The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1871-11-09
ANNA DrcK,xsoS's LEcrURE.-Miss


IN "Demagogues and Workingmen."
At 8 o'clock she was introduced and
received q cordial welcome. She de-
ivered her lecture, as she always does,
without notes or manuscript.
She opened her lecture by showing
how, in all times and ages there had
been a tendency toward equality
amongst mankind. The movement
stopped, sometimes even
turnec backward. 1t has had its rests,
its battle fields, its sleeps, but through
all and above all it has always gone on.
The struggle has been known by different
names in different ages. 1t has been
between king and noble, serf and lord,
and here, but lately, in our own land.
between master and slave. Now we call
it capital and labor.
The reformers say that laborers-
that is hand laborers-are the working
men of the country, and that they are
poorly paid. / take issue at once with
this proposition that only hand labor
ers are workingmen; every man in
America is workingman. The labor
ing men here are just as much the
lawyers, the clergymen, the physicians,
as are the workers in wood, in coal, or
in iron. For their own private purposes
and ends, the labor reformers foster the
spirit OF discomfort that is rife in the
land, and instead of putting the blame
where it rightly belongs, they tell us
that all the trouble arising between
master and man arises from the civil
cation OF the nineteenth century.
They say that our workingmen are
drifting to worse condition than
that OF the workingmen Of England,
and that there is no chance for the poor
here to rise to prominence or wealth
because the rich and powerful grind
them down. The lecturess alluded to
the strikes in England, and showed
what difference there was between a
strike amongst the Newcastle miners,
where they deprived themselves OF food,
OF clothing, OF life itself, to obtain
an advance of eight cents, and in
Pittsburgh, in the strike among the
puddlers, two or three years ago, tor an
advance OF dollar a day, these men
during their strike, being kept in abun'
dance and plenty by the Unions in other
parts Of the country.
In the face OF this, any politician or edi'
tor who says thatAmericen workmen are
falling behind those OF England insults
his audience. The workmen OF Ameri-
ca are taught to believe that their relief
is to be found in legislation, rather than
in reliance upon their own hands
and brains. The trouble is that our
land is already ovcrburlened with legis,
lation, and that two-thiId5 OF our laws
are not observed.
She said that by their cxclusiveness
and arbitrary laws the unions closed
every door to the non-uniOn working
man but that of the prison, and that
even when driven by these cruel socie,
ties from honest work and forced into
crime, and by crime into prison, these
lordly demagogues objected to convict
labor, because, torsooth, the dignity OF
laboring men by it was lowered, and an
unfair compttition resulted with which
they could not contend.
She next reviewed ct length the ques-
ton Of Chinese cheap labor" stating
that the cry amongst the workingmen
here was, Join shoulder TO shoulder,
strike hands together, and press back
this new element into the sea" and
told how, in San Francisco, she had
seen a mob attack a freshly landed band
OF Chinese laborers, and shoot them
down in the streets, when at that very
time the great want on the Pacific
slope was for men to till the land and
work the mines. This massacre, she
said, was but the legitimate working out
of trades union principles.
She then, in substance, proceeded : |
want to ask few questions OF such
workingmen as may be amongst my
audience, for am enough of a Yankee
to believe that have a message for the
workingmen, and thus have a right to
question them. The whole cry, from
one end OF the land to the other is for
more skilled labor and for more men.
Why then is skilled labor and why are
men barred from coming into our land?
Your law is that only certain number
of apprentices can be employed in union
shops, and your reason for this is that
apprentices compete with you in your
trades. Why do not members OF the
liberal professions raise the same objec.
tons? A student Of divinity can preach in
4 pulpit to the exclusion Of an ordained
minister; n student OF law can draw a
brief, to the exclusion Of the man who
has for years practiced at the bar; or q
student Of medicine can prescribe for a
sick man, to the exclusion OF ply
stefan. Is not their case the same as
yours ? Why do not they, then, kill
and main those who encroach upon
their rights and privileges? Have they
not as good grounds for complaint as
yours?
Her lecture throughout was 4 TRADE
against unions and union rucn.
Some OF her statements were simply
untrue. She stated that each printing
office was a typographical union, OF
which the foreman was president, and
that the National Typographical Union
made it compulsory on the foreman
president to refuse work to any but
those who had served four years con-
secutive apprenticeship in one shop
before they were twenty-one. That the
same authority declared that but two
should be employed in one
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