The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-09-17
LABORING TO DECEIVE.

The Philadelphia Press OF a recent date
presents what it evidently considers a
grave question of the contemplation Of the
American. laborer, when It calls his atten-
tion to the oft-told tale of the great strike
in London and what led up. to it. In a
spirit of enforced Righteousness and
spurious candor it proceeds to say that it all
came about because a lot of laboring men de-
handed the privilege of working at least
four hours day at odd jobs for twelve
sents an hour" 1t proceeds tn state that
such thing would never have happened in
this country, land for the very reason that
If any employer were 10 ask you him to
work for twelve cents. an hour, sou [hel
would either laugh ut him 1.-THE employerl
q 60 somewhere" Waving the 'ungram-
Raticisms," as ARTBNUs WARD was wont
20 say, is not the foregoing rather, sickly,
AA0onclusive, hackneyed staten ent all the
way through
A CHASTITY phase of the case occurs where
&e labored endeavor is made to picture a
working man standing on his manhood, as
81 men, whether they labor or not, ought
30 stand, and talking back to the one who
doles out his weekly stipend TO him, telling
the said payor to betake himself to other
shoras for wanting the labOrer TO work for
him for twelve cents an hour. AS n mere
fancy sketch this might and doubtless
would be overlooked; but as it is given
with the enforced semblance of reality, d
few words in reply to it may not be amiss.
1t is sad, we might say a narrowing
fact, that men who have families whom the
law requires and their own instincts prompt
them to support and care for, are working
in the Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio
mines. who receive less than twelve cents
an hour at the dictation of a graspiRg,
greedy employer, who, if he were told by
an employee to Ego somewhere" would do
it-would go right to his Office and have
that mans time made up and the man
promptly discharged And if, goaded to des-
aeration by their condition through such
treatment, a number OF those men were to
openly revolt-as they have within the
past few weeks-because Of their inability
TO live on the wages they were receiving,
what would be-and what was-the result?
Would and did the gracious and 2oodly en-
ployer recognize the right of his workmen
10 AANC dCOInAAg % isAAS 4 Zoo ffNOAN iAshNC
us believe ali American employers do in
such cases-or would and did he in sub
tell the laborer TO go somewhere, in
the meantime running in a lot of paupers
from the slums of Europe to work for even
less than the American was receiving and
shus eifectually cutting him Off from any
kind of employment and causing him to look
to charity! We all know the answer. The
manly attitude OF the laborer in the fancy
sketch depicted by our contemporary disap
pears in. the light of an actual fact, or
rather Of several actual facts, and of very
recent date at that.
Besides all this, as has previously been !
shown in these columns, twelve cents in |
London and the same amount in New York |
or any part of the United STATES are alto
gether different sums; in many respects, |
especially the absolute requirements of |
life, shilling in England is equal in pur-
chasing power TO at least two and some |
times three shillings here, and therefore, |
the workmen of London asking for twelve |
cents an hour was equivalent to our la
borers in Indiana, Ohio, or Pennsylvania |
asking for atleast twenty five cents an hour; |
and If those unfortunates who were COM
PEELED, as Il seemed to them, to engage in /