The Portland daily press., 1870-07-11

There are some names, like that of the
Bourbons, identified with despotism and blind
adherence to out-srown prejudces and old
world traditions,while others have become sy-
nonymes for originality of thought, freedom
of speech, Independent action and continual
progress. Conspicuous in this latter class, for
successive generations, is the name Of Adams!
And now even the town planted among ithe
free hills of Berkshire in the old Bay State,
whose liberty-loving citizens adopted that
honored and historic name for their munich
pality, has become a battle ground for the
stillbeginning, ne er-ending, conflict between
conservative tyranny and progressive free
dem, developing themselves in a phase new
to us.though familiar to those of the actors
who come from those older and more popu-
lous countries, where the competition for em-
ployment is greater and the workmen gener-
ally less instructed in the plainest principles
Of political economy and individual rights.
1t originates in an attempt upon the part Of
an organized society to dictate TO the manu-
facturers of boots and shoes in matters
which the members OF the organization
have no right to control, and which
they certainly ought not to manage In
the manner proposed by them, even were the
management of these affairs properly left to
| them. 1t is not merely question of hours of
labor or OF rate of compensation. The manu-
facturers have been readily paying for work
so that the men have easily earned from $2,-
80 to S. yer day, and girls from $50 and S75
to 800 per month A difficulty has arisen
from the fact that those getting these high
wages were not content to work continuous
| ly, and insisted on loaing two days in the
| week, to spend what they made during the
other four. Inasmuch as only particular
part Of the work was done by each hand, a
full steam" of four or five being employed in
completing the shoe for market, If one or two
Of the gang were sick or chose to be idle, the
others were so compulscrly. But all these
evils were born without complaint or
rupture between the parties concerned and
disagreeable and injurious as they were, the
manufacturers would have continued to endure
| them as almost inevitable drawbacks in their
| business. But the Crispins, chartered as
society by the Legislature assumed an abso
lutte sway to which no man could honorably
submit. They not only forbade the employ
ment of anybody who remained outside their
lodges, or whom they did not choose to ad-
nit into them, but they prohibited the man
facturers from driving a single peg or taking
one solitary stitch in their own shoes; they
fixed the number OF apprentices that should
II 1oa do a,~I
could be permitted to teach it to poor boy
who wished to earn his living in that way,
without their sovereign consent. No poor Or
phan could be even hired to put the strings
into the shoes unless he could pay the en-
trance fee and obtain admission to their Or
ganization. The contractors have had to
submit their books 10 an examination that
the leaders might be-satisfed that the work.
men were getting all that the hirers could pos
sibly be induced to pay. Being lin North
Adams, at least) mostly uneducated foreign
ers, mainly Of Irish extraction, they declared
that only a certain low grade of shoes, such
as they were themselves capable Of making,
should be manufactured there. The origin of
their quarrel, which has resulted in Mr..
SIMPSONS engagement with the Chinese was
that they drove back some skilled American
workmen, belonging, like themselves to the
Order of Crispins, whom he had brought
from Central Massachusetts, to make shoes Of
class superior TO those made by these I'M
unskiful hands, that he might meet the va
rious wants and fill the whole orders of Gus
toners from different parts of the country.
How gross an Infringement of the manu-
facturers' rights and of those of the superior
worllmen all this is can be easily seen but it is
equally injurious to society not only by forcing
upon the market an undue proportion of the
illy-made and inferior article, but vastly more
so because destructive of social order in princ-
pie and ultimate effect. If the Crispins may
declare their craft so full that no more ap-
prentices can be admitted for while, the
brick-makers and layers, the blacksmiths,
coopers and BARRIERS may take the same
ground, and so Of all the trades; and poor
boys, however anxious to learn to do some
thing that will support themselves and at the
same time benefit the world, will, in very
many instances, be compelled to remain in
ignorance of any handicraft, though there be
many as willing TO teach them as they are to
learn, and finally must inevitably become vag-
abonds, depredating and inflicting righteous
retribution upon that community which has
denied them their heaven-glven birth-right Of
earning their own living by the sweat of their
own brows.