The cries of the people against the oppressions of capital and monopoly are heard all over the land; but the capitalist and monopolist give them no heed, and go on their way more relentlessly than ever.  Congress is fully aware of the condition of things; but you cannot get any bill through there for the relief of the people.  The coal lords of Pennsylvania know how abject are the tens of thousands of blackamoors of their mines; but they grind them without mercy, and cut their days’ wages again whenever they squeal.  Jay Gould knows of the wide-spread ruin he has wrought in piling up his hundred millions; but he drives along faster than ever in his routine of plunder.  The factory Christians of Fall River see their thousands of poor spinners struggling for the bread of life amid the whirl of machinery:  but they order reduction after reduction in the rate of wages, though the veins of the corporations are swollen to congestion.  The “Big Four” of Chicago, who corner grain and provisions, and the capitalists here and elsewhere who do the same thing, know well how the farmers suffer and the tables of the poor are ravaged by their operations; but they prosecute their work more extensively and recklessly than ever.  The railroad and telegraph corporations know that, in putting on “all that the traffic will bear,” they are taking from this country more than the people can stand; yet their only answer is that of the horseleech....

Our lawmakers know how the people are wronged through legislation in the interest of privilege and plunder; but they add statute to statute in that same interest.  They know how advantageous to the producers would be the few measures asked in their name; yet they persistently refuse to adopt them.  The great employers of labor, the cormorants of competition, know through what hideous injustice they enrich themselves; but speak to them of fair play, and they flout you from their presence.  The wealthy corporations owning these street car lines in New York see that their drivers and conductors are kept on the rack from sixteen to eighteen hours every day of the week, including Sundays; but when a bill is brought into the State Legislature to limit the daily working hours to twelve, they order their hired agents of the lobby to defeat it.  These gamblers of Wall street know that their gains are mainly through fraud; yet forever, fast and furious, do they play with loaded dice.

The landlords of these tenement quarters know by the mortality statistics how broad is the swathe that death cuts among their victims; but they add dollar to dollar as coffin after coffin is carried into the street. * * *

These owners of the machinery of industry know how it bears upon the men who keep it flying; but they are regardless of all that, if only it fills their coffers.  These owners of palaces look upon the men by whom they are built; but think all the time how to raise the rent of their hovels.