New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1873-01-19
& CASE OF RETALIATION.

|
CASE OF RETALIATION.
Every effort of one class of a community
to benefit itself at the expense of its asso-
ciates in the common family is certain to
react in the end to the disadvantage of
those who seek that which they are not
justly entitled to. The same law that
Furnishes a human beng for violating the
rules that regulate his daily life, or that
condemns the offender against the laws of
society, operates among the transactions
of mankind to disappoint those who seek
to advance their own interests improperly
over the interests of those with whom it
is their duty to faithfully and honestly act.
| AS ON illustration of these re-
| Elections a case in point presents
itself at our own doors. Some months
ago the coal-heavers suddenly entered
| upon strike, in which they demanded an
advance of wages to four dollars per day
and diminution of their working hours
to eight hours. The strike confined for
several days, and actually resulted in
bloodshed. Owing to the fact that an
election was then pending, and that all
the oracles of society preferred to humor
the strikers rather than to give them
sensible advice, the disturbance was al
lowed to subside Of its Own exhaustion,
although the consequences were as plainly
perceptible to rational men then as they
are now that the strike has been almost
forgotten. This was a case where the
people were allowed to pursue their own
injury because it was dangerous to the
looker-on to tell them they were wrong.
The strike for four dollars per day and
eight hours time by the coal beavers and
leyee laborers was unjust, because the rate
of wages established in other branches of
labor, and the prosperity of the COM
munity, did not justify it. All the indus
tries that subsist upon the community
have their relation one to the other, and
when the wages of the skilled mechanic
are fixed, those of the ordinary day laborer
are Immediately assumed to be regulated |
at smaller rate. The levee strikers,
therefore, set up an unjust demand when
they put forth a requisition for greater
wages in community that was even then |
struggling under great difficulties to pay |
for what work it was forced to hire.
Now notice the reaction, or rather the
vengeance that was executed upon the in
considerate men who engaged in this at
tempt to force unjust money out Of their
neighbors. The first result was that they
failed in their demand, and had to pay
for their own loss of time. Their strike
gave the coal dealers an opportunity to
raise the price of COAL which enhancement
or additional expense is now resting on
the strikers and their friends. It brought
to town o large number of unthinking
persons who proposed to enjoy the four
dollars and the eight hours with those
who brought them within reach Of the
laboring class. The effect Of this influx
Of laborers had the effect to make work
still more precarious and unremunerative
to the people who really live in the
city and depend upon the people
thereof for employment. So that
The strike which was originated to be an
advantage to the levee laborers actually re-
suited to their injury, because it was not
conceived in justice nor executed in fair
hess The very men who hoped to profit
~ asking wages that they were not emit
led to, from community struggling for
bread, are paying higher price for coal
han they would have had to pay, and they
re met by more active competition than '
would have opposed them if they had not /
ct up an unhealthy difference between the Y
rice Of work in the city and that paid in t
he country. The coal dealers were the t
My parties that realized any benefit from {
be strike against themselves, and the poor 7
'eople who are paying higher for coal are t
offering from the efforts of their friends. c
t is almost certain that injustice will c
ring its own punishment. S