The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-24

CtdinentO by the washington organ makes one
point clear the present members of the Cabi-
net can no longer retain their positions with
honor or self-respeot. They now know that
Mr.. Johnson is anxious to be rid of them, and
they are bound to tender him their resigna-
tions in body and at once. They occupy a
different position to that held by Mr.. Stanton.
While the late Secretary of War was an
avowed enemy of the President, they were his
professed friends. While Stanton was in open
opposition to his policy, they have been its
cheerful supporters. They can have neither
the desire nor the right to embarrass him, and
we therefore recommend them all to draw
their last months pay, put on their hats,
walk quietly out of their Offices, and accept the
role of private citizens with good grace
Labor Congresses and Questions.
From the World.
We have given the proceedings, so far as
they have reached us, of the Labor Congress
now in session in Chicago, and also condensa-
ton by the London Economist of the official
reports of the British Ministers and Consuls
of the Trade Unions and Cooperative Societies
in various European countries. From the
addresses of the President and Corresponding
Secretary of the Chicago Labor Congress we
learn that the main objects Of the assemblage
The formation of labor unions; the establish
lishment of district labor unions among the
blacks, $50 that they shall be instructed in
the dignity of labor and hence be unwilling
to compete to the injury of their white breth-
rem" stand at every point "against the
encroachments of capital" the establishment
of journal expressly to advance and advocate
the objects of this movement the enactment
of an eight-hour law in every State; Con-
gressional eight-hour law for Government
clerks and all employees on the public works;
the election of congressman who are favorable
to all these projects; and introducing the
whole matter into politics, especially ''making
political action available in the next Presiden-
tial campaign"
Now, nearly all this is sheer nonsense,
which might be summed up in resolution
to "make fuss generally" resulting, after
much money-spending loss of time, and gene
raj agitation and speech-making, in the unre-
munerative returns which making a fuss"
would bring. Unless the labor unions are
more effective than they are in their present
crude and imperfect form, the further forma-
tions OF such associations is unadvisable and
useless. The establishment of distinctive
labor unions among the blacks is likely to be
lost sight of so long as labor is a mere hand-to-
mouth living and individual interest, as it is
to those Southern negroes who are seeking
employment, or are permitted to do so un-
trammelled by the Freedmen's Bureau; and it
is difficult to see the precise connection be-
tween 'instructing negroes in the dignity of
labor and "hence'' making them unwilling
to compete to the injury of their white
! brethren.' 1t is best, on the whole, to desig
! nate this as superlative nonsense, lest the
! radical papers swarm like hornets about the
Labor Congress, and sting them for their
| jealousy and prescription of the colored race
Taking stand ''against the encroachments
| nfn no,Nifo oil 10 nYnlu c11rru Ia
should bite its own nose off. Capital is not
the enemy, it is the father, friend, patron, the
very life of labor, and labor in its turn makes
capital. Hence the great and only lesson to
be learned and enunciated by the Labor Con-
gress, in its present session, is that there
should be peace, not war, between capital and
labor, and that labor should harmonize and
cooperate with capital. Indeed, in all the
''soarings after the indefinite and divings
after the unfathomabe' manifest in the re-
port of the Corresponding Secretary, there is
CLEAN of common sense in the frank admls-
sion that 'it is certain labor can in no way
make itself independent of capital but by
cooperation" Unquestonably because CO.
operative labor at once becomes capital itself;
and if the Labor Congress would advocate CO.
operative associations, and ignore strikes and
eight-hOur schemes and attempts to mix the
peculiar measures of this assemblage with the
political issues of the day, capital and labor
and the country generally might be positively
benefited by the proceedings and suggestions
of this congress.
The effort to involve political parties in these
labor questions will certainly come to naught,
and disastrOusly, or with no good results, TO
the great mass of labOrers, because inevitably
the leaders OF the great political parties VIII
only promise much, and then use the agents
and representatives of the labor movement for
their own political purposes. The absurdlty
OF establishing an 'organ," special journal,
to advocate the objects of the Labor Congress,
is shown in the mournful admission OF the
Secretary that no less than four such organs
have miserably failed within the year for want
OF support. Laborng men and mechanics,
IKE all other men, want leaoS-paper, not an
"organ;" and if the plans proposed by the
Labor Congress are subjects of public interest,",
and are OF value to the labor interest, they VIII
not want hundreds of able advocates In the
journals of the day. !,
We have so freely and frequently expressed
our opinions about the eight-hour movement,
that we do not care TO dwell upon the subject
now. Four States have enacted an eight-nou ~
law, but we have yet to learn that the n4urs
Oh labor have been changed in any OF these
states and it will be long time before we
expect to hear that any man has succeeded IN
getting ten hours pay for eight hours woiK. ,.l,
The suggestion that Congress should estaDisr ~
by law eight hours as a days work ior al
classes of thelpaid servants of the Government,
excites smile when we consider that tne
thousands Of department clerks and Govern,
ment officials work only from 10 A. M. 70 o