The Portland daily press., 1873-03-25
con Strike.o

The proposed eight hours strike in New
York is likely to assume very extensive pro-
portions, without counting its operation in
other cities. In New York alone there will
probably be over one hundred thousand men
ION strike,' chiefly carpenters, cabinet
makers, piano makers, and gas men,
They demand reduction of the time of la
Dor from ten TO eight hours per diem without
corresponding reduction OF wages; indeed
in some cases they demand an increase Oh
wages concurrent with the reduction OF time'
thus burning the candle at both ends. Inc
employers are very firm and positive III 'nen
opposition to these demands. Ihey dec'a,e
that they pay as much wages as 'ne 'onu,
ton Of business will permit; tbat tney VIII
close their manufactures and send their uh-
execnted work into the interior for ccmpie-
ton, and then let all operations re Sc un'h
the men are ready to return 10 WORK Oh the
old terms. They have formed comolnations
for mutual protection and support OF SINH
l.- character to the trades unions of the work
mon so that we have strike of combined
All this portends infinite misery, degrada-
tion and want. OF course the laboring n. en-
will actually suffer most, as their accumula-
tions will be soonest exhausted and they will
themselves become demoralized by idleness,
which is sure to lead to vice. If they really
believe, as they profess, that they do not set
under present arrangements, their legitimate
share in comparison with capital OF the pro-
ceeds of their labor, let them appropriate the
large sums which must be expended in main
tanning this immense army of idle men and
their families in establishing co-opera i've
manufactures in which their labor will re-
ceive strictly equitable proportion Of the
p oceeds. The time while the works of the
employers are closed is specially favorable for
the trial of the cooperative system, and all
the above named e nployments are suitable
for the attempt except that of the gas men.
1t is to be hoped that the leading spirits who
control these masses of men may have the
intelligence and honesty of purpose to direct
the power of the combination into good chan
nes tending toward productive industry.
rather than into bad courses of idleness. vio-
lenc. and crime.
There may be tyranny of LABOR quite as
oppressive and danger 'us to the general good
even of the workmen-as any tyranny of
capital possibly could be; and any action
which has for its purpose the destruction of
indus ries without any provision for substi-
tuting better system, is simply an irrational
attempt to establish such tyranny. 1t my
be said that these workingmen have not sufi-
cient intelligence or capital to start co-opera-
tive associations; but men who have brains
enough and can control money enough to Or
ganize and carry through an extended strike
have certainly enough Of both to use for bet
ter purposes if they like. II is indeed won
derful to contemplate the unhappiness which
must result from the general movement which
is proposed, but such thing: will probably con-
tinue until that millennial time when men
will no longer attempt to correct wrongs and
grievances by the perpetration of eliormities
equally deplorable.