New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-06-04
TIE BLIND LEADING The BLIND

The comments of THE TRIBUNE the other
day upon the tyranny of the Trades Unions
and the faulty of American mechanics in
barring out their own sons from the trades
while foreigners rushed into them and literally
took the bread from their mouths, have called
forth answers from all parts of the country.
As to the first question argument from us Is
useless. few weeks will prove to the great
body of handicraftsmen in this country
whether the policy of the trades unions is wise
or not. Nearly one hundred thousand
men have voluntarily stopped work. which
number represents probably half a million of
women and children dependent on the unions
for support. They, poor creatures, can testify
to the amount of drunkenness, crime and mis-
cry which grows out of a strike, whether 1t Is
successful or not. The man engaged III "A strike
has the excitement of fighting, OF the esprit de
CORPS of the elatiOn which the poor man always
feels in checkmating rich one all OF which
are likely to hinder him from cool consldera-
ton as to whether Labor was prudent just now
in getting up a wrestling match with Capital.
A few weeks, as we said, will show him the
result of this policy. Should the strikes ex-
tend, nothing but exceptionally large crops tins
from which we have barely recovered; and
financial disaster, as every intelligent Amerl-
can wOrkngman knows in the long run
brushes the poor man, not the rich. The latter,
in the worst event, has his education, training
and influence to fall back upon; the former
faces the two hard facts no work and the nee
essaries of life at the highest prices
Another point worth consideration by the
workingmen whom the unions have ordered to
strike is that while Labor may successfully
organize against Capital, it can do nothing
against unorganized Labor. Foreign work.
men, skilled and unskilled, are pouring into
the country at the rate of thousands every
week. Here is recent item from the
mining region near Cumberland, Maryland
Austrian miners for the Consolidation Com
"pany were escorted to the mines by corps of
Especial police. In the crowd left outside were
aolicials of the Knights of Labor, who tried to
@approach them in vain" 1t is a trifliDg but
significant hint; the foreign laborers 90 i'll to
the work and wages and the organized trades
unions are left outside.
With regard to the question of the barring
out of American boys from the trades by their
fathers, we are told that the prohibitory rules
of the unions are not the only reasons for the
absence of native born Americans in the
trades. "The mechanic" frankly says an
organ of the trades unions naturally desires
:" to secure for his sons all the advantages which
" the formation of society in this country offers
4" to every lad. Why should he keep him down
" to manual labor and to "A rank which, Justly or
"unjustly, is held to he Inferior when he can
"give him a collegiate education and train him
"for a profession ~ Why, indecdR If the
member OF trades union, when he pushed his
boy into the law or medicine or sent him out
as a clerk, OF, which is most frequent, to earn
a gentlemanly living by his wits, really ele-
waited HIM in the social scale, we should con-
slider the argument fair one ; for social con-
sideration, even in the United States, is an
actual good and to many men outweighs
wealth or any other advantage. But, unfortu-
nately, social consideration in our communities
is given by the mass of men to the young man
who has good living income, who can afford
to dress well and to support wife comfort
ably and to the middle-aged man who has
achieved wealth. The professions are over
crowded; the young man who is skilled
mechanic or machnist is secure wherever ne
goes of his steady comfortable income, while
hungry young doctors and lawyers crowd
every street With every year the demand for
the highest skilled labor becomes more urgent,
and the demand for professional men less.
(IIence we import the first aud push our sons
into the latter places.) The carpenter or
plumber earns his 81 or $50 per week the
skilled weaver on piece work runs his wages up
as high as $40. the machinist to $50 How
many clerks or young physicians OF attorneys
can set down their income at half those rates
But we are told that poor man in profession
outranks socially the mechanic Not if he con-