exorbitant prices are charged for the necessaries of life; bills are contracted which the workmen are unable to pay from their scanty wages, and their forced insolvency places them entirely at the mercy of their task-masters. To such Shylocks may well be applied the words of the Apostle: "Go to now ye rich men; weep and howl for your miseries which shall come upon you you have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days. Behold the hire of the laborers, . . . which by fraud hath been kept back by you, crieth, and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the God of Sabbath."1 In the beginning of the present century, Mr. Pitt uttered in the House of Commons the following words which reveal the far-seeing mind of that great statesman: "The time will come when manufactures will have been so long established, and the operatives not having any other business to flee to, that it will be in the power of any one man in a town to reduce the wages; and all the other manufacturers must follow. Then, when you are goaded with reductions and willing to flee your country, France and America will receive you with open arms; and then farewell to our commercial state. If ever it does arrive to this pitch, Parliament (if it be not then sitting) ought to be called together, and if it cannot redress your grievances, its power is at an end. Tell me 1 St. James V. not that Parliament cannot; it is omnipotent to protect." 1 How forcibly this language applies now to our own country, and how earnestly the warning should be heeded by the constituted authorities! The supreme law of the land should be vindicated and enforced, and ample protection should be afforded to legitimate competing corporations as well as to the laboring classes against unscrupulous monopolies. It would be also a humane measure if the government interposed its authority in forbidding both capitalists and parents to employ children under a certain age, and at a period of life which ought to be devoted to their physical, intellectual and moral development. But if labor organizations have rights to be vindicated and grievances to be redressed it is manifest that they have also sacred obligations to be fulfilled and dangers to guard against. As these societies are composed of members very formidable in numbers, varied in character, temperament and nationality, they are, in the nature of things, more unwieldy, more difficult to manage, more liable to disintegration than corporations of capitalists, and they have need of leaders possessed of great firmness, tact and superior executive ability, who will honestly aim at consulting the welfare of the society they represent, without infringing on the rights of their employers. 1 Pitt's speech on the Arbitration Act, quoted in Vol. 23, p. 1091. Hansard. They should exercise unceasing vigilance in securing their body from the control of designing demagogues who would make it subservient to their own selfish ends, or convert it into a political engine. They should be also jealous of the reputation and good name of the rank and file of the society as well as of its chosen leaders. For while the organization is ennobled, and commands the respect of the public by the moral and civic virtues of its members, the scandalous and unworthy conduct of even a few of them is apt to bring reproach on the whole body, and to excite the distrust of the community. They should therefore be careful to exclude from their ranks that turbulent element composed of men who boldly preach the gospel of anarchy, socialism and nihilism; those land-pirates who are preying on the industry, commerce and trade of the country; whose mission is to pull down and not to build up; who instead of upholding the hands of the government that protects them, are bent on its destruction, and instead of blessing the mother that opens her arms to welcome them, insult and defy her. If such revolutionists had their way, despotism would supplant legitimate authority, license would reign without liberty, and gaunt poverty would stalk throughout the land. I am persuaded that the system of boycotting by which members of Labor-unions are instructed not to patronize certain obnoxious business houses, is not only disapproved of by an impartial public sentiment, but that it does not commend itself to the more thoughtful and conservative portion of the guilds themselves. Every man is free indeed to select the establishment with which he wishes to deal, and in purchasing from one in preference to another, he is not violating justice. But the case is altered when by a mandate of the society he is debarred from buying from a particular firm. Such a prohibition assails the liberty of the purchaser, and the rights of the seller, and is an unwarrantable invasion of the commercial privileges guaranteed by the government to business concerns. If such a social ostracism were generally in vogue, a process of retaliation would naturally follow, the current of mercantile intercourse would be checked, every centre of population would be divided into hostile camps, and the good feeling which ought to prevail in every community, would be seriously impaired. "Live and let live" is a wise maxim, dictated alike by the law of trade and by Christian charity. Experience has shown that strikes are a drastic, and, at best a very questionable, remedy for the redress of the laborer's grievances. They paralyze industry, they often foment fierce passions, and lead to the destruction of property, and above all, they result in inflicting grievous injury on the laborer himself by keeping him in enforced idleness, during which his mind is clouded by discontent while brooding over his situation, and his family not unfrequently suffers from the want of even the necessaries of life. From official statistics furnished by Bradstreet and Carroll D. Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor for eight years ending December, 1888, the following summary is condensed:1 Number of strikes in the United States for 8 years, 5,453 The loss inflicted by the strikes on the employers was but a little over half the amount sustained by the employed, who could much less afford to bear it. It would be a vast stride in the interests of peace and of the laboring classes, if the policy of arbitration which is now gaining favor for the settlement of international quarrels, were also availed of for the adjustment of disputes between capital and labor. Many blessings would result from the adoption of this method, for, while strikes, as the name implies, are aggressive and destructive, arbitration is conciliatory and constructive; the result in the former case is determined by the weight of the purse, in the latter by the weight of argument. And now permit me to address to you, hardy sons of toil, a few words of friendly exhortation solely inspired by a sincere affection for you, and an earnest desire for your temporal and spiritual welfare. 1o. Cultivate a spirit of industry without which all the appliances of organized labor are unavailing. The statistics for the six years ending December, 1886, are compiled by Mr. Wright, and those for the two following years, are supplied by Mr. Bradstreet. |