The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1886-05-06
TIE strike is not only the question of

TIE strike is not only the question OF
the hsur but the question of the future.
Everywhere there is feeling OF uncsr-
tainty and fear. Wherever there has
been the slightest dissatisfaction it has
grown into demands which cannot well
be granted. Even where there has been
NO cause for complaint the prevailing
strike spirit has taken possession OF the
men, and produced contest between
employer and employed. Such general
and widespread arrangement OF business
will inevitably result in dull times
Capital is always sensitive and will shrink
from the dangers which threaten it. The
enforced idleness of so many factories
will result in scarcity Of such products,
and the withdrawal from employment of
30 many men, necessarily reduces the
amount of money in circulation. Even
should the strikes progress no further,
the present year will not restore lost con-
fdence or put the business of the coun-
try in as favorable q condition as it was
before the strike began. The effects of
strikes are far reaching and long continu-
ed. The public welfare demands that
strikes be prevented. HOWE Is it suffi-
cient that the strikers be made to feel the
strong arm of the law2 Strikers may be
blown from the lannon's mouth and still
while the cause remains the striker will
ever have existence. "Who sows the
wind will reap the whirlwind" is text
deserving serious consideration from en-
ployers. A wrong may from long infic-
ton and sufferance appear just. But it
is sure to appear some time in its true
character with the pent up force of years
of repression.s The men who have suf
fered from it do not discriminate nicely
when recollection drives them mad
What is lost to employers through strikes
would wholly prevent strikes. AS so
ciety always suffers it should take steps
to remove the cause for these regularly
recurring disturbances.
The strikers are not wholly to blame.
There is something impelling them for
ward which the people do not see.-
"Laborers live well' says the champion
of the corporations. Yes, they live but
have no opportunity for enjoying life.
With them it is forever the doctrine of
work" Their labor makes the employer
wealthy; in majority of cases it barely
sufices to provide their own families
with the bare necessities of life. In Pc
RODS of strikes labor is no more dictate
rial and offensive toward capital, than is
capital toward labor when harmonious
relations" exist between the two. The
working man il machine and is treated
as such.
Labor has rights and it will always be
subject to these outbreaks until these
rights are recognized and granted. Tt
must have its just proportion of the
profits which it aids in making. Capital
is just as helpless without labor as labor
is without capital. Wealth has been
master because consolidated. Labor
has not in the past been directed by one
mind. Labor organizations are an effort
in this direction SO as to he placed upon
terms of equality with capital. There
cannot fail to be strife in any attempt
to unsettle the old order of things. 1t
is not to be expected that Capital will
promptly concede the equality of Labor,
nor is it reasonable to expect Labor in
its demands to ask less than sense of
wrong suggests. It is more than Capt.
tai can give Immediately, but what it
gives eventually should not be less. From
the condition in which Labor has been
kept the manner of enforcing its demands
should occasion no surprise. 1t has been
brutalized by oppression. No time was
given it in which to develop that sense
OF duty toward others which is the growth
of reflection and pleasant intercourse.
The laborer worked, ate and slept, and
was given no time for thought on any
but animal wants. When he becomes
impressed with a sense of wrong he is
not subject to reason, because his en-
ployer untitled him for the intelligent
exercise Of his faculties. He takes what
seems to him the quickest means to right
bis wrongs, because every power but
brute force is unknown to him. He
strikes. The lowest grade of laborers in
America have become machines in thought
as we'll as in action, and are purposely
kept SO. These become the tools of
demagogues and socialists in periods of
disturbance like the present and howl
Is raised against the striker though the
fault rests primarily with the employer
who refused to give his workman an op-
portunity to cure his ignorance.
Though the strike will prove injurious
to business interests at present and in
the Immediate future, it will materially
assist in bringing about a more Just re-
latlon between labor and capital. AS
this adjustment approaches what is Just.
strikes will become rarer and will cease
wholly when equity is reached. Strikes
are an evil, great wrong to some en-
ployers who are disposed to be just, and
they furnish an opportunity for the vici-
Gus. But they are necessity. A medicine
OF drastic qualities which seems to unset
tie everything, but only for the purpose
OF restoring.
GLADsToNE's address to the electors