The examiner., 1886-03-20
THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR.

THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR.
 The Knights of Labor are great step forward from the old trades union, and the union. There needed to be an organiza- ton that would extend throughout the United States, capable of making it's power felt everywhere, in disputes between cap- ital and labor.
 As the order makes it's power felt, the demagogues will come to the front, and try to control it. The poll tician is every where, even among the trade nuions, always in the way of reforms, and work ing for something that will benefit himself. And no doubt there are many timid and "conservativeo men enrolled, who will as soon as things are 0pushed too far"
 That the great majority of wage work CTS are ignorant and utterly benighted is proved by their partisan action at the cleo tions, and their neglect of the Labor papers tbat are struggling so hard to re- deem them. But they serve to give weight to the forward movement by their numbers, and the more there are org nized as knights, the more formidable will their action become.
 The late strikes are beginning to alarm capital. The stopping of all the street cars for instance, show capital that it is not master of the situation. The stoppage of all the railroads may be another movement in the neal future. The war feeling be- tween capsal and Labor is daily spreading, but the strikes and petty conflicts are only the skirmishing that precedes the battle itself.
 And what will the battle be for ? Not simply for shorter hours or more wages or the legislative measures now demanded, but for the reconstruction of our avhole en- dustrial systena, and the admission of labor to all the pecuniaty advantages now grasped by capital at the expense of labor.
 The labor papers and orators do not sufficiently agitate this question of recon struction. They do not sufficiently empha- size the right of labor to all it's creations. 1 They do not alarm capital by exposures of 1 its frauds and robberies through the wage l system, and thunder in its ears the ulti- mate of this great labor movement through
 
 the abolition. of all forms of mastership by one man over another; the abolition of dependence for work and wages by one man upon another; the abolition of all the frauds by which individuals and classes are enabled to live in luxury and idleness through rent, interest and speculative profits.
 The revolution now in progress for the emancipation of labor from the domination of capital is The greatest and most com prehensive movement the world has ever witnessed. It completely changes the re lations of society, and republicanises all it's interests. The millionaires of the mine. factory and railroad will come down many pegs in the social scale, for when labor has all that it creates, what will there be left for the idlers
 Labor, through universal partnership with capital, will have joint control not only over all future accumulations of pro duetiye agencies, hut will demand and have
 like thasa alEfady ffistdinnggt # Ydngt come through compromises or force The welfare of the millions demand it. No l power can prevent them from using it. It 1 is as easy to prevent the masses with these ideas of reconstruction and independence as to lead them after inefficient and unsat- isfactory measures. The sooner these fail the nearer shall we come to the end.
 J. F. BRAY,
 Pontiac, Mich.