Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1882-06-21
The Strikers,

The summer months open with reports
oil strike of huge proportions in the iron
manufacture in western Pennsylvania, and
that region In the adjoining states or late
years these events have become common.
and 1t is phenomenon which forces at
tention and demands explanation. The
theory of our political system is the equal
ity of men. that the laborer has equal
rights with the capitalist or the employer,
hut not that the workingmen should be
favored any more than any other classes
The idea of inequality came in with the
geat tide of foreign immigration. The
European laborers had been accustomed
10 hok upon their employers as superior
beings, and as their natural enemies, hav-
ing interests opposed to thai of the labor
ing GLASS; and they could not divest them
selves of the inculcated idea when they
rame 10 a country where work was no
Ign of a servle mind, and where the ser
want and the employer labored side nv
side in the field and in the kitchen. So
long az we were all Americans of the old
stock, n strike would have been impossible
and incoDceivable. The help in the house.
hold was not u servant in popular phrase,
.hutsWsnenber of the family; sitting at the
sAhsalfAbsa In most houses, and entrusted
aHh The eafe of the children as If she were
llal aunt &C az older sister. She had abo,a
u tnlfd tf The wages which is paid to do
l%bs1i6 ssfsants in these days, but she laid
up Somethiug more than she spent for her
'lothing, and considered herself as the
equal of the woman of the house, and
sometimes she maj ried the son, and very
often neighbor, and becoming a matron
herself had help-not servants. Tho fac.
tory system did not change this. The mill
girls at Lowell, before the tide of foreign
immigration set in, were the daughters Of
substantial farmers, just as good, and feel
ing themselves the equals of the mill own
ers, and in fact many of them were owners
IN the stock. They did not wish high
wages as tho foreign workers get now, but
they would never have thought of strike
as they never thought of themselves as a
class. The mill girl was of the same class
as the president of the company, or the
agent or overseer of the room, and If she
had any grievance she left, il IL was not
rectitied on complaint being made. The
notion of classes OF laboring men, employ
ers and capitalists. was introduced by
foreigners who had never any hopes of
rising. The original Yankee stock had no
such ideas. The help in the kitchen look
ed forward to being the head of house
hold as comfortable as that in which she
was employed; the workman in any trade
looked to be master, and there was no
more division of classes than there is be-
tween father and son. mother and daugh-
of In nf
individuality was too strong for the pos.
sibility of strikes, and the original Yankee
native was too proud and ambitious to be
classed as workingman who looked
up with fear and hatred to an employer.
1t was the influx of Europeans who had
been accustomed TO looking up to superi.
ors and down upon interiors, which LED
to the classification of those woo ought tc
be free and independent American cli
zens, the laboring man free to become an
employer of labor. and the employer q
laboring man when there was necessity
for it. The growth of wealth has had
something to do with widening the dis
tinction between the workingman and the
employer, but it would not have become
class distinction if 1t had not been i'm.
ported from Europe. The Yankee farm
hand, brakeman, laborer on the roads
apprentice in any trade, looks forward to
the time when he shall employ young
men, and he has none of the animosities
of class which lead to strikes unless his
mind is poisoned by contact with the
Europeans who have been educated in
servle ideas, The names of leaders o
strikes and of labor movements are sug
gestive They are never those Of the old
stock, but of modern importation. Oul
revolution wiped out all class distinctions
in the thirteen colonies, and what there i.
now is An imported article, on which there
is no tariff since our naturalization laws
are SO liberal. and immigration has Away
been encouraged. except OF the Chinese
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