Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1880-06-19

are on hand and must work or starve
This is very wrong idea and leads
to bad fruits always. The next thing
is hard, harsh regulations to be car
ried out by overlooking bosses who
are selected because they are big,
burly and tyrranical. Behind all this
is the power kept back to lower wa
ges whenever they see ft
No wonder workingmen unite to
meet these things. The wonder
would be if they didn't.
Nothing pays company better
than to have the goodwill of those
who serve it. | know of one compa-
ny in this region where this is the
case, for what reason I don't know.
will admit in some respects labor
is commodity, and rises and falls
with the laws of supply and demand,
but it is not commodity in the same
sense as corn, or coal. There is in la
Dor the element of life, Of human life,
which is in no other article of pur-
chase or sale. This is What makes
the labor question so mired and hard
to settle. We have made some prog
ress, but not enough. Trades unions
have grown up in the country, but
instead of being appreciated as some
thing to deal with, they are ignored,
slandered and despised, by the men
whose policy has made them what
they are. Corporations have not
meant to do this but they have done
it all the same. I am told that in
Clearfeld the store order system had
much to do with the trouble there.
This brings me to what am try
ing to reach. I have spoken of the
mistakes made by companies in deal
ing with their employees, and I will
add that the system of compelling
them to deal at company stores is one
Of the worst. I do not say that this
system, by itself, brings on strikes,
but do say that it is part of sys-
TEN which does. In the Schuylkill
region plane rope was cut, cars
dashed to pieces, track torn up and
dump-house broken down-a very
bad piece of business, to be sure.
But it came out afterwards that it was
a party of men who made the sad
mistake of taking this way to revenge
themselves on the extortions of the
company store merchants. They had
no business to take the law, or rather
no law, into their own hands, for that
made them criminals and liable to
punishment. But we can see how one
evil brings on another. Greed Of
gain, one of the worst tyrants in the
human breast, will lead men to al
most anything. In this case it put
all sorts of expressions on the men and
topped them off with the compulsory
store order system, with all its exac-
tions, extortions and brutalities.
From the spirit of resentment against
these and evils like them started that
Infamous "Molly Mcguire party
which murdered so many and brought
the murdsrers to the gallows.
want to say now that we want
this law to stand because it prevents
prouocation to crime. Workingmen,
we cannot afford to be looked upon as
lawless class, ready to do anything
to get our rights. This law protects
us and he who violates it must an
swer to it-not to us. AS long as it
stands the other side are the crimi-
nals-not us-e9cept when we aid
them to violate it by giving up our
rights under it and make ourselves
parties to the crime. When we do
that we deserve to suffer all that they
can lay ON US. To resent then by
word is to stultify ourselves; by vio-
lence is to deserve hanging.
FAIR SHOW.