New-York tribune., 1886-04-22
a TJyEJP pTiCESV

What right have strikers TO the places they
have vacated Here is touched the root OF
nipe-tenths of the difficulty between employers
and employed. Questions of wages and rules
can be arbitrated. But the claim often made
by men on strike that the places vacated still
belong to them, and cannot be justly flied by
ANYBODY else, and must be restored to them as
a body before there can be any settlement is
one which never can he arbitrated. In the
nature of things there is nothing to arbitrate.
If this claim OF such workers has any founda-
tion at all, no owner has any control over his
property nor have unemployed laborers any
rights as freemen.
When men cease to work they exercise an in
disputable right as citizens. But they do SO at
their own risk. They vacate certain places,
which it becomes not only the right but the
clear duty of employers to fiji at once ii they
can. Public interest requires that work shall
not be interrupted. If persons can be found to
do the work, it is duty to employ them. IL
would always he impossible to fill places under
such circumstances if employers could not
promi permanent engagements. Hence III Is
indispensable TO public interest," and an essen
tlal part of the ownership of property and the
right to manage it at all, that AZ employer
should be entirely free to hire a free workman
instead of anv man who vacates pl zee, 1t Is
no longer his place" By his own act he has
deliberately put from him all claim whatever to
it. From that instant he has exactly the same
right to be employed IN that place that any
other unemployed worker has, and not bit
more.
Ifmen comprehended this fact, they would not
l. lty Of ipiu A
other workers who fll places voluntarily
vacated. But there is n strange idea prevalent
among workngmen that they can vacate
place and still retain it, They seem to fancy
that they can refuse to be employed, and yet
retain right to play dog in the manger, and
require that no one else shall be employed IN
their stead Nothing can be more unrea'on-
able or more unjust to all unemployed laborers.
Strikers who assert this thing are simply put
ting their hands on what does not belong to
them. These same men would not stoop to
claim as their own another mans watch or
tools. But after forsakIng n place and refusing
to fill it, they assert that another free working
man who offers to fill il has no right to do so
That is wrongfully claiming part of his prop
erty Yet this mistaken notion is ut the bottom
of most of the acts of violence with which
strikes are disgracod, and of most Of the diff
cuities in adjusting strikes.
The rule OF common sense suifices for this
case He who refuses to fill place knows that
an employer has from that instant a right to fill
it if he can, and that the employers first duty
will then be to stand by those who come for
ward to do the work. This is the radical error
of the strike a. a mode of adjusting labor diff
entities The men abandon places and stop
work, instead of submitting their claims to
arbitration, and continuing to fill their places
and do their duty meanwhile. AS long as men
choose to strike instead of aIbitrating, they
make it the first duty of employers to protect
and defend the workingmen who are willing to
I'LL the places vacated.