Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1886-04-09
The Great Strikes.


The great strikes now going on all
over the county are in reality the
first adequate external indications
of movement, deep and strong,
that has been going on in the United
States for some years past, and that,
in turn, is but a phase of a move
ment wide as our civilization. The
new wine is beginning to ferment in
the old bottles. The struggle
against chattel slavery is over. The
revolt against industrial slavery has
begun. What the Knights of Labor
mean is the application of industrial
warfare of the principle of the mass
ing of forces on the point Of attack.
Their organization is to the trades
what the trades union is to the indi-
vidual worker. And its spirit is that
of the unity OF the interests of labor,
a spirit only beginning its work.
Whether the strikes now in progress
are won or lost, can make little diff
ference in ultimate results. They
are like affairs of outposts OF the be-
ginning of a life and death struggle
between great nations. On which
ever side lies the advantage, nei-
ther side can refrain from pushing
it; while neither side can be so de-
cisively beaten that it will not rally
its forces again and make o new
stand. No defeat, and no series of
defeats, can now deprive labor of the
consciousness of power, and mo-
nopoly has too much at stake and has
too long been accustomed to rule to
be conquered in this way in moro
than q hollow truce. Action must
beget reaction and combination
provoke counter combination, for
there are behind the combatants on
either side mightiest of forces. The
spirit of the age, the rising spirit
that proclaims the equality of men,
and bids the newer of wood and the
drawer of water aspire to the full
estate of freeman, meets economic
conditions that tend to grind the
masses into hard and hopeless servi-
tude. 1t is idle to cry peace when
there is no peace and to imagine
that the preaching of moderation
can only avail when the strongest OF
passions are reused. These strikes
mean war, and that civil war; not
war between organized States like
that whose epoch has with us Just
closed, but between organized fac
tions within the State, which ranges
neighbor against neighbor, and
draws lines of battle in city streets.
1t is the " House of Have" and the
House of Want" that are coming
into collision, and they everywhere
jostle each other. To be sure, this
is as yet only a negative war, which
resorts to blockade, and not to
bombshells; but it is still war in
spirit. And when passions are
reused and men are marshaled, the
negative may flash into the positive
and struggle of endurance change
to a struggle of physical force, with
any accident.
Unpleasant as oil this may be to
those who care little for any injus-
tice SO that the public peace is not
disturbed, aud unexpected as it may
be to those who have imagined that in
giving men the ballot without regard
TO Grace, color, or previous condi-
ton of servitude," We have vindica-
ted the Declaration OF Indepen-
dence, and that public institutions
and common schools have settled oil
social questions, it is the inevitable
result of conditions which, in the
midst of "over-production," con-
denim men to biting want, and amid
millions of acres of untitled land
make the mere /" leave to toll
thing to be struggled for. And he
who would prevent destructive strife,
it is for him to set himself to discov-
er what may be at bottom the cause
of this. Great masses of men do
not combine into widespread organi-
cations, they do not enter into con-
tests that involve sacrifice and priva-
tion, unless impelled by strong mo-
tives and under the spur of deep in
justice. That there is at the founda-
ton of our social structure funda-
mental injustice is as apparent rs
the sun at MONDAY. And no mat
ter what the political institutions,
society cannot safely be based upon
i iIlsi:e H;iry G:p'.J,.
LABOR is not a curse. 1t is q bless