Jan 8, 1831
While commenting on the truth that “there is an effort to inflame the minds of the working classes against the more opulent”, and concerned that there be no violence, he speaks warmly of the working class, “The industrious artisan, in a government like ours, will always be held in better estimation than the wealthy idler.”
Jan 29, 1831
A letter to the Editor, from “W” makes a strong statement that the conditions of the working class merit a dedication to change as much as the condition of the slaves. Garrison introduces the article with words which discourage teaching “the poor and vulgar” to “consider the opulent as their natural enemies”….he acknowledges that there “is an abuse of wealth as well as of talent, office and emolument” ….but denies “evidence that our wealthy citizens, as a body, are hostile to the interests of the laboring classes”…..He concludes the introduction of the article with a plea that he has more to say on the matter, but is running out of space, and an appeal that wherever there is “public abuse”, there must be a speedy and judicious remedy
August 13, 1831
An item from the N. E. Baptist Register, titled Religion Among the Poor: here is an affirmation of the fidelity of poor people to the religion of Jesus Christ. “The rights of men and plainly and irresistibly established in the gospel…..But he came to destroy that inequality among mankind which enabled the rich and great to treat the poor as inferior beings……”
July 15, 1842
Here is an “Interesting Letter from England”, signed only W.H.Ashurst, from Musell Hill, Hornsey, April 30, 1842
The letter makes a number of points:
“We are struggling here against white slavery, the slavery of caste, as you are struggling against the slavery of skin. The working man, in Europe, is a slave in fact, though a freeman in name; with you the name and the fact go together. We mask it here, but the Pariahs are beginning to look underneath, and to push aside the vizor.
“There is no distinction between the two systems in principle; they work out their effects differently. You carry your scourge openly, and avow your right to be unjust; whilst we here work through the gastric juice, and starve them into submission…….”
The letter also indicates a positive confidence that “truth has carried humanity onwards. Truth never sleeps.” The letter affirms the idea of non-resistance, but cautions that Garrison may, on this subject, go “a leetle too far” ….. Also asks to be remembered to James and Lucretia Mott, and expresses thanks for the works of Maria Chapman.
July 22, 1842
A brief note: “We understand that two or more of the mills at Lowell have been stopped, and that between two and three thousand factory girls are thus thrown out of employment.”
February 16, 1844
Addressed to Rev. Orville Dewey, D.D., Smith responds to a lecture in which Dewey has asserted that emancipated blacks in free states are worse off than the slaves of the south. Smith refutes this claim, and invites a debate.
March 26, 1847
From Thomas Ingersoll, Westfield, Chaut. Co. N .Y. “I have seen the slavery of the South, and the slavery of the North; and, sir, I find little to choose between the slavery of wages and that of no wages; though the slavery of wages supposes, and indeed is proof, of the mental advance of this order of slaves, over him who is yet but a chattel. Yet, sir, the system of wages, as now established, is a biting, galling enslavement. No man, by the mere wages he receives, can ever rise above a menial. I speak of the common laborer. The laborer does not any where enjoy the full fruits of his labor. He is under the necessity of sharing with another, who does not labor. By what order of morals is the product of labor thus divided? Must it be said, that capital must draw its share? But why shall capital draw the lion’s share?….”
April 23, 1847
Here William West, writing for Boston, April 5, addressed to WLG, calling for greater attention to the evils of wages slavery. The root of the problem is claimed to be in Land. That traffic must be destroyed, that monopoly must be abolished, before slavery can be exterminated…… Do you ask how the traffic in land may be destroyed: how the monopoly of land may be abolished? How? Make the public domain free to actual settlers in limited quantities. Regulate the acquisition of land in such a way, that as landlords die, their landless children and their children’s landless neighbors may inherit their estates (in limited quantities)., Render the homestead inalienable. Do this, and the work is done. The bells may be rung, and LIBERTY proclaimed ‘throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof’”
May 26, 1848
An article telling of a meeting at Faneuil Hall, largely attended, ” to sympathize with the European Revolution and express the sentiments of the laboring class in regard to its application in this country.” Resolutions are passed praising what has been done in France, and to “call upon the Working Men of New England to oppose a manly resistance to the insulting pretensions of a ’shabby genteel’ aristocracy, who already assume to control the elections and direct the legislation of the State,” and calls for measures to improve the status of the Working Men.
October 26, 1849
The article, with the above title, is from “The New York correspondent of the Washington Union.” Without including the statistics used to advance the author’s argument, here is the gist of what the article says: “The attention of the thinking men of the age has been attracted to the fact that the constant tendency of capital is to accumulate in magnitude at the expense of labor. Its efforts to enhance the rent which it annually exacts from industry are constantly strengthened by its success, and on every hand manifold evidences manifest themselves that poverty is increasing with fearful rapidity among the masses of the people, while individual fortunes are constantly swelling in magnitude….”