The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-02-25

The workmen Of Lynn and the neighboring
towns. engaged in the shoe trade, have thrown
up their work and struck for higher wages
from their employers; and 1t is stated that the
number of men engaged in that branch OF
business in Massachusetts, is not less than fifty
thousand, and that the present movement is
likely to embrace the whole trade of that State.
This is serious movement whether con-
templated in social or political light. That
there should exist in tho Old Bay State nu.
merous class of skilled workmen, not immi-
grants hastily poured in, and who have not
had time to disseminate themselves through
the channels of employment, but men native
born, and grown up in the midst of our active
and increasing prosperity, class Of men so
poverty stricken and oppressed as these claim,
through their spokesman, to be, and who have
no other resource for obtaining adequate re-
compense for their labor than that of refusing
to work, parading the public streets in process
sion, and relying upon the public sympathy to
sustain them in their course is conclusive evil
dence that there is something rotten in the so.
cial condition of New England. Whether the
cause of the evil lies in imperfect education,
want of energy and enterprise, or bad social
habits among the people, or whether it springs
from inadequate legislation for the protection
of free labor, it is not our purpose to inquire.
There stands the fact, that the shoemakers of
Lynn assert that they cannot earn more than
four dollars week with fifteen hours of daily
labor, when the average wages of unskilled
labor in this country is not less than one dollar
day.
The strike itself is an evil and its occurrence
at this time affords a practical comment upon
the political theories that are SO strenuously
advocated by New England. 1t would be we'll
if some of the sympathy which Wilson, Sum-
ner, Fessenden, and their fellow representa-
tives from the New England States, so vocife-
rously expend against the imaginary evils of
slavery, were turned to the suffering that stands
at their own doors. Whether the workmen
will obtain the object they aim at, at the pre-
sent time, is question. As general thing,
these strikes of the workingmen usually occur
at times when long period of imitation of
the currency has disturbed prices, and carried
those of provisions to an exorbitant point
Then labor seeks for a commensurate advance.
Thus, in 1886, the workingmen in all parts
of the country began to agitate and
strike, and turn out for higher wages, because
every article of necessity or use had been
greatly increased in cost by the prevailing
speculation. The crisis and revulsion of 1887
crushed employers and employed alike. So,
too, in the early part of 1857 the cabinetma-
kers of New York, and many other classes of
workingmen here and elsewhere, began to agi.
tate for an increase Of wages, and to strike.
The revulsion in prices came before the year
was much more than half out, and the employ
ers had no work to give at any price.
In the present instance the strike comes at
peculiar moment. An insane idea of regulating
social forms in the South has taken possession
of many of the minds of Northern men, It has
divided the churches, it has severed political
connexions and parties, and it is now extending
its baneful division into commerce and indus
try. While the manufacturers of Massachusetts,
are being pressed on one side by their work
men for an advance of wages, on the other they
are being cramped by decreased demand for
their goods, in consequence of the decline of
orders from the South, instigated by the hostile
feeling that has been created by the aggressive
attitude assumed toward the South by the
abolitionized black republican party. The
concurrence Of these effects is likely to
result disastrously to the shoe trade of
New England. Between dissatisfied workmen
on one side, and dissatisfied customers
on the other, the employers are likely to be
brought to the verge of ruin; and this result
cannot butreact upon the workmen themselves.
The loss of the demand for so large portion
of the products of their labors as that which
has hitherto come from the South, will deprive
the employers of any ability they may have to
augment wages.
ences now operating on the shoe trade are not
confined to that trade. They are at work upon
all the industry and commerce Of New England,
and place its manufactures, its shipping, its
railroad interests, its real estate, and all the
varied ramifcations Of its industry and values
upon the brink of danger that may involve
them all in ruin. A political crusade is now
being preached among them, and by them,
against the safety and very existence of fifteen
States of the Union. These States contain a
population of fully twelve millions of people,
who are the best customers the Northern com.
munities have, and their destruction must react
most disastrously on these. That the abolition
of slavery would effect this is beyond ques.
ton; and federal Interference with it in any way
is so near an approach to it, that it gives a
lively character to the evil. The social organ
ization of the North and South may be compared
to two webs of cloth-one all linen, and the
other of linen and cotton mixed. No one de-
MES that the all linen is the superior, because all
its elements are of the superior ones. But the
linen and cotton mixed will still serve for the
of aoo;otzx loxaes L;