The Portland daily press., 1872-06-19
Justice to WOrkingmen.

Justice to WOrkingmen.
The lion thought that if he were painter
he could present another phase of an affair
between himself and a man, represented in
picture where the man was introduced with
his foot resting on the lions PROSTATE body.
Caution is necessary or we shall be greatly
deceived by the pictures, the colors of which
are all laid on by the employers, of the vio-
lence and outrage that are alleged to mark
the conduct Of the striking workmen in New
York. The workingmen are not painters
they rarely tell their own story,-and they
must rely for justice on the truthfulness and
impartialty of journalism. Journalists are
the modern tribunes of the people, and if
they are false to their trust and act merely as
the mouth pieces of privileged classes, labor
is certain to have the stain of stupidity and
rufflanism fixed upon it.
Let us consider the New York case mo-
ment. Here are one hundred thousand work
ingmen in the two cities of BROOKLYN and
New York, as is estimated, who have been
idle several weeks. Their toll in some thirty
different branches of industry has been for
years adding to the stores of a very limited
number of their fellow citizens who are SO
fortunate as to possess at the start the accu-
mulated fruits of the toll of past generations
OF workers. Meanwhile the workers them
selves have had a bare subsistence. Being
anxious to secure a more equitable share of
life's blessings, they have demanded the re-
duction of the hours of labor Their employ
ers have refused to entertain this proposition,
and the hands have stopped work. And it is
no longer sufficient for a willy employer to go
out to them with his political economy and
his story of the lessening of production and
the solidarity of labor and capital. Our Me-
MENUS Agrippas do not have the success of
the Roman with their ''palaver," and they
cannot bring back the plebians to their
poorly requited toll by an old wifes
fable. The modern worker knows that the
very political economy, which is produced to
him as an argument in favor of the CAPT.
talist's pretensions, has long since shown that
the admitted inter-dependence, not of labor
and capital which are convertible terms, but
of labor on the one hand and thought lover
sight, invention, provision, knowledge and
culture), on the other, does not require the
aggregation of wealth and, by consequence,
OF the comforts and blessings of life in the
hands of few. He knows that the accumu-
lations Of wealth necessary to accomplish
great results may be managed just as pru-
IDENTIFY for the economical interests of man
kind if this wealth is the possession of the
many who have created it, and not of the few
who, under the forms of law, have made it
their own by reaping where others have
sown.
SO the New York strikers refuse to Weld.
though ever so much false political economy
be preached to them by the capitalist news
papers. Being idle for weeks in succession,
tits not to be expected that there will not be
found individuals of the hundred thousand
who will commit indiscretions and even
crimes. OF course the employers stand ready
to exaggerate every fault of the malcontents.
and to spread broadcast over the country the
news of every false step, in order that the
workers may be deprived of the sympathy
and moral support of mankind which is their
main reliance. In this way much has been
made of little. Thus the in ults offered by few
fanatical French Communists to the Garde Re-
publicaine band its arrival in New York, the
violence done to a single. workngman on ac-
count OF his refusing to join in the strike and
the undue influence which the strikers some
times attempt to exert over those who do not
join in their demonstrations, have been so
colored and heightened in the variations of
interested parties as to give the impression
that there is a reign of terror in New York.
and that the hands of the strikers are full of
plumber and red with blood. All this is I'M
fair. We believe no other so large body of
men, with grievance and plenty of leisure,
ever behaved so well before in the history of
the world. The tales from the Western from
tier, set on foot by the ruffians who fat on In
dian wars and who wish for the presence of
large bodies of troops, are not more unrelia-
BILE. Besides, the mass of the workingmen
are in no degree responsible for the outrages
that have been committed by individuals
Even the Internationals have denounced the
iiNAA VIM iiouibCu IlS Ddnu, WullC Tile
ruffian who attempted to murder a non-strik-
ing workman has been universally repudiat-
ed. Suppose the United States Senate
should be judged by its worst members?
Suppose the whole church should be made
responsible for the crimes of its few unworthy
communicates These New York workers
are entitled to fair treatment, especially since,
with all the wrongs they have suffered, they
have created less excitement and caused less
public Inconvenience, interruption of general
business and loss of life than the Vanderbilts,
Fisks and Goulds have often done in single
day when quarreling over the fruits of their
common robberies.