Thesis Paper

Humanities
Nate Foster

Thesis: While the influx of people and workers in cities gave rise to terrible work conditions,
which led to conversations that sparked strong political movements, with oppositions which then
led to extremism.

Urban growth exploded with the rise of the industrial revolution, which lead to faster
transportation and the fastest spread of ideas the world has seen. With the rise of machinery
hitting the farms around America food was easier to produce, so there was less of a need for
people to work on said farms. Those people who used to work on the farms could now work in
cities and populated areas. Adna Weber, who wrote The Growth of citys in the Ninteenth
Centery (1899), states, “Only a few years ago the American farmer not only raised his own food
but furnished his own fuel and sometimes made his own clothing. Now, however, he is a
specialist, and thinks nothing of going to the market for even for table supplies. Formerly, the
farmer made his own tools; now he buys the implements made in factories” Since the rise in
specialization, this made the farmer able to sink into perfecting his craft making more food for
men of the cities. While the men in the cities can start to specialize in his own craft producing a
better quality of products. Those better products help the farmer get better and better at what
they do. Since the demand of people in cities to produce said goods for the ever-increasing
population gave rise to the demand of work. Since there is a demand for men to work more new
factories startup. The owners of those factories are forprofit and do everything they can to make
a profit. This includes having small wages for the workers. For example in The City and its
workers/US Congress Senate Report of the Senete committee on Labor and Capital(1885)
Senator Blair interviews one of these workers named O’Donnell and he said, “Well, no; the
object is this: They are doing away with a great deal of mule-spinning there and putting in
ring-spinners, and for that reason, it takes a good deal of small help to run this ring work, and it
through the men out of work...For that reason, they get all the small help they can o run these
ring-frames. There are so many men in the city to work, and whoever has a boy can have work,
and whoever has no boy stands no chance” As you can see from this article ODonnell realizes
at an instant any men can be thrown out of work by a more diligent worker, or by a better
machine. So the population of workers can be regarded as replaceable. The mentality of
replacement is the sole problem of this system and gave to rise of the unions and through the
extremity of unions conversations start, and ideologies where born.

Since workers were fed up with being felt as replaceable, with low wages and bad working
conditions, it sparked the rise of Ideology, Ideology that would ideally make all men equal. The
workers were fed up with the Capitalist feeding off of there backbreaking work. That feeling is
represented by the Industrial Union Manifesto written by the Industrial unionists at Chicago 1905
says: “His wages constantly grow less as his hours grow longer and monopolized price grow
higher. Shifted hither and thither by the demands of profit takers, the laborer’s home no longer
exists. In this helpless condition, he is forced to accept whatever humiliating conditions master
may impose.”Those thoughts gave rise to Socialism was apparent in unions. As a matter of fact,
the whole idea of socialism is to make all men equal but to how hard they worked, as well as the
common ownership of democracy and of the means of producing the necessities of life. Not to
mention that they believe that the class-conscious political organization of the wage earners,
and not only thoughts of wealthy men. Through those ideas, Upton Sinclair elaborated upon
them in his book The Jungle says: “If anyone wanted to work or paint or pray, and could find no
one to maintain him, he could support himself by working part of the time. That was the case at
present, the only difference being that the competitive wage system compelled a man to work all
the time to live, while, after the abolition of privilege and exploitation, anyone would be able to
support himself by an hour’s work a day.” This was the idea that all men are equal, and since if
they are then all of there work would be equivalent to the man next to him making it so he only
needed to do a certain amount of work, and not to kill himself with a job that that man can only
bearly live on for many hours on end. To an extent cutting out the rich and wealthy men at the
top that did not work, but profited off of the backs of the men around him.

Since the rise of socialism and communism, capitalists pushed back against these men
in their own effect. This gave rise to more and more extremism, and the more of that the more
each pushed back at each other. As Carnegie’s Hymn to wealth written by esteemed capitalist
Andrew Carnegie states that:
“THe socialist or anarchist who seeks to overturn present conditions is to be regarded as
attacking the foundation upon which civilization itself rests, for regarded as attacking the
foundations on which civilization itself rests, for civilization took its start from the day that
capable, industrious workman said to his incompetent and lazy fellon “if thou dost not sow, thou
shalt not reap”” In this Carnegie is clearly against socialism which he thinks will give rise to the
fall of civilization and lazy workers. He also is scared of unions, because they take power away
from him, and give it to the common worker. The workers and unions want the power to them,
and the harder capitalist push unions, the more extream unions become. The more extream
unions, the rise of socialism and communism. To this extent Eugene .V Debs has been pushed.
He loves the idea of communism as he supports the Bolsheviks in Russia. He has been through
in jail for opposing the American entry into World War One and was through in jail for expressing
those opinions. According to Eugene .V Debs wrought in Eugene V. Attacks Capitalist
Warmongers states, “Give me a hundred capitalists and let me ask them a dozen simple
questions about the history of their own country and I will prove to you that they are as ignorant
and unlettered as any you may find in the so-called lower class. They know little of history; they
are strangers to science; they are ignorant of sociology and blind to art but they know how to
exploit, how to gorge, how to rob, and do it with legal sanction.” Eugene .V Debs was biased
towards his cause, because he was apart of the Socialist Party, and hates the idea of being
imprisoned in a free country for his beliefs. He is saying that Capitalist’s only goal is to take
advantage of all of the thoughts around him so he can profit on his own wealth. The wealth that
is not earned by hard work, but by taking advantage of thoughts that do. They also know nothing
of the country that he lives in beside his money-making schemes. The start to this extremism
was here, as a part to all of human nature, if you try to convince a population, and push them to
one side, he will only become more, and more entrenched in his own views. Views, that are
further and further from the original idea that was at heart.