The Labor enquirer., 1883-03-24
IBERIA fallrere long, and fall, too, the use
less scourges known as Car and nobIe'
San Francisco Truth.
Parties and Strikes.

Ou6 VI UAC 4SClNAA44S A4A(A@ "a Va
knights of Labor" has said this:
"There will be few strikes the coming
summer and fall, unless they are forced
on us by employers. We have adopted
a new system, which we shall let develop
itself. We shall depend on the ballot
box and not on the cartridge box to Sc
cure justice"
1t is not easy to say more wisdom
with fewer words.
Strikes are forn Of war, are always
questionable, are productive of immedl'
ate misery, even if they result in great
future good; are reSorted~ to when evil
and misery become intoIerable; they
are decided by strengths and not by JUS
tice. Strikes, therefore, are not a sure
way of securing the right, even when
they succeed; and when they fail, the
right goes down, Of course, and the mis-
cry is increased.
In our country we have made princi-
pie into rule of law. 1t is that the
most votes shall rule the least votes.
Our workers are coming to understand
this, are coming to know that the ten
millions who do the work can outvote
the three millions who do not work, and
that the workers are three to one Of the
nOn-W0rkers.
We have now some thirteen millions
ofmen who can vote, and we have some
ten millions who do vote. Our Mr. Mac
Donald, therefore, stands on rock when
he says-"We shall depend on the ballot
box and not on the cartridge box"
Whenever our workers shall become
as wise as Mr., Macdonald, they will
solve the problem of Labor and Capital,
which is now vexing them and threaten
ing the prosperity Of capital and labor
both, in a serious degree. Whenever
our workers become wise enough to
unite their strengths, their wisdom, and
their votes, they will become the rulers
of the country, of themselves, and Of the
future. The sooner they do learn this
the sooner they will cease to spend their
money for whisky and tobacco; the
sooner they will unite their savings into
capital, 50 as to own their own shops,
and farms, and mills; the sooner they
will become rich; the sooner they will
cease to be bamboozled by plausible
lawyers; the sooner they will know
what their laws ought to be, and will
know how to make them; and the soon
er they will know that the thing to hope
for, and to work for, and to fight for if
need be, is nov wealth, but is the we'll
being of every man, woman, and child
in the State.
Parties in this country for various rea-
sons are strongly tending to divide into
the rich and the poor; and if the present
tendency goes on gathering strength,
this land and all its power will soon be
held by few thousand miIIionaires the
result of which will be and must be a
party made up of millions of workmen,
who, knowing they are unjustly impov-
erished and held, will as surely rise to
destroy as the slaves of Rome, and Ger
MANY. and France, and Ireland have
done
If the miIIionaires are, and always
have been, fools, that is not a reason
why workmen should be fools, but it is
a reason why they should not be fools;
they should rather be men, men who
have learned what the world and life
really are, by taking hold with their
hands of the world and of life, and fore
ing them to be what they can be-mini8-
ters and friends of the poor, the weak,
the sick, and the unfortunate. Such
wOrkmen are true Christian ministers,
as Christ was, and they will as he did,
work and never cease until they eXtir-
pate poverty, and vice, and crime; and
when they do that no millionaire can be
possible on earth.
Already the ''Knights Of Labor" and
the "l1rangerS" contain in their ranks
more than a million of voters. When
ever that million shall combine and say
"Henceforth hand-work deserves and
shall be paid just as much as head-Work,'
then they will establish rule of right
and of action which shall begin a cure
for the evils and dangers which now
threaten us, and WHICH will be true
and lasting cure.
Mhaunz.ar th CSC unrl.ars sLaLI daniLe