The daily gazette., 1880-10-12
SECOND EDITION
INTIMIDATING VOTERS.
From the Philadelphia Times.

From the Philadelphia Times.
A smaller class of manufacturers
and other large employers have ask
ed their laborers to vote for Garfield
without positive, threats Of dismissal
in case of refusal, but in such tone
and manner as to convey very clear
ly that they will be without employ
ment soon after.the election if they
fail to obey. This is the worst form
of partisan depotism, for it has all
the crime of demanding the votes of
laborers at the peril Of dismissal for
disobedience, without the courage
and, honesty of declaring the truth
in manly terms. Such employers
should be heard and unheeded by
their employees, because they deny
to equally free citizens what they
CLAIM for themselves, and because
they violate law and good morals in
their attempts to make partisan
slaves of their workmen. Honest
employers do not thus deal with la
Dor, and honest workmen would do
we'll to vote as they please and to
find employment elsewhere.
A very small class of employers
have pcremptorily demanded that
their workmen vote as they dictate
or be promptly discharged for re-
fusing. One or two establishments
have publicly declared their purpose
thus to demand the votes of their
workmen, but they have been sham.
ed into a different policy. by the in-
telligent public opinion that de-
nounces such arrogance as reproach
upon the business men of Philadel-
phia, and they have ceased to claim
the rights of the 0ld-time slave-dri
yer. This class has made five votes
against Garfield among intelligent
workingmen for every vote it has
made for him, and the employers
have disgraced themselves simply
to hinder their own cause.
The great mass of our manufacturers
and business men have not attempted
to interfere with their. labor beyond
the ordinary and legitimate efforts to
serve general party purposes, and Of
th0 none can complain. And in this
they are wise, for any systematic eff
fort to control the votes of labor for
any party, by the arrogant demands of
capital, would not only dishonor en-
ployers, but intensifp the political op-
position of workmen. Two things are
to be we'll considered in regard to the
question of capital attempting to vote
labor by arbitrary power
Labor in the North is intelligent and
organized and it would sternly resent
such violent political domination. Tho
laborers of our city are mainly asso-
ciated in the various Trades Unions.
and they look we'll to the independ-
euee of workingmen. They are spec
tally sensitive about all attempts, even
in the most indirect manner, to SUBJ
ordinate the manhood of the laborer,
and they would throw an almost solid
column into any contest against the
arrogance that assumes the laborer to
be the party slave of the employer.
The bitter experience of both capital
and labor during the last decade,
proves that capital must respect the
individual citizenship of the laborer if
it would maintain that harmony of in
terest that is essential to the prosperi.
ty of both, and no one thing could
more widely estrange labor from capi-
tai than for employers to attempt the
control of the votes of their worknen.
In short, for employers to assume to
direct the votes Of their employees,
would be to make labor resent lis at
tempted degradation by voting against
those who seek to command its favor
at the polls. .. .a.