Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1871-12-16
What About WOrkingmen!

From Hearth and Home
Emerson says somewhere that the
difference between a radical and con-
sentative is that the one has his fortune
to make, while the other has made his
fortune. This would be very unfair
remark applied to men who are radical
from real conviction. But there are al
ways people who want to upset things
Just for the sake of seeing whether n
"new deal all around will not give
them something better in life than they
have. 1t is the man who is under,
naturally enough, who wants to see
things reversed, or at least leveled
And just now there is a widespread
discomfort among workingmen, if, in
deed, any class of men have a right to
arrogate to themselves so honorable a
title. Among those who toll with the
hand for wages, there are doubtless
many thriftless and shiftless ones, who,
like Micawber, hope for something TO
turn up, but who, unlike Micawber, are
not willing to wait for it to turn up.
They will help it turn.
But no man not blind can help seeing
that that there are real grievances of
which work people have a right to com.
plain. Capital does combine against
them. Capital is very strong. Capital
thinks only of the commercial value of
the man, and it works him, not with
any reference to his humanity but only
with reference to his proftableness. 1t
pays him just as little as it can, and it
remorselessly takes advantage of his
poverty, of his helplessness, of his de-
pendent wife and children, to keep him
out OF anything like u partnership IN
the profits of the business, while it
makes him suffer as far as possible from
its losses.
What relief is there? Now we say,
frankly, to workingmen, that they will
not find relief in Trades Unions. Be.
cause Trades Unions are despotisms,
restraining the liberty of the individual.
An oppressed class can never get help
out of despotism. Trades Unions
fall into the hands of demagogues, and
through them the workman fails among
thieves. Trades Unions load the skilled
workman with the burden s+- roor
one, and force the contented and thrifty
workman to strike and starve with the
dissolute and worthless one. No such
monstrous injustice as Trades Union
Seeii w SClN1 NlIO SttuSS
of justice.
Workingmen will get no relief from
demagogues. Rogues who hope to ride
into office on the shoulders of working
men are simply new burdens. Work
ingmen will not shake the capitalist off
by taking the demagogue on.
The very first step for the improve
ment of the working classes is the
abolition of the unions which force an
employer to pay a poor workman as
much as good one. The incentive to
excellence is removed by this very ar
rangement, and the skilled workman is
the loser. Indeed, the unskilled work
man is also a loser, in that he loses the
best inducement to improvement. Do
not tie good workmen and bad together
if you hope to improve their condition.
Sinking the good one will not save the
bad.
For indeed the education of the
workman will work his emancipation.
Let him be master Then he will find
ways of combining with other workmen
for cooperation, and skilled, intelli-
gent, and trustworthy workmen will
not want for capital ready to serve them
when they demonstrate their capacity
to use it to advantage. We are not
saying that the law can not do some
thing for the relief of the handworkers.
But it can not do much. And COM
munism, which would put all society
under the feet of the brazen dema-
gogues who can control the machinery
of the gigantic and despotic Trades
Union-communism will help the work
man least of all. Men do not get up
by putting others down. Liberty is not
promoted by tyranny.