The Waco daily examiner. [volume] (Waco, Tex.) 187?-1888, 1885-06-04
Labor Irregularities.

Labor Irregularities.
One of the great questions now
pressing for settlement, is the rights
Of labor, as against those of property.
OF late years the man who invests
money in manufactures. railroads or
other enterprises, does so in tho in
terest of, and for the benefit of the
Operatives. Instead of q mutual in
terest growing out of the relations of
employer and employee, there is hos
tility, warning and often bloodshed.
Supply and demand seem perfectly
to regulate all other matters. Often an
author spends lifetime in writing
book and yet when his heirs publish
it the demand of the public regulates
the sale, price and all else connecte d
with it. If the people want it, they
buy it, il they don't, there is no way
TO force it. A lawyer may spend a
mint of money, and many
years of time, in preparing himself
for the practice. After that If the
public needs his services, 1t will hire
and pay for them. So with physi-
clan, so with the goods merchant
buys for sale. 1t is the law of de-
mand, as against the law of supply.
How can, and how should it be diiler-
ent with labor2 If we operate n
foundery, and our wares are sold at a
per cent. of profit, warranting 81. 90
n day, and no more to the laborer, the
fact is announced. If he cannot afford
to work for that figure that is an end
of it. But where is the law, the
rule of right, or of sound morals
public or private which gives the Ia
borer the right to sit down before
the door of the foundry and say that
no other man shall work for the ilg'
ure named? Wild and Improbable as
this statement may appear to on'
reading it for the first time, yet it Il
literally true. Outrages as unreason
able, as unlawful an as wide the mari
of sou Id morals are perpetrated ever,
day somewhere in the United States
1t is the upgrowth OF anarchy, ofco
munism, of the very worst form ant
in its most dangerous shape. Ii !
strange and almost incomprehensi
BILE that such outrages are permitted
We take the case of the Denver
Rio Grande railway in Colorado
That road is not paying. 1t is beinI
operated every day at a dead los'
This to a bonded Indebtedness cover
! ing only a reasonable figure an
without reference to the oyer-capital
: ization so common and so reprehen
sible in railroad operation. The roa
: cannot pay the figure demande
by the labor unions, but they ca
pay another figure and they ca
!. get men to work at il, but this III
discharged employees will not PERM
There is no question of the legality
the attitude assumed by the roa
N none whatever. 1t is impregn'
Bile and yet before the jeol
ardized rights of the road the la
C seems powerless to act in sue
way as to afford al
n sort of competent protection. Dyn'
mite is used freely to blow up Il
road and endanger the lives Of inn
y cent people including women and CHI
dren on its moving trains. Is there
cause? If so is there not comp
tent remedy. The cause is that Wi
y an unrestricted franchise the Office
elected by the people are place
o under such obligations to the vote
a as that they dare not enforce the Ia
for fear that in the next election u
laborers will go solid against thel
. 1t is demogogism and of the wor
20 order. There ought to be remed
but so long as the ministers OF la
a are within reach of the ballot so loI
"a will laws which protect the rights
property be unpopular in those di
tricts where there is pr
y ponderance of labor votes and inf
10 ence.
'e or course poverty is a hardsh
looked at in one way, but while 1t
, entitled to the fostering care OF &
:. government and all the protecti'
N necessary and proper, yet when
strikes at the peaceful enjoyment
the rights of property it places it's
fl without the pale of tho law and
o entitled to nothing. 1t will becoI
l. necessary to read lesson to {
men who handle and use this pow
to create diseord and disord'
=. The demagogues who use the labC
- ing forces of the country as a thre
~ to property, and to enforce acqui'
" ence In their schemes Of sellishnt
must learn a lesson soon. II win be
s. dreadful one to them.