Capital the Chief of Criminals.

One of the most frightful of the abuses resulting from the tremendous power now lodged in the hands of capitalists is their utter disregard for human life. In the insolent indifference of their autocratic sway they pay less heed to the safety of their employees than to the protection of their property. The lives and limbs of laborers are regarded as the merest trifles in comparison with the prospective loss or gain of a few dollars. Only a week ago, in Fairfield, Maine, a boiler explosion occurred in the engine-house of the Kennebee Framing Company, killing three men and seriously crippling several others. It now appears that the boilers had been in such notoriously bad condition for two years past that engineer after engineer had come and gone, refusing to work in close proximity to these potential instruments of death and destruction. The stockholders and directors, nearly all of them men of immense wealth and one of them an ex-governor of the State were repeatedly warned and expostulated with and remonstrated with in regard to their criminal neglect, but all to no purpose. They thought only of their pocket-books and bank accounts, and shut their eyes to the danger. For once, however, fortune dealt out righteous retribution; for, when the fatal moment came, a son of one of the principle directors, twenty years of age, whose duty it was to pay off men, had just stepped into the boiler-room to take their time, and was literally roasted to death in the escaping steam. Liberty wishes death to no man, but is non the less sincerely glad that the grief and suffering bound to result from this cruel and carelessness fell, partially at least, upon the hearts, if they have any of, of those responsible for it, instead of invading the homes of additional laborers. In no other respect however, was this an exceptional occurrence. Similar cases, more of less glaring, daily meet the eyes of all who read the newspapers. Nor is there likely to be an improvement until capital shall be stripped of its power for evil. The Fairfield disaster occurred simply because the corporation could find plenty of men willing to risk their lives rather than throw up their job in the face of the possibility that no other be obtained in the season to keep their families from starving or freezing to death. As long as labor is thus dependent upon capital, so long will it be outraged with impunity. It is useless to look to the State for remedy or punishment. Capital rules every department of it from legislature to court. It is through the State that capital wields its power. Take away the privilege which capital compels the State to grant it, strike down the infamous money and land monopolies, and almost immediately, as has been demonstrated over and over again, the demand for laborers would so far exceed the supply that labor would be the master and capital subject to its bidding. Then no expense would be spared in taking every possible precaution for the health and safety of the workers, and one could open his newspaper at breakfast without gear of the destruction of his appetite by blood-curdling accounts of explosions, collisions, and holocausts entirely within the power of human foresight to avoid. But, as things go now, everything is sacrificed to capital, the chief murderers, and to the State, the weapon with which it does its bloody work.