The examiner. (Hartford, Conn.) 1881-188?, 1886-07-03
THE WORkINGMAN'S WANT
OF APPRECIATION
HE Ignores his Friend and Enriches hrs
Enemy.-He Will not Sustain the Press
which makes his Freedom Possible.
Cor. Lynn Knight of Labor.

Workingmen complain with just cause
that they are not paid for their labor, but
how many of them ever waste thought
Cor nickel) on the brain-workers who are
toiling, in many instances, sixteen and
eighteen hours per day to furnish them
with paper devoted to tteir interests, and
keeping their grievances, before the public,
who furnish them with a potent weapon
of Offense and defense against their en-
emie5. How many of them realize that,
without the help of the press and the army
of writers who watched every turn and
change in the political and industrial hor-
ison, and gave them kindly notice of i'm
pending trouble, they would be absolutely
at the mercy of the vampires of capital.
Yet, such is the fact, though but a very
small portion of the masses realize it, they
become in their turn as great Oppressors as
the capitalists they complain of. The sup
port accorded to the average labor paper is
a crying shame and disgrace to the great
army of laborers, considering the support
given to the papers avowedly on The side of
capital by these same laboring men. The
same support accorded to the labor papers
would at once lift them up to as high
place, in point of news and excellence as
any paper in the land. Workingmen and
unions go out of their way to boycott some
comparatively harmless individual or firm,
and then, in nine cases out of ten, pay the
see themselves denounced as communists
and enemies of society, and refuse TO pay
two cents to paper aiding them to make
the boycott effective. Workingmen should
remember that iG costs time, labor and
money to publish a paper, and that the
men who do it are human and have to eat
and drink like themselves; and that while
1t is but two cents week for them, it is
serious matter to the publisher Men who
write for, edit and publish labor papers
from labor's standpoint have little cause
for gratitude toward the mass of working
men. Their labor has, SO far, been one of
1--we and duty, not of profit, and whatever
good they have done has been unappreci- |
ated by those most benefited In MANY |
instances they have been ostracised, black
listed, branded as cranks, and allowed to |
exc out miserable existence and living,
by the masses whose condition they are
trying to make better, and elevate to
higher plane of moral, intellectual, social
and industrial reform. Why the working
masses will not cordially support labor
papers, read and circulate them, is one of
the enigmas of industrial life no man as
yet has solved That class of men could
be found, who would aid and support their
ignore their friends, and yolun-
tariiy wear the badge of serfdom, is a
phase OF human character hard to under
stand, yet plain to be seen in operation. 1t
'macks strongly of slavery, not only of the
body, but of the mind; it shows a moral
,owardice of the most subservient kind,
Ind furnishes capitalists with ample excuse
,or any and all the grinding oppression it
nay exercise upon the fawning slaves and
ickspittles too cowardly to resent their
,wn wrongs, or aid and project those who
spouse their cause. The precarious ex-
Stence melted out to the labor papers. by