The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-09-06
PECULIAR REASONING.

It is the cheapest of sophistry as it IS
the extreme 81 malice to charge that
the Union Pacific Railroad Company is
responsible for the Rock Springs mas
sacre. as one of our contemporaries does.
It's reasoning is thus: The railway COM
pany employs Chinese because the lat
ter will do given amount of work at
less price than white men would ask
for doing it; that the white men be-
came incensed and desperate, and kill
the Cinnamon, hence the railway COM
pany is guilty Of murder. In the same
way, the government would be guilty OF
the murder Of the traveller who WIS set
upon and killed by highwaymen for the
money he had in his pocket; if the gov
eminent hadn't provided the coin, the
traveller would have had no moneyin
his pocket.
1t will be a peculiar and deplorlb
condibion of things when prices OF labor
are regulated by the rifles and knives
of employees; when the workman
says his employer must pay better
wages or be shot: or tells another work
men that he will be killed if he accepts
less than the other thinks should be paid.
Whenever expect 10 see the time when Ia
Dor and capital will both be content with
the existing order OF things; they never
have been content and never will be
labor always wants more than it re-
ceives, and capital is invariably paying
higher wages than it would do if it could
be supreme. But while we cannot ex-
pect absolute peace and harmony be-
tween them. we hope never to see the
time when either labor or capital is not
independent as to itself, and cannot do |
as it pleases as regards itself; that's to |
say, we hope that in America capital |
will never be subjected to the condition |
of having to employ against its will and |
profit, OF that labor will be compelled |
to sell itself as slave, accept
ing what power. tempered by cold
charity may bestow. The proposition
that must prevail. if there is to be in
dependence for both labor and capital;
is that each have absolute liberty to do
the very best it can for itself. If man
is willing to mine a ton of coal for
twenty cents he must have the priv
lege of doing the work and obtaining
the money for it, though another man
says the toll is worth forty cents or a
dollar: and if mine owner can get his
coal mined for twenty cents, neither in
divldual nor society shall compel him |
to pay forty cents or one dollar ton
If the miner demands one dollar for !
mining ton of coal, he must not be /!
forced to do the work for twenty cents |
or any sum less than dollar. 1t is |
unfortunate for labor that capital has !
certain advantage in the contest. because /
of its ability to lie inactive
without perishing longer than labor can;
but that advantage is something that
cannot be overcome by anything short
of violence, which labor cannot afford |
to exercise. If the employer and the
employee cannot both be protected in
their rights of independence, then So
siety is a mob and government
miserable failure.
The wisdom of capital depressing
wages or employing the cheapest labor t
may be questioned, but its right to do so
cannot be doubted, and newspapers !
and workngmen who would deny that
right are unworthy the respect of the
element of society. In hir-
ing Chinese the Union Pacifc-whether
wisely or otherwise is not for us to say
exercised only its right, and a right
in which it must be protected if there
be power enough in the country to pro-
tect It, and if there be not that power,
then has the rule of might over right
come. The railway company is no
more responible for the Rock Springs
hatchery, morally or legally, than il is
for any other crime that is committed
along its road by its employees or
others.