The Elko independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 1869-1872, 1869-07-21
Labor SuikeS-

time or less wages. The extent and frequency
of these strikes not only derange industry
and paralyze business, but they are creating
serious apprehension in the minds Of thinking
people that We may be approaching a crisis
in the condition of the labor system of
America, which may end in chaos, revolution,
and agrarianism. No rejecting man can view
with indifference and unconcern the pre-
monitory symptoms of coming struggle be-
tween the representatives of capital and labor
which are everywhere visible throughout the
length and breadth of the country. That
capital, through the means of gigantic cor
porations, is becoming more powerful. exact
ing, and oppressive than in the early days of
the Republic, there can be no doubt; and that
as correlative proposition, the laborer be-
comes correspcndingly dependent and help
less, is equally true. Before the era of great
corporations, which, by the way, are of re-
cent date, the uncertainty of trade and the
! frequent financial crashes in all mercantile
/ and business communities, had the effect to
scatter to the winds and redistribute the
wealth Of the country among the many again.
! In most instances where men had accumulated
fortunes, which at their death descended to
their heirs, as a rule, it fell into incompetent
hands, which were unable to manage the
business in which il had been accumulated,
and the result was that in a few years the
whole was again distributed among the people.
There was no law of primogeniture or en-
tailed estates whereby property could be pre-
served from the disintegrating effect of
| general distribution among the heirs. Cor
/ porations, however, have been invested in
these days of progress with power of self
! perpetuatiou which may prolonc their exist
ance through many generations, with but lit
tie if any prospects of a general distribution
of assets in bankruptcy, or of their being
scattered again among the people through the
| proaigacy of incompetent heirs and admin
istrators. 1t is the present and prospective
/ power of corporations over the business and
financial interests of the country that is
! awakening a sense of uneasiness and alarm in
! the minds Of the laboring masses, and which
| is causing them TO tremble for their fate.
/ This sense of alarm is driving the sons of
| oil to combine into Trades Union" and CO.
| operative Protective Societies everywhere,
for self-preservation, and is causing them to
watch with wary and jealous eye every
move calculated TO encroach upon the former
ground occupied by them, whether in the
natural course of thinge such entertainments
be necessary under changed order of things
or not. Three strikes have recently occurred
/ in this State among miners, who have differed
with their employers, on both the subjects of
I time and amount Of wages. without ex-
. II.
controversy in the particular cases alluded to
in Unionville. White Pine, and Golconda, we
| know that, as rule, miners are the best paid
men working in any branch OF industry in
the State. True, the miner has somewhat
hazardous life to leIlin the dangers Of under
ground works. but not more so than the en-
gineer or brakeman, who take the chances of
n railroad life while the wages of the miner
have been much higher than those of the
other classes named. That miners wages can
be maintained at the prices heretofore paid
while we were isolated from the remainder Of
the world, now that the railroad has brought
an army Of laborers to our doors, we do not
believe, and we further believe that the only
way that white laborers can prevail upon cap
ltalists to employ them i'll preference to
Chinese laborers will be to come TO terms
which will be mutually satisfactory to both
parties. There is mol hing that We should de-
plore more than to witness an organized
movement on the part of capitalists to fill our
mines with coolie laboIers, but We know the
power and determination of capital when it
Is backed by the law both State and national
and knowing il as we do, we can but regard
; the course of the miners as madness in the
extreme, for should they even win a tenn
, porary triumph II could not last in the face of
. the great influx of lnborers, beth from the
east and west, while it engenders a bad feel
, ing and builds up cold, icy barrier between
t capital and labor, when capital will wait and
watch, and whenever an opportunity offers
: will have its revenge.
While the strikes to which we allude may
3 be imprudent and ill-Rdvised, there are
. many strikes now occurring in parts of the
: United States which stand fully justified by
, every law of justice and right, and which com.
nand the sympathies of all men whose hearts
/ have not grown hard and cailous under the
1 corroding influences of ill-gotten gold.
Strikes are now epidemic in the air, and the
? people are just awakening to the fact that she
/ that would DO FREQ, himself must strike the
0 blow" There is nothing more certain in the
o future of our country than that the common