New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-05-01
LABORERS' STRIKE.

The sLaborers' Union numbering in its
ranks large portion of the Day-Laborers
of our City and its suburbs, will insist on
Ten Shillings per day for their work from
and after this day, having given due and
seasonable notice to that effect.
We have no faith in Strikes generally,
and fear this will not succeed, though we
heartily wish it could. Ten Shillings per
day, for rugged, faithful labor, in City
where the Day-Laborer can hardly hope
for work more than nine months in each
year, and where the narrowest and shah
best lodging for family must cost 500
to $3.50 per annum, is little enough; we
would rather see it more than less. But
that the recompense of Labor in general
can be permanently enhanced by Strikes,
we do not, cannot believe. This striking
is but a new labor of Sisyphus-the stone
rolls to the bottom of the hill so soon as
the shoulder ceases to force it upward. So
long as the laborer shall continue to be a
hirelng, contented to live and die the in
strument, the drudge, the convenience, of
some boss any essential improvement In
his condition, or even in his wages, seems
to us scarcely possible. The Wages sys-
tenn makes young men prodigal, old ones
hopeless, and all unambitious and improv-
ident. The single man who can earn his
Sc to So per week, subsists on half of it
and squanders the rest on drink, thea
tiers and indulgences still more immoral
His earnings may increase, but he rarely
saves anything. By-and-by he marries
and has family; now he must pay rent,
buy fuel, groceries, have doctors, &C., and
now he can't save anything, and goes down
to his grave poor man if sober and in
dustrious, pauper if indolent and liquor
loving, when, if he had been melted to
save 500 the year after he became of age,
he would probably have gained compe-
tence and been buried from his own house.
Every poor man should resolve to save
something the first year of his independ-
ence, to cherish the habit thus formed, to
refrain from marriage until he has accumu-
lated something to live on, and to get out
of the position of hireling as speedily as
practicable. To work is honorable, is
Mans proper destiny; but to live and die
another mans hireling is neither. God
made us workers, but we make ourselves
hirelings.
And here is the fatal obstacle which we
fear the Laborers' Union cannot surmount
the superabundance Of men seeking to
sell themselves as laborers. If each single
man would resolve-'I will save every
dollar l honorably can, and refrain from
marriage until can cease to be hireling
the proportion between Laborefs and the
demand for their services would soon adjust
itself. But so long as laborers are content
to live and die hirelings, spending their
money at the grog- shop and never getting a
hundred dollars ahead, so long must Labor
anxiously seek employment, accept it as a
favor, and take about such wages as Capital
shall see fit to pay.-We are stating gen.
eral truths-we hope the Laborers' Union
may succeed in spite of them; but what
ever may be the immediate result of this
Strike, the general truth remains that the
number of Laborers must be diminished or
the Wages now struck for cannot be main
tanned.
And now Word to Laborers out Of
the City:
Most of YOU are poor, and many of you
are mean; bat if any among you shall
prove so poor and 50 mean as to come in
and tale the places Of those who have
struck, God pity You! Go to the State
/ Prison, the Poor House, or some other
spot from which YOU may still look an hon.
est men in the face, rather than think of
such thing.
To the Strikers We say-You have
right to fix your own price for your Labor
and refuse to work for less; but YOU have
no legal and We think no moral right to
disturb by intimidation or violence those
who choose to work under price. Reason