The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1874-02-07
An Appeal to the Miners of District
No. 4 of Illinois.

An Appeal to the Miners of District
No. 4 of Illinois
GENTLEMEN Fellow miners, the time
has come Tor us all to be up and at our
| post, and | believe that the President of
each and every Lodge III our District
4 should call meetings often to try TO infuse
\ into the minds Of more of our miners the
necessity IF closely uniting together
! J know that such calls are necessary and
4 that they would result IN a large amount Of
I good 70 the mining class Of Braidwood. |
am sorry that such a call is necessary be-
cause 1t shows to the world that they are
/ ignorant Of their very best interests; but
I fellow miners Just as long as you are care
I less Ut your interests, Just so long will you
remain, as you deserve to be, slaves to the
petty tyranny Of your employers, Just 50
| long wIl your family remain in poverty
and ignorance. 1t seems to me that the
majority of our men to-day have no am
| uItIou whatever, no desire to better the
class e which they belong, no wish to leave
the world better than they found it. no
desire that their posterity should cherish
their memory by having to bless them for
the good they would i've to enjoy, il their
parents would only unite with Others ia
trying w remove the evils that now exists
iu our midst; on the contrary, they are
dead tn everything that tends to elevate
themselves and others dead to everything
except the desire TO obtain (at whatever
cost Up their healthy, the almighty dollar
There at some Of them that 90 into the
there remain till late hour in the night.
v hat for T. make living, some say
les, and some Of them very poor one at
that, while some, very few, make fair
wage. What is he consequence The one
that makes the largest wages are reduced
To- be On a level with the man that has the
small wage that's the dodge Of some of
our employers in this locality This is
not all, the man that works early and late
comes home " hat for to instruct his
children: 20 pass a few hours pleasantly
with his wife and childrenl No. But to
eat his supper Cf he has not worked him
self of his appetite) and then to lie down
more like beast Of burden, than being
that was made IN the image and likeness
az his Creator. Thus the weary round of
life revUlves until nature is completely ex-
hausted and his constitution is completely
broken down, and then he il compelled to
take that rest which should have been
taken when nature asked for it, which il
that case his rest would have been bless
inc to him but now it is a curse; he is a |
misery to himself, and a misery to his |
wife ant family, and burden to the society |
To which he belongs, if he belongs to one |
At all BE is now broken in constitution. |
the money he saved has gone for doctors,
bills and medicine, he is probably thirty
five or forty years old, but he is past work,
al Old man in fact, in the prime Of life,
w have many such specimens around this
place, 50 much for the evil effects What
il The remedy : The remedy is iii our own
hands-if we wait for those that put the
shackles on to take them Off, we shall for
ever remain in slavery We must remove
them ourselves, the way to do it was made
plain to every one who heard the great
orator, the peoples Tribune, II. 4. Trevel-
lick, on Saturday the 3lst. He explained
it more fully than and one in this locality
can do. But to those who did not hear
him, / assure them they lost a greatdea Of
good information. He advocated our
meeting together often to discuss the griev-
ances and wrongs under which we are
50 as to devise ways and means
to rid ourselves Of them. He showed that
each and every man who had vote was
really to blame for the panic that has
lately, and is now, destroying our country,
in electing such rsscals into our State and
National Legislature, to make laws that
gives to the non-produclng class the lion 5
share Of all production. The slave of the
South THAT used to beg was better cared
for than the white labOrer Is to-day, whea
he had no work to do, he was provided
with shelter and food, while there are
and tens of thousands to-day of
white labOrers in our midst without bit to
eat, without a shelter to protect them
from the weather, without sufficient cloth
lAS " Keep IAcin WdTul AnQ pTOttCL L0cm |
from the chilling blast of the North. He
said if we had some natural cause to blame
for it, if the locust ARd come and eat
and destroyed our crops, if some disease
had come and taken away our cattle, we
might naturally expect scarcity Of food
and raiment, but such is not the case, on
the contrary our fields have yielded in
our store houses are groaning
beneath the weight Of produce in them,
the hocks and herds upon thousand hills
are waiting to be converted into food for
man, while cotton and wool in abundance
are ready to be converted into clothing to
shelter and protect us from the cold; while
on the other hand, hundreds of looms are
Idle, and thousands of willing workers are
going idle, not because the products of in
lustry are not wanted, but because they