Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1886-07-28
THE INDUSTRIAL CRISIS.

| The present appears to be critical time
! in the history of labor Within the past
/ few months our workingmen have sud
denly come to the consciousness of great
power. Their more compact organization,
their more effective weapons OF war, have
given them advantages that they never had
before. The question of the hour is
whether they can use this power temper
atelv and wisely. There are ominious
signs of a disposition to employ it passion
atelv and vindictively Men who speak in
the interests nf selfish capital are heard to
express the confident hope that the work
ingmen will soon Overstep the bounds of
prudence and justice and ruin their own
prospects That is the real danger. Doubt
less, it is hard for those who are smarting
under a sense of injustice to be always tenn
perate and judicious; but the welfare of
these men depends upon keeping their
heads cool Vengeance does not belong to
them; and they are strong enough now to
be magnanimOus.
1t is easy for the organizations of labor
to cripple by unreasonable demands the in
dustries of whole sections. They have done
this thing already more than once. In the
stOppages and read justments thus Occurr-
inc, great suffering is caused and no advant-
age is gained An unjust demand, even if
it be temporarily enforced, always reacts
on those who make it, The working
classes have now tremendous power; they
may easily employ it for self destruction.
1t is quite possible for them to use their
power tyrannically; and tyranny will not
thrive in this day the tyranny of mob no
more than the tyranny of an autocrat.
This weapon of the boycott with which the
labor onions have lately armed themselves
is pretty sure to prove boomerang. Ii
they use it recklessly, there may easily
arise consumers union, to fight them
with their own fire--to patrOniZe those
whom they prescribe. Already the popular
indignation at the INSCRIPTIONS use of this
weapon is SO strong that the publication of
a boycott has proved, in several cases, an
excellent advertisement of the boycotted
dealer
With all the improved enginery Of war
the labor unions are sure to find that war
is dangerous business 1t is all the more
dangerous because of these improved
weapons. 1t can never be anything else
but perio,ls and destructive business. Let
not these combatants on either side suppose
that they can hurt and MAIN their antagon-
lists and get no harm themselves.
Over all this wretched strife one can
imagine those better angels of our nature,
whose ministry Abraham Lincoln once
pathetically but vainly invoked, bending
with divine compassion and crying to the
embattled hosts with solemn rebuke and
benignant appeal: is it well, brother
men, is it well to fight? Is it not better to
be friends? Are YOU not all children OF one
Father? Nay you are not, as the great
apostle said, members one Of another?
Your war is not only wholesale fratricide,
it Is social suicide 1t is little to say
that YOU cannot afford to fight you
cannot live apart; you must live for one
another That is the way you were made
to live: and YOU will never have anything
but trouble and sorrow till on learn that
way and walk in it, The stars in their
courses will fight against you until you
make peace with one another. Have we
not had more than enough OF war and It's
dismal noises and its spectral train of woes;
more than enough of silent looms and fire
less FORCES: of childrens faces pale with
hunger. and womens sunken eyes; of
hearts made fierce and hard by long-cher-
ished enmities: of class arrayed against class
and neighbor against neighbor? oh, put
ii all away from you-the hate. the susp;c
ion, the scorn: stand here together, broth
rem as YOU are, helpers of one another as
YOU mist be, and promise one another that
YOU will do what you can. every enc of
YOU. To bring the day when. between Labor
and Capital there shall he no longer war
but peace for evermore w aslington
GLADDEN.. in the Century for August