Morning journal and courier., 1886-06-24
The Labor Question.

[George Frederic Parsons in the July Atlantic1 The organization of labor is inevitable and necessary. But the American people have 8 right to demand that when labor organizes it shall do so under and with due regard to the laws of the land, and that it shall not pro- ceed as if society were in chaotic state and every man was at liberty to regulate his ac- tions according to his individual fancies. What the public have most to complain of is that labor organizations ignore the laws, un- dertake to import principles antagonistic to them, employ their power in illegitimate ways and do this with an air of complete in- nocsnce and as matter of course. Even the older trades unions, which have learned something by hard experience, by no means obtain from their organization the best pos sible results. They are rot so prone to strikes as formerly and they endeavor to avoid violence when they do strike. But they are not above resorting to the boycott, and they seek to maintain 8 monopoly which l is wrong to labor in the aggregate. There is another defect in their working. They put too much stress rights and too little upon duties. The modern trades unionist is 8 man very sure to know whatis due to him. self from his employer. He is not so sure to recognize what is due to his employer from himself. Trades unionism certainly has not done much to promote conscientiousness and excellence in the performance of work. Rather it has tended to put all workingmen upon dead level of perfunctory mediocrity. A system which aims at repressing individu- al superiorities in the avowed interest of the inferior workmen can have no other effect. A system which discourages enthusiasm in the employe, lest it should lead the employ CT to pnt his standard too high and expect too much, is distinctly debasing in it's infiu IT. saoure work for a 1arpar nTn,- Der, but it can do so only by the sacrifice of excellence, faithfulness, ambition and indi- vidualism.
 This is what most schemes of socialism de- mand and necessitate indeed. They are with scarcely an exception framed in direct opposition to natural law. The doctrine of the survival of the fittest finds nc exception with modern socialists. They seek to re- verse all the processes of evolution in order to find equal subsistence for the undeserving and the deserving, for the incapable and the capable, for the lazy and the industrious, for
 the stupid and the bright, for the vicious and the virtuous. At every step in the ap- plication of such doctrines, however, fresh difficulties are encountered, and as self-in- terest almost invariably determines the course finally taken, many odd contradic- 1 tions and anomalies are involved. In the so- | ciaI republic there is to be no monopoly at all. In trades -unionism monopoly is the chief object, and to maintain it not only is all outside labor dscrimiuated against, but
 l the prospects of the coming generation are
 deliberately injured by the strict limitation
 of apprenticeship. Founded on principles
 which seem to apply to all labor these or ganizations inevitably resolve themselves
 legitimate purpose of resisting the selfish
 l ness and greed of capital, they have deve1-
 | oped 8 rapacity of their own which is inter
 fering seriously with production and indus