The Labor enquirer., 1883-09-22
Plain Talk on the Late Strike. by
sHonorius," in the Irish
q s. World.
The True Standpoint From Which
to Consider Public
Sympathy" >
Who Is to Educate It if Trade Unions
are Afraid to Face Bottom
Principles?

The "great. strike" of the telegraph
operators is ended. 1t isa humiliating
defeat. Men who a few days ago stood
out in defiant manhood against an AFRO
CANT monopoly are now seen crouching
back to their desks. Jay Gould is happy.
He pats the brave General Eckert on the
shoulder and looks down with naughty
disdafn while his defeated slaves are
condescendingly being taken back
Where is that sublime and boasted
figure, public sympathy" now as this
bitter and humiliating cup is being
pressed to the lips of the late strikers
The sympathy of the public" has
quietly gone home to roost again till
some other great strike" turn up.
But have no disposition to add to
this humiliating spectacle by way of
dragging out its sickening features. |
should, however, shirk a most solemn
duty as a reformer if l finched from
putting the lesson derived from this
most serious defeat squarely and man
fully. So long as working people persist
in dodging and discarding the great bot
tom issues which radically underlie the
relations of labor and capital, so long
will such defeats and worse ones con-
tinue. So long as the substance of in
dustrial things is trodden under foot
and men persist in hugging empty shad-
ows; the bare moral justice of their
cause and the mere sympathy of the
public" will avail them little in a COM
petitive fight for bread and butter with
imperious capital.
While this exciting fight was going on,
the papers were announcing from day to
day that the sympathy of the public was
with the strikers. The same cry was
heralded from day to dav while the
freight t-handlers' strike was going on.
But what does all that amount to in a
practical contest? If | am in a forced
fight with some powerful bully, the sym
DdIuS Vi 1UUUO SpCIIdLOlo may W ClI IL
side but what can this avail me if none
Of the spectators have courage enough to
step in and wrench the bully from my
throat? Tie bully who steals my earn
ings, stacks 1t up in pile and then
forces me into an unequal fight, as to
which of US shall retain it, has no right
to live among spectators who are aware
of the true situation. Jay Gould is Just
that kind of bully. If the spectators
who are now known as "the publc'
were only educated up to the real nature
of the situation, they would step into
the arena, snatch Gould as a highway
man and hang him to the highest tele-
graph pole within reach. But their mere
sympathy amounts to practically nothing.
An ounce of brains is worth more than
a pound of sympathy, and round Am
erican dollar thrown into the strikers
scales is worth more than volumes OF
sympathetic American cant.
But how shall we expect the outside
public to correctly gauge the true sltua-
ton when most of the very strikers are
practically on no higher moral and men
tai plane than Jay Gould himself, SO far
as the contest Oh hand is concerned
The highest moral motive of many a
striker is to get just as much out Of Gould
as can be forced, as against Gould,
whose avowed motive in resisting the
strike is to pay just as little as the
striker can be forced to take. So long
as the moral motive On each side does
not rise above the plane of mere brute
force, how can the average superficial