Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1886-08-14
THE INDUSTRIAL CRISIS.

The present appears to be crit
ical time in the history of labor.
Within the past few months our
work.ngmen have suddenly 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 ques-
ton of the hour is whether they can
use this power temperatesy and
wisely. There are ominous signs of
disposition to employ it passion,
ately and vindictiveIy. Men who
speak in the interests Of selfish cap
ital are heard to express the conf
dent hope that the workingmen will
soon overstep the bounds of pru.
dence and justice and ruin their own
prospects. That is the real danger.
Doubtless, it is hard for those who
are smarting under sense of in
justice to be always temperate and
judicious; but the welfare of these
men depends on 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 de-
mands the industries OF whole sec.
tions. They have done this thing
already more than once. In the
stoppages and establishments thus
occurring, great suffering is caused
and no advantage is gained. An
unjust demand, even if it he tempo
rarily 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 tyrannical
ly; and tyranny will not thrive in
this day, the tyranny of a mob 10
more than the tyranny of an auto
crat. This weapon of the boycott
with which the labor unions have
lately armed themselves is pretty
sure to prove boomerang. If they
use it recklessly, there may easily
arise consumers union, to fight
them with their own fire-to patron
ize those whom they prescribe. AL
ready 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 perilous
and destructive business. Let not
these combatants on either side sup
pose that they can hurt and MAIN
their antagonists and get no harm
themse Ives
Over all this wretched strife one
imagines those "better angels of our
NATURE" whose ministry Abraham
Lincoln once pathetically but vainly
invoked, bending with divine com.
passion and crying to the embattled
hosts with solemn rebnke and be-
nignant appeal: at is well, broth
er men, it is well to fight Z? Is it not
better to be friends Are you not
all children of one Father? Nay,
are you not, as the great apostle
said, members 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 new
er have anything but trouble and
sorrow till you 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 its dismal noises and its
spectral train of woes; more than
enough of silent looms and freless
FORCES; of children's faces pale with
hunger, and women's sunken eyes
of hearts made fierce and hard by
long-cherished enmities; of class
arrayed against class, and neighbor
against neighbor? Oh, put it all
away from you-the hate, the sus.
piclon, the scorn stand here to.
gether, brethren as you are, helpers
OF one another as you must be, and
promise one another that you will
. do what you can, every one of you,
to bring tae day when between La.
hor and Capital there shall be no
longer war, but peace for evermore.n
Washington GLADDEN., in THE Gen.
TURY for August.