Los Angeles daily herald., 1886-03-20
BOYCOTTING
As Applied to the Labor Question
nv Il. M. Widney.


laboring man as well as the capitalist
should, therefore, endeavor to under
stand these laws governing employment
and act pursuant to them.
The application of boycotting in wrong
cases will react and injure the boycotter.
No man should be boycotted for employ
ing Chinese labor unless the boycotter
offer equally good labor to fill its place.
There may not be laborers enough to do
all the work, as in the early days of a..
ifornia. Then it was anecessity to i'm
port Chinese labor to build railroads and
hll thousand other positions. In the
above respects California has been ad-
vaneed many years in its development
by Chinese labor.
There may not be enough good labor
ers aside from the Chinese in the State
TO do all the work. In which case it
would not be right to boycott person
because he would not leave his work un-
done to his loss and damage.
The fundamental principal underlying
boycotting, is that there is competent
white labor ready and willing to perform
the work for such wages as will support
an industrious, sober, economical labor
er. No labor organization has right
to demand such wages as will, In addi-
ton to the above pay whisky and to-
bacco bills.
These labor leagues should consult
with capitalists, and with them deter
mine what is fair wages and fair work
and then limit the demand to that. The
leagues should force its members up to
the quantity and quality Of work that
corresponds to the wages. Too fre-
quently is it that incompetent laborers
run these leagues in order to get for
themselves wages that they do not earn.
Let the leagues boycott first, such ex-
penses as whisky, tobacco and gambling.
Force each member to lay aside from
each days work some small sun to be
fixed by the league. the savings to be
each mans property at the end OF the
given period Of years or to be given to
his family at his death. Third boycott
each member that will not earn his
wages or reduce his wages.
II the leagues will begin in their own
ranks they will soon find that the peo-
pie will cooperate with them. Offer a
good article of labor for what it is worth
and it will command that price.
Each man must pay fair wages, or be
forced to pay them. He must help
keep up. society by paying such wages as
will keep the honest laboring man from
being forced into the criminal classes.
If, while others pay such wages, any
individual, to add to his private gains,
employs cheaper labor and thus sbirks
his part of the expense of keeping up
the society and civilization of the conn
try in which he lives, he should be boy
cotted in all of his ramifications. In
other words, society should in such
cases turn its patronage to support those
who in turn are supporting society. The
man that employs too cheap labor is
committing the same wrong from his
side that the laborer commits when he
furnishes labor not worth the wages.
Both should be boycotted. The en-
ployer promptly boycotts the laborer
who does not earn his wages, by dis
charging him; and the laborer has the
same right to boycott the employer who
does not pay just wages.
Society has a right to boyco tt every
social eveil. The time will come
when the temperance element will boy
colt every man that drinks, sells or
manufactures intoxicating liquors. This
will be the solution Of the temperance
question. 1t will come sure and then
look out for arguments to justify the act
from scores who now oppose boycotting.
1t is unfortunately true that the ma
jority of employees are not interested in
the welfare of the property of their em-
ployers. They will slight the work and
waste the property even when working
by the day. There is probably not la.
borer in the United States that Is not
cognizant of this truth from his own OBJ
servation. The employer and employed
have come to mistrust each other. Let
this confidence be restored. The rem
edy is in the hands Of the laboring
Glasses, furnish competent labor and see
that it does its duty and then demand
Just wages. The trouble will then end,
and not until then.
The laboring men should look upon
capital, capitalists, corporations, and
property as the sources from which
they shall draw wages. These are the
the time. brains and energy of capitalist
to keep mp this bank account. Capitalists
and corporationsdon' Z consume or destroy
property. When they die they leave
all this wealth for others to handle.
They simply aggregate, care for. and
distribute the property in society, from
age to age, and for the benefit OF society.
Destroy your capitalists and corpora.
tions and prevent their existence and
yon destroy the very fountains from
which tne iaborer draws his supply.
They have no capitalists or corpora
tions among savage nations, and they
are all reduced to the lowest class OF
laborers, with whom the laboring classes
here would not exchange conditions.
From this standpoint it will be seen
that the socialist, the Nihilist, the an
archist and the rioter are the worst enc
mics of the laboring classes. They urge
the laborer to destroy the stores and
storehouses from which he draws his
supplies. They urge him to kill the
very men who spend their whole time
in aggregating, storing and preserving
the surplus products of labor for future
use. There is no mistake in nature
here. God did not blunder when he
gave to some the talent to store and
preserve the surplus produce Of those to
whom he gave the talent to labor and
produce, so that the surplus could be
used as needed.
Turn the wealth of the United States
to-day into the hands of the masses, and
in short time it would disappear, and
society would be wrecked. For who
would labor, and who would store the
surplus? To solve the labor question as
well as the Chinese question, let labor
organize, not to drive out the Chinese,
but to furnish just labor for just wages,
and to enforce both. Enforcing. at the
same time, both employer and employed
to bear his part of the burden of main
tanning the society and the civilization
in which we live, that we may hand
down to our posterity as good, or better
conditions for existence than we have.
When this is done the Chinese will go,
not because they are driven out, but be-
cause Americans help Americans to
build up and maintain American civil
ization, for the beneflt of Americans
first, and humanity next. And this il
done under the law of God aud of ma
ture, to-wit: "But if any provide not for
his own, and specially for those of h is
own house, he hath denied the faith, and
is worse than an infidel."
We wish the Chinese no harm, but we
wish the American greater good. Boy
cotting on any other basis will eventu-
ally fail and react injuriously on the
laboring classes.
cure For Piles
Piles are often preceded by sense OF
weight In the hack. lninA and lnMnr mari OF