The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1883-07-05
NI0NOpOIY influences.

Not long ago the great coal mine
owners of Pennsylvania met in Wall
street and agreed to lessen the mum ber
of weekly working days in the mines,
thus lessening sums paid miners and
lessening the quantity of coal put apon
the market and thus raising the price.
They never dreamed, however, of aug
menting prices paid to subterranean
toilers-the miners. In other words.
the mine owners "went on a strike"
The press was silent. Capitalists ut
tered no invectives. Only the poor,
shivering in cellars and garrets, and
blackened miners suffered. None were
moved to pity and none to denuncia-
ton.
The right to strike' is as perfectly
that OF the poor as of the rich of labor,
rs of capital; and it is only unfOrtu-
nate, as stated, that striking" labor
ers often suffer themselves to be guided
by the widest and most obstreperous
members of labor unions, wAO never
| reflect what miseries and losses are en-
tailed upon wives and children of the
more conservative members of these
associations. Working men, while
their rights in this behalf are precisely
| those Of their employers, and their
right to "strike" is perfect, should al
| ways know that the naked right is
| wisely and Justly exerted.
The lobby that gathers here each
winter to manipulate tariff bills is an
| organized "strike," and Congress is
employed in its behalf to thrust mil
lions into the pockets of capital trans
ferred by sheer force Of law from those
of the many to the boards of the few.
and, of all strikers" these infiict
upon the country the greatest wrongs
and upon unprotected" labor its
heaviest burdens. The million and 9
quarter dollars daily emptied into the
Treasury and the four millions at the
same instant paid through the tariff
system to capital, are all dug, at last
by unprotected labor, out of the ground
or added by labor to the selling price
of these products of farms or mines.
These are strikes" made by capita
In Its war with labor. They are tech
nichal ten strikes" in the great gam'
of politics and of industrial life, i'm
poverishing the many and enrichin,
the few. The banks have their annua
conyocatiens commonly held in pala
tial hotels at Saratoga. They organic
strikes" by which the volume of cur
J rency is contracted or expanded, ant
prices of property and of labor are reg
ulated in conformity with their owl
purposes of gain. Their power. in thi
behalf, is only restricted by the la,
. which gives the people a currenc
whose volume the banks cannot ii
or regulate. The mints must coin sil
yer and gold and the Treasury mus
pay out silver and gold certificate
. steadily supplanting and infinitely
be preferred to paper based on credit
called bonds," even rs silver an
gold are preferred to shin-plaster
Bankers, as currency-makers, will b
Q finally stricken down by this ''strike
d of the Treasury organized by law as
: Counter ''irritant to bankers" STRIKES
!. emanating from Saratoga. If tn
= head Of the Treasury sprang from th
n people instead Of from the bank
/; financial evils, of which the man
complain, would have been ameliorate
g years ago, and there would be fewt
8 strikss.-[The American Register.