The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-04-30
TRADES-UNIONS.
The Tendency to Crush Ambition Among
W0rkmeu.


Puck.
All men are not created free and equal. Free
they are by the laws of this country, and by
natural right. But no law can make them equal.
The man born without ordinary intelligence, as
some men are born, is not the equal of the man
born with brains and with the will TO use them.
The man born with an inherited inclination to
vice, the man born to laziness, the man born
without ambition-these men are not the equals
of the men who get on in the world, and they
never can be. They were not created equal, and
no trades-union can legislate them into equality.
We hold these things to be self evident truths.
They are not however, self-evident to the men
who to-day organize and control trades unions
and laborleagues, and who are trying to
make the laborer who is worthy of his hire pay
tribute to the laborer who is not That is pre-
cisely what these organizations are doing. II
the public knew the whole inside business of
trades-unionism, and labor knighthood and the
rest of it, there would be sach an uprising of
indignation as would sweep the whole system
out CT existence We read the papers that
such and such a body Of workingmen has struck
for higher wages, by command of such and such
union. Popular sympathy is at once aroused
in behalf of the underpaid laborer and the be-
nevolent union that has taken charge of his in
terests But the public does not know that the
union which orders that the workman's pay
shall be so high also orders that it shall be no
higher When the union saws to the employer,
'You shall pay this man So day" it likewise
says to the man, 'You shall not receive more
than 81 day. If you take 10 cents
more from your employer. every man in the
place must receive proportionate increase in
his wages, or you must give the 10 cents
back If you do not obey US we will fine you.
If you will not pay the fine we will turn you out
of the union. We will not let you work in any
Office where there are union men. If you get
work in a non-union shop we win boycott you,
we will boycott your fellow workmen we will
boycott your employers, we will boycott every
man who sells you food or gives You lodging"
That Is just what the union says. That is just
what the union does when it can. You do not
believe it? You cannot imagine that men could
be guilty Of such criminal folly2 Well, find out
for yourself. Go among any set of able indus
trious, ambitious workmen, IN any trade and in
quire how many Of them joined the union
willingly or render it anything but the obedience
of fear. This is the side of the matter
that the public never sees. Only the
poor victims know it. In one of the largest
printing Offices in this city, only short time
ago, the compositors were ordered by their union
to strike for lower pay. They were getting more
than other men in the union-because they were
better skilled and more capable. They refused
to obey the order. and they were strong enough,
as body backed by q brave and just employer,
to defy the union. The union had to yield in
that particular instance But the union is
stronger than any single individual, and where
it makes such demand upon any one man, he
is helpless and must submit And these unions
actually do this very thing in hundreds of cases
ARE doing it all the time. And this is the worst
evil of trades unions. The boycott business is
bad. But it is an extravagant monstrous. inn
possible thing, that the laws of o free country
must crush out sooner or later This other evil
fiourishes in secret and strikes at the laborer's
honest ambition and self-respect.