The Labor enquirer., 1884-02-09
Straight From the shoulder.

and as your worthy and valuable paper Is
shield and a sword to the laboring man
I will ask of you small space.
have only few scattered thoughts to
lay before the public; thoughts which
have been before them for many years,
but which have been to great extent un-
needed. The treacherous schemes of the
masters" through their agents, the
"bosses," to keep the house of labor di-
vided, must draw our attention these days,
for "a house divided cannot stand"
The hardest task with the boss of coal
mine these days is, not to walk air-courses
and see that the current of air gets its
free passage into the interior of the mine
we take it for fact that there is no other
man attached to such duty, but to COM
pile all sorts of stories, tales and gossip of
a community, and those especially con-
cerning the workmen in the mine. The
most practical boss is the one that can
create discord between man and his
partner, a man and his wife, his children,
his God; but more especially does he
strive to defeat that union and accord that
should exist between every workman and
his fellow-workmen. In unity there is
strength, and the modern boss well knows
it. He aims his whole force of schemes
against any success the laboring class may
expect in this direction. One thing about
them worthy of notice is their liberalism
towards their slaves, in providing, pro-
noting and patronizing all sorts of recrea-
ton for the slaves. They will not recon-
mend THE ENQUIRER to one of them, but
the race-course, the prizering, the QUOT
match, the saloon, in fact everything that
has tendency to demolish the strength of
the workingmen, has a special friend in
them.
When the workman of to-day sees boss
coming to his room, without the help of a
magnifying glass he sees Judas, with
kiss in one hand and knife in the other.
Once these men were found in the ranks
of the religious. They showed themselves
in their ambition for supremacy there;
hellish wolves in heavenly sheepskins.
Can they look back to the past and deny
plain facts? So thirsty they are, so hun
CRY; they feel great name, high honor
would not suffice they want the lead, the
rule, and so egotistical they are they feel
themselves capable to grasp all treasures
and to crush everybody else to death.
Unfortunately the church was and still is
in the deserts of poverty. L?] There
were but very poor prospects here; there
fore we must speculate on some new
fields" and the devil suggested to them,
and showed them the golden fields of
Labor. "But we must sacrifice the bright
and shining principles we have already
shown the world we possess; for a little
while we must become tale-bearers, suck
ers and betrayers of fellowmen and to
gain our object we will sell them cheap"
They commence operations; there are
some strange things taking place, the re-
port is all over the place like wild-fre
that John Murphy and Pat ODonnell, the
brave, true, open-hearted, plump and plain
speakers, the noble boys of truth, the
heroes for rights in the nineteenth century,
what about themP
They are dismissed from the mine. For
what cause? God knows; and the boss
has some good excuse. And the brave
Irishmen will not dare come to the coal
mine regions in search Of bread any more.
| In answer to their query for work will
be given the advice to 60 and starve.
The poor, the despised, the rejected,
the struggling! cheer up! feed your
hearts with bright hope, the day of VIC
tory will soon dawn!
The next sensation in the district was
the dismissal from the works of John
Jones, John Jenkins, Ed. Lewis and
Others. The robust, the practical, the
theoretical miners. The secret, say the
BOYS, is while these Welshman have any
connection with these works, our posi-
tions are unsafe We have no prestige be,
tween ourselves; we cannot but fee
iuealous of these Welshmen; we are liable
to lose our jobs any day while these mer
are so near us"
Mr.. Editor, think it the duty of every
Irishman and every Welshman to make
common cause of it. Why should clan
nish Europeans take such stands in such
f free country as American Let common
sense answer the question DELTA.
1.-THE above letter was evidently in
spired by some special circumstance, an'
refers to some particular mine boss. l d.
not believe all bosses are SO bad as the on
painted by Delta. The personal referenc
to discharged miners may contain the rea
5 names of sufferers, or they may be fictl
tious, and only used to illustrate. If In
Justice is done anyone in this letter, tn
s columns of this paper are open to them
: Any toiler in the world can vent his sor
; rows and his misery here; that is, II 1t !