p. 172 | The Working Class

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 11.

The Working Class.

THE working-class is the only class which is not a class. It is the nation. It represents, so to speak, the body as a whole, of which the other classes only represent special organs. These organs, no doubt, have great and indispensable functions; but for most purposes of government the State consists of the vast laboring majority. Its welfare depends on what their lives are like.—Frederic Harrison.

That is a terse statement of a great truth. Adam was a laborer. All his descendants are or ought to be laborers, and the vast majority must always be manual laborers. Hence the rights and interests of laborers are not the rights and interests of a class, but of humanity, of the race.—Interior.