The Labor enquirer., 1886-09-25

but in whatever number cast could not
give confidence. 1t is cheapness of
means and prospect Of profit that calls
forth capital from its hidden Golfers.
The system and its methods are one.
The issue is not how to reform abuses
and retain cheapness. The nineteenth
century is not called upon to discover
how by ballot we NAV secure "afair days
wages for fair days work" without
striking at the tap root of the tree where
cheap labor is the life. giving sap. The
question is fundamental one, reaching
below our whole social system, and is
not to be solved by the application of
surfaee-emollients.
The Mormons have solved the prob
lem for themselves and are offering
passive resistance to oppression. Ameri
can workmen are banding together with
similar economic motives to supplant
our industrial system by one based on
CO operation and arbitration. Will they,
like the Mormons in their struggle, feel
the weight of or preston ? Time will
tell. Both are unconsciously march ing
in the same direction; both have re-
ceived the same inspiration.
From God to man the scepter passed,
but progress did not halt. The priestly
amulet and the kingly crown no longer
have mystic power in government. We
calmly label them and hang them in our
museums as curiosities. Under the eco
nomic conditions which the present CEN
tury ushered in, the dream of our faith
ers has not been realized. The purse
has succeeded the crown as the symbol
of authority, In our efforts to secure,
through thorough organization and
passive resistance, the Inauguration of
better system, wherein there will be a
full and free cooperation and labor re-
ceive "a full, Just share of the value or
capital it has created" lot US bear in
mind the ties of industrial affiliation by
which we are connected with the per-
secuted Mormons. The same spirit that
is striving in the halls of congress to de-
wise new and more despotic measures to
crush the Mormon industrial system, is
also plainly visible IN the recent deci-
sion of our courts in relation to boycotts.
We are free to organize if we will be
content to remain home and suck our
thumbs. The same rod which has
lashed them, and which Is now being
fashioned into more deadly club to
break down cooperation and arbitration
In Utah, is now being turned to the
same end nearer home.
Any people who may be proven to
rely on the great features of CO operation
and arbitration as cardinal factors in
their social system are, however, uncon-
sciouslY our friends and allies. To-day
congress, so silent to petitions and de-
mands of workingmen and women,
easily finds time to draft new bills to
crush the distant Mormon, to convert
happy homes into scenes of discord, and
extend commercial prosperity at the cost
of the introduction of poverty and
misery.
We have right to insist that there
shall be no more legislation in the
nature of coercion acts for Utah, until a
full and fair Investigation has been had
by a competent commission. Barren as
NAV be the rusult Of a thorough investi-
CATION at the hands of the politicians
who could alone compose congressional
committee, even in their hands facts
hitherto purposely concealed would be
brought out, ana the economic aspect of
the problem brought into clearer relief.
This at least We have right to demand
of the men we see fit to intrust with the
responsibilities of our representation.
In the meantime, while witnessing the
growing aggressiveness Of capital and
its frmer hold acquired over legal pro-
cesses, the shameless subserviency of
the judiciary to its selfish interests, and
the hearty alliance between the befouled
bench and the political representatives
of the people, we may gain sterner re-
solve not to weaken in this struggle, the
heir of the ages.-industrial independ-
ence.
If the facts have given in the forego
ing pages tend to awaken interest in the
social system of the Mormons, if it in
cites deeper interest in their attempt
to solve the social problem of the age,
and if above all it will lead a few to pro-
test against condemnation and persecu-
tion before Investigation, the writer will
have accomplished his purpose.
In the present chapter l have made
an attempt to outline the nature and sig
nifcance of the so-called labor move
ment. How near 1t is akin to the Nor
mon question you will determine, as
we'll as whether the signs of the times
indicate the approach of legal crusade
in the east to bolster vested wrongs and
to intrench injustice,
Shall we meet the blow with Mormon
passiveness? However dissimilar the
Mormon saint and our workingmen en-,
still underlying the social question
which in reality constitutes the secret
spring of antagon1sm to both, there is
the spirit of the nineteenth century urg-
ing men on, the voice of the living