The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1880-04-02
Why Should There be Strikes.


set thoughtful people,to serious thinking as
to whether there is reasonable cause for
them. IT there is, whatever is reasonable
should be accorded prompt satisfaction, not
only ~ to those who are on q strike, but to
those who put forward requests for advance
Of wages but who still remain at work.
There should be serious thinking on the sub
iect for several reasons. A strike is bad
thing in any and every aspect in which it
can be viewed; both parties are sure to be
worse off in the long run, no matter which
side succeeds in the immediate subject
of dispute there is sure to be rank
ling notion of justice denied, or injustice in
sisted upon one side or the other; bad blood
strife, which takes it long time to as suage,
aud the particular industry involved, what
ever it may be is certain to be damagej, and
the damage sometimes extends to the whole
city, town or locality. These facts can be
enforce1 by pages of historical and sta istical
data, il that were necessary, but we know Of
no intelligent, we'll informed man who would
undertake to dispute them by other facts.
The striking employs lose the wages they
might have earned, and there have been
strikes in which the lost aggregate of wages
has mounted into mil lions, and the employ
ers lose the profits on their business by rea
son Of the idle shops, mills, mines, furnaces,
factories, ships, or whatever is embraced
within the paralyzing grasp of the enforced
inactivity. But this is not all or even the
worst. The saved earnings of industrious,
thrifty people, laid away for times of sick
ness, death or other misfortune, 60 into the
general waste; there is often pinchng want
and crying distress at home amOrg women
and children machinery idle is machinery
other trades suffer ly reason of the decreas.
ed ability to purchase OF those getting no
wages; trade production becomes unsteady
as to quantity, price and time: business
shifts to other quarters where there is less
uncertainty, and sometimes it goes never to
return, leaving permanent damages as the
one unmistakable sign of the destructive
strife over temporary cause of dispute.
These, of course, are not put Tor ward as
new thoughts or new facts, but a. reminders
to both employers and employed against
preventing differences of claim about wages
running to the length of strfes, that entail
such consequences. On general principles
one would think there can be nothing un.
reasonable at this time in a request for ad-
vance of wages in any of the great trades or
Industries wnere wages were cut down by
reason of the low prices during the long and
trying period OF depression from 1873 to
1879. Certainly it cannot be so among the
employed people in any of the industries
where the market price of the product has
materially advanced These latter embrace
a wild range, and yet we hear of strikes in
some of them because of the refusal of an
advance that does not appear to be out of
proportion to the advanced price of produc.
tons in market, To the impartial outside
observer such refusal is unaccOun,able, and
looks exceedingly unwise; and this being
the cast who can wonder that the employees
regard it as unjust? This is an unfortunate
feeling to inciie in the minds of working
people, As it is in the minds of people in any
condition of life. They reason with them.
selves AS 10 the hardship of their own cases,
even if they fail to reason out the case of
their employers. They know that when
there is, from any cause, fail in prices in
the products that are work of their hands,
a fail Of wages is nearly always sure and
swift. They have 1t By experience, on the
other hand, that the rise of prices accompa-
nyirg a season of renewed activity and de-
mand does not always or even generally
bring to them an immediate advance of
wages. They usually have to wait until the
stock ready on the market is absorbed by
consumption-and they know that somebody
although not their immediate employers,
get the benefit of the rise in the price in the
old stock on the market. Now, while en-
ployed people generally have got themselves
acCu,tomed to sitting fer Iise in wages
until old stocks produced during the period
of low prices are worked off, they should
never be kept waiting one week beyond that
time, and it is Il question whether it is good
policy in great industries to keep them
waiting even that lorg 1t is a very unwise
policy to run the risk of exciting discou tent
and even an Imaginary sense If injustice by
delay ing an expectation that has as colorab!e
reason as the request for advanced wages
has in some OF the trades on strike at this
time.
Tne Le,iGer having said it4 say on proper
occasions To strisins employees on the dis
astrous result and utterly illogical nature of
tons now to the employers who have not
accompanied the enhanced price of their
commodities with prompt increase of wages.
They appear to be acting with great unwis-
for those of Others who are their customers,
though engaged in other lines of trade or
business These observations may well close
as they begun, by repeating that the strikes,
becoming more numerous AMI widespread
as day follows day, bode nothing but evil for
both employers and employed, and for the
general interest Of the country; that they
are of a character to set thoughtful people
to serious thinking, and that employers
should be ali the more ready to give the
matter their best thoughts, because as yet
there are no appearances that the strikers
contemplate carrying their point by any
than entirely peaceful methods. .-PuJLc
Ledgcr,
Good Company number seven, has an account
by Charles Dudley Warner OF "a hour
.,..-. ~. -. -. ...L L.I.-. >. =. % 49,