wholly assumed, in opposition to the declared natural rights of man, and no authority whatever, on earth or from heaven, can be adduced to sustain this slavish system; begat in despotism and now being nourished and fostered in "Republican America," and we call upon the operatives of New England, as they regard their moral, physical and mental prosperity, as they regard the rights granted them by their creator as an inviolate heritage, as they regard the good of posterity and the final prevalence of human justice and pure Christianity among the children of earth, to unite with the operatives of Pittsburgh and Allegheny City in resisting this system of manufacturing feudalism. God never created this fair world for a slave market, wherein the bones and sinews—nay the very life's blood of a large portion of dependent and defenceless females may be bartered away with impunity, upon the glutted auction stand of avarice. Then fear not workingmen and women of New England; by every consideration of duty to yourselves and your fellow laborers, you are conjured to disenthrall yourselves from this bondage. Heaven urges you on, and the sentiments of just men bid you go forward.

We assure our friends of Pittsburgh that the statement relative to the number of hours in Lowell is incorrect—for the honor of New England we are sorry to state it—for the honor of Massachusetts, the home of the pilgrim and the "land of the free and the brave," we regret to acknowledge to the world, that thousands of the daughters of the "Mothers of the Revolution"—thousands who are destined to be mothers, watch the infancy and give the moral tone and physical character to the future generation, are [in] this "very prosperous" and auspicious year of 1845 at work between twelve and thirteen hours per day, in corporation prison houses, to secure a little food and raiment for the body!—Shame on this state of things! And yet, "good old patriotic, Christian Massachusetts," through her "honorable legislative," says, "this is a subject upon which we cannot legislate." Workingmen and women, this is a subject upon which humanity can legislate! Will you act accordingly?

The Working Men Are Awakening.1

Friend George—Last night I attended an outpouring of the white slaves of capital employed in cotton factories in Allegheny City. They demand the adoption of ten hours as the daily term of toil for others' profit, in order that some little time may be had for their own instruction and amusement. I think they will obtain their wishes, as all the toilers of the neighborhood, and some of the business community, announce their determination to lend a helping hand. "The work goes bravely on." National reform is boldly proclaimed, and its exponents listened to with marked attention, especially by our young men. Two meetings in our market-house have been held recently, whereat the freedom of the public land was eloquently advocated, and discussion invited; especially the pretended but only professed Democratic Party and its twin brother that of the nativists were boldly challenged to publicly discuss our principles; but their noisy champions did not dare attempt a public controversy. They well know that when justice is sought through the medium of truth's appeal to reason, the effect would be to instruct the public mind, and thus the people's riders—capitalists and office holders, would be necessarily unseated. Birmingham comes forth nobly, the young men there are at all times active in the people's cause. Burt, Miller and the Stevensons steadily progress with the good work, and are ably sustained by many others [of] nature's noblemen, with whose names I am not familiar. Meetings are to be held this week in Allegheny City, where the seed of national justice and reform will be sown broadcast. Be assured "Young America" here grows fast and firm in the faith that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable." The question is being asked, how is it that the wealth-producers, the useful working classes, are in comparative want, while those who toil not abstract to themselves the wealth produced by the industrious many. The reply must come with an awakened understanding. Free investigation of the right of man to the soil will assuredly bring forth answers that will astound the labor riders everywhere.

At your coming convention you will have a representative from this branch. My best wishes are hereby tendered to the anti-rent patriots of New York. If true to themselves, success is certain, and that too, speedily. They have the glorious privilege of being pioneers in practically revolutionizing the system of feudal fraud, that everywhere, and under every system of government yet devised, continues to plunder and enslave the useful portion of mankind.

I write at this time, because I think our brother reformers will be cheered on in their arduous labors, by the consciousness of reaping a rich crop of hearty able coadjutors in the great work they have commenced. "Who would be free themselves must strike the blow."

Your friend,
John Ferral.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1The Voice reprinted this article from Young America! (Vol. 2 No. 27, 27 September 1845), which was a reform-minded magazine published by George Henry Evans. John Farrel, the author of the article, was an associate of Evans and a social reformer himself.

The Pittsburgh Strike.1

The female operatives of Pittsburgh could not succeed in obtaining their desire. Their employers, in petty spite, have increased the hours of labor.—Boston Post.

Such is the respect paid to the just claims of the people from whose labors our wealthy and aristocratic manufacturers derive all their princely fortunes. When they ask for their rights, they oppress them, when they ask for bread, they give them a serpent, when they ask for milder terms, they are scourged with whips of scorpions. O, how hard it is to be insulted and tyrannized over, by the worthless and unworthy, who vent their spleen on honest operatives, over whom chance has given them power! What can be more just than the request of the girls of the Pittsburgh and other factories, that they should not be confined to those unwholesome prison houses but ten hours per day; the least they could have done was to have denied their request in kind language. But not only is their reasonable petition denied, but new burdens accompanied by insult have been imposed upon them. Surely, if any fires in the prison house of the damned burn with redoubled heat, they will be reserved for the especial punishment of such oppressors and enemies of their kind.2

We have much to say on the murderous practice of working operatives, especially females, an unreasonable number of hours in our factories.—Olive Branch.

Progress of Monopoly.

We copy the following item from the Lowell Journal.

Two hundred workmen from England arrived at the Iron Works at Danville Penn., where they are to be employed.

The above few lines contain an important lesson for every workingman and woman in America, they clearly exhibit to the unbiased, investigating and reflecting mind, the onward rapid strides of the great, deep-rooted inhuman monster system of capital against labor, which is fast devouring every tangible and valuable right that belongs to the working classes of this country, as moral, physical and intellectual beings, capable of filling the land with abundance, and generating peaceful industry, virtue and happiness.

Just as sure as there is a sun at noon-day, capital, under its present hostile and unnatural state, is fast reducing labor to utter dependence and slavish beggary. The above quotation is but one of the countless demonstrations of this sad reality, which daily manifest themselves among us, and though political demagogues for the sake of the emoluments of society, laud and eulogize the "freedom of equality of our people," though false philosophers theorize and glowingly set forth the "virtuous tendencies of our institutions," and blinded bigots or sectarian devotees, sanctimoniously reason of the "pious relations" existing between the employer and the employed, the master and the slave, capital and labor and the justice of morality of our organization; yet the true state and condition of the laboring people are fast being developed—truth cannot always be stifled, or light hid from those who sit in darkness.

This talk about the continued prosperity, happy condition and future independence of the producing class of this country, as a class, is all fiction, moon-shine. There is at this very moment a great strife between capital and labor, and capital is fast gaining the mastery—the gradual abasement of the workingmen and women of this country abundantly sustain this position—the various "strikes" among the operatives and workingmen in New England and other sections of the country, which have almost invariably proved abortive and ineffectual, evidently show that combined incorporated and protected capital can "starve out" and dismay the disorganized, competing and dependent laborers, whose daily toil provides the scanty portion to satisfy the pinching necessities of those dependent upon them.

The democratic republican capital of this country, which has been so amply fortified against foreign despotic capital by the suffrages of American workingmen ("all for their especial benefit") says there are not enough "free, independent and well-paid" workingmen and women in this country; consequently foreign operatives and workmen must be imported—no tariff on these; no, no, it won't do to protect the capital of American workingmen and women (their labor) against foreign competition! for this would be anti-republican. But "protect the rich capitalist and he will take care of the laborer."

Now the capitalists of the Danville Iron Works wish to protect themselves against these "disorderly strikes," by importing a surplus of help; the Lowell capitalists entertain the same republican idea of self-protection, the Pittsburgh and Allegheny City capitalists, whose sympathies (if they have any) have been recently appealed to, wish to secure themselves against "turn-outs" [strikes] by creating a numerous poor and dependent populace. Isolated capital everywhere and in all ages protects itself by the poverty, ignorance and servility of a surplus population, who will submit to its base requirements—hence the democratic or whig capital of the United States is striving to fill the country with foreign workmen—English workmen, whose abject condition in their own country has made them tame, submissive and "peaceable, orderly citizens"; that is, work fourteen and sixteen hours per day for what capital sees fit to give them, and it is not enough to provide them a comfortable house to shelter their wives and children and furnish them with decent food and clothes; why, they must live in cellars, go hungry and ragged!—and for this state of things, capitalists are not answerable. O! no—"they (the laborers) ain't obliged to take it—they are free to go when they please." How long will the working people of this country remain indifferent to these important considerations? How long will they continue blinded to the monopolizing tendencies of our system of capital against labor?—they are at war with each other, and art has taken sides, as an ally with capital against humanity and the defenseless laborer—they are all antagonistical, whereas they should be united and harmonious—even labor is at war with itself, wasting and consuming what strength and union capital has been unable to destroy. Let the American laborers recollect that the same grasping system which has driven thousands from the Old World in utter destitution to this country, for refuge, is here being nourished, and should they suffer it to go on, their children will look in vain for an asylum for their ills and oppressions, and perchance in their wild breathing after that rational freedom which God gave to all, and which brings peace, plenty and happiness, curse the day that gave them existence and the beautiful heavens and earth that mock and aggravate their misery.

A Strike.3

We see by the Pittsburgh papers that four thousand of the operatives in the factories of that city are upon "a strike" for the "ten-hour system."—Ex. paper [example paper?]

The above paragraph is going the rounds of the papers as an ordinary item of news. While "miraculous escapes," "horrid calamities," and "shocking accidents," are made the hinges upon which to turn very interesting homilies for the good of the public, an attempt of four thousand men, women and children to prolong their lives, to loosen the bonds of monopoly—cold calculating avarice, is placed before the public in a paragraph of half a dozen lines, without "note or comment." This fact shows a lamentable want of interest in the welfare of the laboring classes, the welfare of the country at large; for who is there that does not acknowledge the producers to be the heart, bone, sinew, of the body politic. Yet avarice dictates, and the welfare of this class is no more cared for—aye, not so much cared for as the welfare of classes of the lower orders of animal creation. This state of things should not exist, public policy, government policy should discountenance it. But it will exist, monopoly, avarice, will carry the high hand, prey upon the life blood of the masses, until the masses, the laboring classes move in this thing themselves. They should define their duties to community to them. They should demand their rights, and say to the proud, overbearing, oppressing monopoly—

"Thus far, no farther go,
Here let thy proud waves be stayed."—Manchester Democrat.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1It seems the Voice reprinted this commentary from both the Boston Post and Olive Branch.
• 2This passage could perhaps be a reference to the Great Fire of Pittsburgh that occurred earlier in April 1845.
• 3The Voice reprinted this article from the Manchester Democrat.

To Our Friends and Readers.

After an absence of about three weeks, our Voice is again before you, but since our last visit, some important occurrences have taken place in the history of our humble, but fearless sheet. Instead of the picturesque hills, and white cottages of Fitchburg, we find ourselves among the massive walls and smoking factories of the "City of Spindles." But nevertheless, we are the same uncompromising foe to all the oppressions of the age—to all that tends to degrade the human character and prevent man from arriving to that degree of elevation his nature craves, and his untrammeled, unbribed and enlightened judgement dictates. For this reason, we have planted our free and independent press in the City of Lowell, the manufacturing emporium of America, where it will hereafter proclaim those great and vital truths which government and society have been less slow to profess than practically adopt, viz.: that "all men are born free and equal, and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuits of happiness," and that every government or system which tends to abrogate these natural and healthy principles must be anti-republican and anti-Christian, from the very nature of things, and that those people, who individually or collectively, through ignorance or grasping, misguided selfishness, violate them, lend their influence to encourage wrong, wickedness and oppression and cannot be, in a rational sense, true friends to their god and their race. The Voice has been removed to this city to extend its circulation, increase its support and augment its usefulness, and in this we trust we shall not be disappointed, indeed our prospects daily brighten, and we firmly believe the time near at hand when the working people of this country will not be satisfied with the brawling party, sectarian and time-serving presses of the day, whose patriotism and zeal is commensurate to the offices and emoluments received, or in prospect, or the depth of their devotional bigotry.

We are in Lowell because it is a favorable and central location, and because such a voice is here needed to demand and protect the rights of those whose toil has made this city what it is and raised New England to its present position in point of wealth and industrial importance. We have not come as a disaffected, personal railer to gratify a (too common) restless love of notoriety, which finds fault for no holier motive than to satiate an invidious constitutionality; nor are we the organ of that envious aspirancy which seeks to destroy what it cannot obtain; our aims are higher and nobler. We wish to trace and point out the seductive errors that have crept, serpent-like, into our society, which are rooting deeper and deeper in the social and political constitutions of our country and the world, and which are poisoning our philanthropy and republicanism and perverting and neutralizing all our Christianity and religion. Our motto is, "the greatest moral, mental and physical good of all men," and towards forwarding this great object, our humble efforts are freely pledged; therefore we shall speak frankly and earnestly on all subjects relating to the well-being of mankind, as they present themselves to our consideration. The restoring to man his natural rights, of which the selfishness, monopoly, false philosophy and religion of the age has robbed him, is a subject of no small moment to every philanthropist and Christian; yet how many, professedly so, either ignorantly or willfully embark in the popular delusions of the times, which generate wrong, strife and discord in society, instead of engaging in the humane cause of ennobling and dignifying useful, productive industry and elevating the family of man.

Is not this an enterprise, worthy the countenance and support of every lover of that equality and Christian justice which will not be satisfied with anything short of a happy reality? Then shall we have the cheerful cooperation of the honest toilers of Lowell and New England? Ours is your cause—for the workingman and woman we speak—we wish to warn you against the destructive and paralyzing tendencies of protected capital against defenseless, dependent and competing labor. Still we shall ever be watchful, not to interfere with the rights of the capitalist, and while we frankly and honestly assert, that we have no sympathy with the present avaricious organized monopolies, like the manufacturing system, as it now exists in this city, the result of which is to pour the wealth of the nation into the glutted treasury of the few, while the many live in poverty, and destitution; and want, vice, crime and ignorance daily increase in our land; yet we have as little sympathy with that eternal vague clamor which is prompted by no higher impulses than personal aggrandizement, or a desire to keep society in a fomentation and broil, merely to appease a jealous spleen, instead of a wish to reconcile and harmonize the antagonizing interests among men, and eradicate the causes from which they spring. We want a peaceful, industrial revolution—a revolution inspired by principle and love of right instead of passion and might, the result of which will ever ensure to the industrious, the fruits of their labor, and indemnify their rights against mercenary incendiarism and chance-lotteries now extant in the world. Again we say, shall we have the united support of the workingmen and women of New England in behalf of humanity's cause? that we may prosecute a successful warfare against all forms of oppression, and lead to the establishment of a democracy under which industry, virtue, religion and happiness shall flourish and increase and the people universally enjoy heaven's natural blessings.

We cordially invite...

We cordially invite the factory girls of Lowell, and the operatives and working people generally, whether they agree with us or not, to make the Voice a medium of communication; for it is your paper, through which you should be heard and command attention. The press has been too long monopolized by the capitalist non-producer, party demagogues and speculators, to the exclusion of the people, whose rights are as dear and valid.

"Factory Tracts."

"Factory Tracts."—It is pretty generally known that the Female Labor Reform Association, of this city, are publishing a series of tracts, the object of which is to give a true exposition of the factory system and its effects upon the health and happiness of the operatives. The articles are nearly all written by those who are, or have been, employed in the mills, and reflect much credit upon the authors. The second number will be ready for distribution and sale in a few days. Let our friends in various sections of the country use their efforts to give them circulation. Orders addressed to the Female Labor Reform Association will meet with immediate attention.

The Strike—Our Course.1

We have been asked whether we do not intend to give up the effort to introduce the ten-hour system, since the operatives have returned to work on the old terms. Certainly not. We see not why we should even hesitate one moment. True it has been proven, as we feared from the first, that the rich manufacturer, even in this great country of ours, can compel his poor operatives to work just as many hours as he pleases, or starve, if the community will countenance and aid him in doing so; but we do not believe that the infamous means employed to array the community against the operatives and their friends will succeed again. We believe in the omnipotence of a good cause; we believe that every mechanic and laboring man is interested, and can be made to see it, in the establishment of the system; that the humane of all classes will yet join with us in endeavoring to introduce it; and that we shall not always be regarded as a demagogue and meddler for endeavors to secure justice to woman. Men who look only to interest—who think it is of more importance that trade shall flourish than that justice be done—may be swayed by the selfish appeals which for a time have checked this movement, but the wise and good of all classes have been led to think, and we are satisfied that the apparent defeat will be found a victory for our cause.

Woman is wronged in every occupation and condition of life. She labors but for a pittance in the workshop, or as a domestic servant. She is debarred from every means of righting her own wrongs, by her present social position. She must have others to plead for her, and if the high and mighty and talented will not speak in her behalf, we shall face calumny and misrepresentation to do what we can for her.

Though professing Christians denounce us—though a Christian preacher of this city says we should not meddle with the world, 'tis a bad world, and we should get along as comfortably as possible till we are ready to leave it for heaven! (we wonder what he preaches for?)—we think it our duty to do all we can to improve the condition of man. For that reason we are a temperance man, an antislavery man, and an advocate of social reform. We have no more interest than others have in any of these movements—we have not been a drunkard, nor slave, nor a factory operative—but because fellow beings have been, are, and more may be, we feel bound to warn them—to meliorate their condition. It does not appear to us that any right of refusal to act against evil is left—we must do what we can, or be criminal. Perhaps we might become habituated to that king of non-committalism which always looks to make a safe leap for popularity, and we dislike to be frowned on by old friends, but conscience would ever and anon be reminding us that we had shaken hands with the devil only to learn to despise ourself; and neither he nor the world can tempt us to that folly.

We labor not only in hope, but in confidence of ultimate triumph in the ten-hour movement. We have made arrangements for continuing the warfare by meetings, associations, &c.; a correspondence will be opened with the operatives eastward [in New England]; a publication devoted to the cause is projected; and we have received the first number of a monthly tract commenced by the Lowell operatives, since the strike took place here. They are blind who do not see that we have every reason to stand fast, and be confident of triumph. The manufacturers will not risk another five weeks' suspension for a slight consideration. They have lost three hundred and forty hours by the suspension—more than half a year's loss, at two hours per day.—Pittsburgh Spirit of Liberty

The Summons.2

Ye children of New England!
The summons is to you!
Come from the workshop and the field,
With steadfast hearts and true.

Come, fling your banner to the breeze,
For liberty and light;
Come, like the rolling of the seas—
The tempest in its might.

Aye, with a voice of thunder come;
And swear 'fore tyranny,
Thy vows are registered on high,
To perish or be free.

Hear ye the groans from foreign lands,
Ruled by despotic powers?
From Spain's bright shores, from Gallia's strand,
And England's stately towers?

In costly, splendid luxury
Each royal board is spread;
While thousands in their streets may die
For lack of daily bread.

And turn to our own boasted clime,—
What scenes before us lie?
Aye, want and woe and care and crime,
Still greet the tearful eye.

'Tis mockery in the sight of God,
To say that land is blest
Where millions bow beneath the rod
Of tyranny oppressed.

For bread, where famished children cry,
And none their want supplies—
Where toiling thousands live and die
In ignorance and vice.

Then in the name of God come forth,
To battle with the foe;
Nor stay ye till your hands have laid
Each proud oppressor low.

Aye, come, and blessed shalt thou be,
By millions yet unborn,
Whom thou hast saved from misery,
From insult and from scorn.

Yea, be thou strong—there yet remains
A promise sure to thee,
That God will break the oppressor's chains,
And set the prisoner free.

That righteousness and truth shall reign,
Through all the peopled earth,
And heaven repeat the exulting strain,
Which hailed creation's birth.

- Amelia

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1The Voice reprinted this article from the Pittsburgh Spirit of Liberty. The article is in reference to the 1845 Allegheny Cotton Mill Strike.
• 2The Voice reprinted this work from the Factory Tracts periodical of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association.

Reduction of the Hours of Labor.

A reduction of the present hours of labor in our manufactories has become an important question before the working people of this country; and one, we trust, that will not be abandoned until the entire overthrow of the slavish "twelve to fifteen hour" system, which is making such inroads upon the health and happiness of our "free, well-paid" operatives, is accomplished.

We believe petitions are already in circulation for the promotion of this humane and reasonable object, and we hope none, who have the good of their country and race at heart, will fail of giving in their testimony upon a subject of so much importance to the general well being of society. Indeed we urge this measure as a universal good, and we defy all the sophistry of avarice or the tact of demagoguism in Christendom to prove that any class or individuals will be injured by the adoption of such a regulation into our system of manufacturing; but on the contrary, a blessing of no small moment will be restored to those whose unmitigated toil has filled our country and the world with an abundance of fruits and merchandise, of which they are forbidden the rational enjoyment—nay the very existence of which adds to their misery and destroys their earthly enjoyment.

We do not bring this before the public as a crude and undigested scheme—a partial fragmentary measure, based merely upon selfishness, the result of which shall be to personally aggrandize one class of our people at the expense of another; but one fully attested and theoretically acknowledged by all classes of society. Our claim is founded upon the natural divine rights of man—rights which all the children of the human family inherit by virtue of their existence and moral, mental and physical requirements. Therefore the violation of these rights by the present unjust and un-Christian regulation, adopted by our manufacturers, is a palpable infringement by the few upon the universal rights of the mass—consequently a restoration of these rights must be a universal good, as nature's laws are impartial in their operations. Taking this, the only true view of our subject, we call upon all who lay any claim to patriotism and Christianity, whose humanity, inspired by a deep sense of the eternal truths of justice and a higher, nobler destiny for our common race, descends below the sham philanthropy of the age, and takes hold on that self-sacrificing faith, which is not without works, to unite with us in removing this deadly incubus which the accursed thirst for gold and servile, partial legislation has entailed upon that numerous and useful portion of our American citizens—the American operatives. The past history of the world clearly shows that no nation can expect moral and physical elevation, or political and religious freedom, while a system like our manufacturing feeds and fattens upon the natural energies and resources of her people—a system which being founded upon isolated selfishness and error must inevitably result in the abasement of the laboring classes; thereby producing on the one hand, extreme luxury and vicious superabundance, and on the other, want, destitution, crime and untold misery.

Who is there in society so blinded by false customs and erroneous standards of justice and human excellence, as not to see the fearful tendencies of this rapidly growing evil in our land? Already are some of the heart-sickening realities of the Old World no strangers among the manufacturing populace of America, and causes which produce these sad results are daily augmenting. One of the most fruitful sources of intemperance, disease and crime among our working people is excessive and protracted labor, and yet our community is full of moral, spiritual and physical doctors, whose zeal is unbounded for the prevalence of temperance, virtue and religion and whose skill and ability is wasted in tampering with the malady by administering mere palliatives, while the causes are neglected, fostered and nourished; and they ready to brand every true philanthropist, who is striving to eradicate and uproot the evil, as a quack, infidel and excitor. Now the question comes home to the conscience of every person whose influence can be felt upon this subject; "what stands in the way of its being accomplished?" The manufacturers of Pittsburgh and Allegheny city, say they will reduce when the eastern manufacturers will agree to, and the manufacturers of Massachusetts, after acknowledging the justice of the claim neglect to do anything about it, which in both cases, virtually amounts to a refusal. Our legislative bodies have acknowledged allegiance to the tyrant capital, and in obedience to his dictates, have granted privileges for which they had no authority, because they conflict with the natural rights of society and lead to monopoly and fraud. Our legislatures in their wisdom have declared that the "public good" requires the existence of chartered manufactories—for the sake of argument admit it—but does the "public good" require the thousands of operatives in America to labor from twelve to fifteen hours per day, for a bare subsistence, while capital gluts its coffers with the fruits of their toil and revels in luxury?—Does the "public good" require a race of invalids, made so by excessive toil, to fill the country with disease, and our poor-houses with inmates?—if not, why has every instrumentality toward preventing such disastrous results been treated with open denunciation, or silent contempt? Why did the legislature of Massachusetts utterly refuse, during its last session, to remove the oppression which it had brought upon the operatives of this state through its own acts? Let the workingmen and women reflect upon these things and prepare themselves for some well-concerted and united action, that shall break the chain which binds them, and place them upon the platform of equal rights, which freemen and Christians alone can occupy.

To the Factory Operatives of Lowell.

We have it from good authority that a certain prominent man in this city recently declared in a political harangue that a large portion of the operatives came to Lowell paupers, and are indebted to the benevolence of corporations for their present position; and this individual is now living in affluence upon the products of these same pauper-operatives' industry; having formerly been a "Grand Sultan" over one of the corporations. We regret having an opportunity to notice anything of this character, but when we see so useful and industrious a class as the operatives of Lowell thus regarded by one who has been made rich by their hard earnings, we cannot forbear to express our pity for the man's uncharitable weakness, or political depravity. We do not doubt that many of the operatives come to Lowell poor, and leave as poor as they come, but are they paupers for that? Are those to be branded as paupers whose toil has filled the country with wealth, upon which the hordes of blood-sucking speculators and non-producing idlers are feasting and fattening, because a popular system of plunder, sanctioned by legislative enactments, has robbed them of all but the mere pittance which so illy provides for their daily necessities?

We believe this same agent with his thousands, which he never produced, a greater pauper in the true sense of the term than the most destitute operative whoever visited Lowell mills; and if the operatives who support such luxurious and aristocratic paupers would adopt the customary method of disposing of public dependants, they would find it much to their pecuniary advantage.

This circumstance exhibits to some degree the rottenness of the too prevalent opinion of regarding the standing of people according to the dollars and cents they possess, no matter whether they ever produced the value of a farthing in their lives; instead of the actual service they have rendered to society and the world, by having been engaged in useful industry. Also the turning and shuffling resorted to by the supporters and advocates of corporations as they now exist. While one announces to the world, that the operatives are all "farmers' daughters, free to go where they please," and another that they are nearly all rich, with hundreds in the bank—another tells us "they are all poor," and at last this magnanimous agent declares that a large number came to Lowell paupers, and these kind agents in the plenitude of their charity, take them into their hospitals as heirs to a corporation inheritance, entitled to all the privileges and immunities of the same; provided they will comply with the very small and reasonable requisition of working about thirteen hours per day, to provide themselves with a little plain food ("for operatives don't require but little, and that very simple") and a few clothes adapted to their mill-enium condition. What glorious privileges! We hope the operatives of Lowell will take these things into consideration, and bestow all due reverence upon their kind benefactors.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

New England Workingmen's Association

All friendly to the cause of restoring to man his natural rights, which is now agitating the working classes of our own and other countries, will bear in mind that the New England Association holds its next meeting at Lynn, just one week from this day (January 16th), and we call upon our brother and sister toilers in the various towns and cities to rally for rational freedom—too long have we been deluded with the empty forms of freedom, while Capital, Patroonery [a patroon was a type of Dutch landholder in colonial New Netherland], and Aristocracy have robbed the people of their right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuits of happiness," and they are fast becoming beggars, dependants and slaves in a land of super-abundance; and whose ensign declares that "all men are created free and equal." We believe from what we know of the workingmen of Lynn, that nothing will be wanting on their part, towards making the meeting interesting and profitable, and giving their fellow laborers a hearty welcome to the time honored town.

The coming Convention, will be of unusual importance to the working classes of N. England. The last one did much towards forwarding the cause of human justice by establishing the "Voice of Industry" as their organ, and through it we have been enabled to awaken a new interest in behalf of neglected humanity and the rights of labor. But we shall not stop here—there are several plans for practical operations, that will be presented for the consideration of the Lynn Convention, designed for the immediate benefit and future redemption of the producing portion of our race. Therefore it is desirable that a full representation of the sober, high-minded and uncompromising friends to free, virtuous and well paid industry, should be present and take part in our deliberations. Friends will you come?

Will papers friendly to the cause, call the attention of their readers to this subject.

Things Lost Forever.

Lost wealth may be restored by industry: the wreck of health regained by temperance: forgotten knowledge restored by study: alienated friendship smoothed into forgetfulness: even forfeited reputation won by penitence and virtue. But who ever again looked upon his vanished hours—recalled his slighted years—stamped them with wisdom, or effaced from Heaven’s record the fearful blot of wasted life?

An Imposter.

We learn, that there is located on Gorham St. [in Lowell, MA], near the Catholic Church, a young Miss, dubbed the "Wonderful Girl," upon the shingle outside. This so called "wonderful girl," by some means or other, (miraculous we suppose) came in possession of a "magic stone," through which she professes to disclose all the hidden secrets of the future, and portray with miraculous wisdom the coming weal or woe, of all who are foolish enough to pay her fifty cents for the revelation.

We understand that the "magic stone" reveals to the Lowell girls, that they will all be married in a very short time—get "very nice young men," for husbands, and enjoy an unusual degree of domestic happiness during a long life. We hope it is true, but advise them to keep the half to expend for "fixens," [food?] instead of giving it to this travelling humbug, who knows as little about their future destiny, as she cares about their present good.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

The Rights of Man

Arise, Man, arise! and stretch forth thy arm,
Shake off oppression, and sound the alarm;
Let tyrants know that your rights you demand,
And not submit to their base command.

Be firm as the hills, unmoved by dismay,
Which yield not to tempests that sweep o'er the bay;
In your strength and your pride undauntedly stand,
And be not slaves for a corporate band.

Fear not the hardships that you must endure,
Press forth and onward, the prize will be sure;
Our forefathers fought, their rights they maintained,
And gave to posterity the freedom obtained.

Then cheer up, brave hearts, with patriot fire,
Be not a traitor to the cause we admire;
But stand for your rights—our motto shall be,
"No slavery bequeathed to the brave and the free."

Yes, cheer up, brave hearts, the battle's begun;
No peace for your foes, till victory is won;—
But stand for your rights—our motto shall be,
"No slavery bequeathed to the brave and the free. "

- J. W.

The Voice of Industry in the wilderness of sin...1

"The Voice of Industry in the wilderness of sin" is the precise language used by the editor of the Lowell Courier. Does Mr. Schouler [William Schouler] mean to say the wants, sufferings, oppressions and unequal relation of capital and labor, as now existing in Lowell, is to be thus flippantly disposed of? We accept most cheerfully, the proposition of our neighbor to sink the personal in the general cause, and all matters appertaining to the differences of opinion between us. Friend S., without bandying epithets, we will be first to cease and ask you in all candor to aid us agreeably to your expressed "desire to do what you can to lessen wrong and increase the right."

It is a subject of comment and general complaint, among the operatives, that while they tend three or four looms, where they used to tend but two, making nearly twice the number of yards of cloth, the pay is not increased to them, while the increase to the owners is very great. Is this just? Twenty-five cents per week for each girl [of] additional pay would not increase the cost of the cloth, one mill a yard; no, not the half of a mill. Will you, friend S., join us in urging this increase of wages? Think what joy it would give Mr. Lawrence's "eight thousand females."

Now while I am penning this paragraph, a young lady enters the office with "Oh dear! Jane, I am sick and what shall I do? I have worked for three years and never gave out before. I stuck to my work until I fainted at my loom. The doctor says I must quit work and run about and amuse myself; but I have nowhere to go, and do not know what to do with myself." I have given the language as it struck my ear; the conversation going on behind me. It is but the type—the feelings of a thousand homeless, suffering females, this moment chanting "the Voice of Industry in this wilderness of sin."

Ten hours for steady, persevering industry, to benefit our employers—is it, in your judgement, all capital can justly demand of labor? Will you aid us before the Legislature in the passing [of] a bill that ten hours of labor shall constitute a day's work?

You are worried about the loss of the head waters of Concord river—we are equally desirous for the just protection of capitalists in their privileges. But our sympathies reach the laboring mass also. For them, too, would we urge attention and action before the Legislature. You are mistaken in supposing we see nothing but the wrong; what we complain of, for labor, is not that we can't see the fat as well as the lean; our complaint is we only get the lean, and are not permitted even a smell of the fat.

Come up to the scratch friend S., for Labor Reform. The propositions we put are plain ones—lend us a hand and be to us as you promise, a guiding star "in this wilderness of sin." Have we not fairly accepted your propositions and left out all quarrels of others, all personalities, and pointed out some of the reforms that may be made? We have a host of new propositions of urgent necessity for the safety of the laboring mass, in view of the rapid strides capital is making in the concentration of power. Even now, the great mass of surplus wealth of the country is represented by acts of incorporation. Among other propositions we intend to call the attention of the people and the Legislature to is the utility of a sinking fund of all profits, upon capital, manufacturing in this place, over and above six percent for the benefit of such as may lose their health by working in the mills, or be disabled by accident in the employment of the companies. What say you friend S. to this?

- One of the "vast array of the Publishing Committee"

A fellow from N. York...

A fellow from N. York, who appears "head and heels" in love with the Lowell factories, has recently paid this city a visit, and on his return, gives vent through the [New York] Tribune to his unbounded admiration of a system which is reducing the free sons and daughters of N. England to the condition of English drudges. He speaks eloquently of the horrors of war, but cannot discover the warfare this system of factory oppression is prosecuting against the health, virtue and intelligence of the operatives. What seems strange to us is that he does not come to Lowell and serve two or three years at the "picker" or at "stripping cards"—probably by that time his muse would be inclined to sing a different song. Among other wonders, he had the pleasure of an interview with "Col. Schouler, the able [able because on our side—note from the text] Editor of the Lowell Courier," who honored him with a copy of that valuable document, "our report on the Ten Hour Petition before the Legislature," from which he obtained the important fact, that it was unnecessary to legislate upon the subject, as capital would take good care of labor. Next time he comes this way to pay his fulsome devotion to the "genius of free industry," we hope he will give us a call, as we have the report of five or six thousand workingmen and operatives, who think Legislation is necessary, and whose experience is far better, than our neighbor's of the Courier. It is amusing indeed, to see men who probably never did a day's work in their lives, come to Lowell, visit a few agents and superintendants, and a corporation editor, and then go away and declare to the world that the factory system is one of the most glorious institutions that a free people can boast of—and this all greedily swallowed, while the opinions of thousands who have spent years in and about the factories, who are well acquainted with the operations of the system, are passed by and unnoticed. Verily, "this is a great country."

We regret to learn that...

We regret to learn that the new and commodious building nearly completed at Brook Farm,2 for the use of the Association, has been destroyed by fire. The loss is estimated at ten thousand dollars, without any insurance. What loss the Association will directly sustain, we do not know; but their affairs must be very much disarranged, and their prospects for the season greatly blighted. We look upon the philanthropic band at Brook Farm with interest and hope; and in any adversity they may meet with, they should receive the aid and sympathy of all true reformers.

Note: spelling and punctuation have been slightly modified.

• 1This piece is a response to a critical article in the Lowell Courier from 2 March 1846, entitled "The Voice of Industry in the Wilderness of Sin."
• 2Brook Farm was a cooperative community based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was partly inspired by the ideas of transcendentalism and then later by Fourierism, especially Fourier's idea of a Phalanstery. The Brook Farmers also published the reform-minded magazine The Harbinger starting in 1845, which the Voice occasionally reprinted articles from.