On Laws 1918

Live Mass Meeting in Royal City on Saturday

E. T. Kingsley

The chairman stated that the next speaker would be E. T. Kingsley, who needed no introduction and it gave him great pleasure to call upon Mr. Kingsley to address the audience.

Mr. Kingsley received hearty applause as he stepped forward to address the audience. He said, in part:

“I am very fond of animals. I have watched the wild animals in the forest and the cattle on the prairie play and gambol and roam about, but I have never noticed any of them driving others to work. I have never known a horse to beg of another horse to put the harness on his back or hook him to a plow (laughter). But the two-legged animal seems to insist on being harnessed and driven (laughter).

“The wage-working animal insists on a system of slavery and the penalty of slavery is work, work, work and keep on working, A mule will work only when he is driven to it by man and the two-legged slave and the mule make a fine team. This slavish condition has come down to us from the countless ages and most of us have not got kick enough in us to get away from it.

Labor Produces All

“There has never been a yard of cloth produced, and there has not been a piece of coal, bread, or lumber produced except by the hand of labor and yet the slave class cannot partake of a particle of food except by the will of the master class.

“Did you ever know of a mine, mill or factory that ever produced a loaf of bread for its owner without turning a wheel. No! And who is it that turns that wheel? The slave! Nothing is produced until the wage-worker applies his mental or physical energy. The mills, mines and factories are worthless so long as man fails to apply his energy, because nothing is produced. Hence the workers are property.

“You are the thing that is owned. You are the thing that makes the bread. You are the thing that makes the machinery of wealth production valuable and yet the owners of that machinery control your every act. The financial columns of the papers are full of figures representing your value to the owning class. When the price of stocks is quoted they are quoting your value to the holders of those stocks.

“Robinson Crusoe did not eat the bread of idleness until Friday came along and was forced to become a slave. Then Friday got busy and caught the fish and cooked it and gave it to Crusoe and after Crusoe ate the good meat he handed Friday the bones (laughter). And the modern wage slave acts just like Friday. He has got to go out and find a master before he can get a job which will enable him to eat and then he gets the bones or the cheap trash.

“Less than 40 per cent. of the inhabitants are engaged in producing the necessaries of life. The other 60 per cent. does nothing but eat up what the 40 per cent. has produced. The 60 per cent. are either doing nothing or are producing ruling-class requisites and performing ruling-class service such as policing, soldiering, selling real estate, banking and doing other things than producing food, clothing and shelter. No wonder there is poverty and distress.

The Political Club

“At one time the slaves were ruled by means of a knotted club. The owners of the club thumped the workers with the club and got them busy. But wise men sprang up and learned how to write and make laws and now we are ruled by laws instead of by clubs. Now and again we get a crack on the head with a club to remind us that there are laws.

“How do they make the laws? They take a piece of paper, write something on it and say, this is the law (laughter). So today men are put in the coop on the strength of a piece of paper. Some of us slaves can read the law, but very few of us can understand it (laughter). We have to hire a lawyer to understand it for us.

“But without the law the master class cannot exist, hence their efforts to retain their henchmen in office.”