The efforts to regain a place of
honorable independence are becoming weaker and weaker.
The enervating effects of urban life have told on the millions who live
in the great cities. The number of men who can stand the rigor of
out-door life, and the exigencies of labor afield, grows smaller year by
year.
Adulterated food, sedentary work at machines which require practically
no skill to operate, and dispiriting home surroundings have brought
millions of men to a mental and physical condition which makes them
little better than slaves.
These truths Trueman and his co-workers endeavor to impress upon the
people. In some districts the audiences evince interest in the
arguments. In others the speakers are met with open derision.
"We are content to work in our present places," some of the laborers
assert. "Are we not sure of getting our bread as it is? If we were to
bring on a revolution where would our next day's wage come from?"
To this argument, which exhibits to what a debased position the
wage-earner has sunk, the Independence party leaders who have formed the
party of the fragment of free-minded men that still remains, marshal all
the arguments of logic and political economy. They appeal to the pride,
the decency of the men, to drag themselves from the slough into which
they have fallen. The appeals are fervent, yet their effect seems
uncertain.
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