Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-04-27

: From the worAlngman's Advocate.

/ i. A friend writing from Nashville, Tenn.
| inclosing an order for thirty three copies
i of the ADVOCATE, says:
81 beg to inform you that / am Score
tary of the -Workingman's Protective As
sociatien, Branch No. 2, OF Nashville,
We started this Association Jan. %,
1870, with eighteen members; we now
number fOrty-two.. r
eff you would give US little encour-
agement, advising our members the way
TO be successful and how to get working
men to take more interest in the laws OF
our country, you would be bestowing q
great favor ON our branch, as the most of
our members are very diffident, and afraid
to speak out their thoughts. have per-
suaded them to, introduce debating into
the society, that is, for one to write ON
some subject, the rest to give their views
| on it.; (our first subject is to be Andy
| Johnson, in order to make the meetings
interesting. What do you think of il ~
| z The question our friend asks, is one
which we have probably been asked a
thousand times before. The man who
solves it solves the labor problem. This
1--we think the employers are doing more
PeffectuaIfy than the editor of the Work
i,'g11soaa's AdUocdte, or any other Id
Vocote can do for them. Experience is
the best teacher" says an old adsge, and
if our workingmen will keep their arms
folded little longer until the web, which
is now weaving to encircle them in their
meshes is completed, until they are bound
hand and foot to the car of capital, we be-
lieve they will "take a little more
interest in the framing of the
law of our country" The thumb
screws will waken them to
repentance, nothing else apparently can.
The man who shows them their danger
and warns them of it; who attempts to
convince them that their day of grace is
fast passing away; that they are blind to
their best interests that the opportunity
they arc neglecting is one that can never
be recalled, and that they have now the
power, o. they have the desire to protect
the inteftsls of labor, is ranked as DEM
agogue, while the teachings of the lackey
the mouthpiece of capital pensioned to
misrepresent and deceive, is accepted, and
workingmen to their shame be il said, be-
come their own oppressOrs, by endorsing
the men and the principles which create
the evils of which they complain.
1t is long lane, however, which has
no turn. Bye and bye, in the glorious
future in which our national domain will
have become the exclusive property of
railroad and other corporations, when
the ''honor and obligation of the coun-
try"-viz: the national debt-shall have
succeeded in mortgaging its labor for
century to come, in order to satisfy the
demands of the shylocks; when barbarian
hordes--ched3O tdEOT--will have driven
the American workman. from the mar
ket, in spite of our mutual admiration
societies, we may look for concerted
action among the working classes.
When the iron hand of necessity cOmpels
them, they will know what to do, and
how to do it. Starvation and degrade
ton will force them to reflection, reflec-
ton viii lead to conviction, conviction TO
conversion, conversion to action, action,
perhaps, to revolution. Workingmen as
an ounce of prevention is worth pound
of cure, why not take time by the fore
lock; exercise the means which God and
nature have placed within your power
now, and thus secure to your children
and your childrens children, the inesti-
mable blessings which the founders of
our Government intended should flow
from its establishment