Life of Albert Parsons

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the many hours of strained work, could scarcely earn enough to keep themselves and families from want. I saw they inhabited miserable hovels, and the pleasures and comforts of life were unknown to them. Their children were hollow-eyed and resembled fence posts covered with human skin more than human beings. On one occasion I followed the fine gentleman who had been standing idly by commanding the workingmen, and saw him enter a wonderfully beautiful house-a palace. Costly pictures decorated the walls, precious carpets covered the floors, and golden chandeliers were suspended from the ceilings. The safes and pantries were bursting with their tempting contents, and the tables covered with choice wines and delicacies. In short, everything good and agreeable could be enjoyed there in abundance. This contrast between the sum toiler and the idle bystander did not fail to impress me, especially as I observed that these conditions existed everywhere and in all branches of industry. I perceived that the diligent, never resting human working bees who create all wealth enjoy only a minor part of their products and lead comparatively miserable lives whilst the drones keep the warehouses locked up and revel in luxury and voluptuousness. Was I wrong or was the world wrong? I saw men who manufactured shoes and boots and had helped fill storehouses with these products ever since their boyhood, and yet they lingered in their shanties after rainy weather for fear of getting wet feet, and in many cases the toes of their children's feet peeped speakingly out from their shabby shoes. Bricklayers were busy building houses, but very few owned a house to live in. The clothing stores were full of goods, but it was pot a rare sight in my native city to see tailors going about to such an extent that they resemble chessboards. While the bakers were half roasting in the hot bake house sixteen hours out of the twenty-four their wives in many instances did not know where to get a loaf of bread. My father's neighbor worked in a butcher shop, but his wages were so low that his family could afford the luxury of a pound of meat only once a week-on Sunday. And these circumstances convinced me that "there must be something rotten in Denmark," and it did not require a sorcerer to discover that the prevailing social institutions were based upon the extortion of one class by another.

But now after coming to this conclusion, I wondered whether the workingmen were conscious of their real situation. I found that the overwhelming majority were not. Instead of hating those who enslaved them, they looked upon their masters as their benefactors. I remember visiting a cousin of mine one Sunday, who worked in a gigantic sugar refinery together with thousands of other men and women, the owner of said factory being a well-known millionaire. My cousin could not help at every occasion speaking in high terms of his "benefactor," as he styled his employer. On this day he especially endeavored to make the generosity of his employer plain to me. "Why," my enthusiastic cousin explained. "besides employing so many people who would otherwise starve, he donates annually an enormous sum of money