Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-02-12
CONES BACK AT GOMPERs.

W, g. sharon Replies TO the Statements
Regarding the Eight. Hour Law : 1t
Would Ipjurs Labor Organizations
Mechanics Would Go Into the Country
Opposed to the Present System.
W. S. Sharon, editor of the journal of
Building, has addressed letter to Samuel
Gompers President of the Federation of
Labor, in which Mr.. Sharon takes excep-
tions to the statements in Mr.. Gompers'
recent circular regarding the building
trades. He says that, in the event of the
interior towns and cities adopting the eight
hour law, there would be an influx of
mechanics to the country towns, and the
cities would suffer in consequence. In his
letter Mr.. Sharon says:
This assumption is the strongest factor OF
lucidation, and the declarations are mere non
sense when we take into consideration that the
question of shorter hours for days work for
the advancement of the social positions OF the
workingman or woman is not the question in
volved, nor that the laborer will have to pay an
increased figure for the products he consumes.
These factors are solely dependent first upon
the desire of the workingman or woman TO
elevate their positions in society, and not the
question Of shorter hours of work to give them
more time for that elevation; secondly, it is not
the question of cost OF an article Of consump-
ton. but the ability to buy the article to be
consumed. That ability Is not regulated
by longer or shorter hours. but by
the purchasing power tnat labor re-
ceives for the functions performed. The
great bulwark that impedes the shorter hour
day is our internal competition. By internal
competition 1mean the lack of universal or
ganizatiOn in the interior towns and villages
drawn lines OF perfect organizations In the
cities. The building trades are perhaps the
greatest sufferers of this competition, and IN
the event of the prevailment Of the eight-hour
day at this time, or until such time as the
whole country can be educated up to the
theory. the loss will be always to the detriment
of organized labor. It may seem a very beau.
tiful theory to bask in. plausible in the ex-
treme to first crowd shorter hours on the cities
and the country will fall in line, but this is
very barren ideality. Ii you can change this
theory so that the interior towns and villages
will advocate and adopt the eight-hour day,
the tide of immigration will be to the country,
not as it now is to the cities. The country can
stand the influx, the city will starve under it.
The writer has within the past fortnight had
interviews with representative men of con-
stituency of fully one-half a million Of artisans
In the building trades respecting this subject,
and must say that not in single instance did
he find a representative who felt himself or
could call to mind single case where shorter
hours were begrudged merely out of antipathy
LO IHo 1aDOFluS n6CuanlcSs O0CduS0 LudL ldDOE
harbored the idea that under the present con-
ditions it was Live to work." instead of
Work to live" The answer to my interroga-
tion was unanimous, and as the National As
sociation of Builders, at st. Paul, agreed that
in view of the fact that the shorter hour day
was forthcoming in time, but that day of reck-
Oning is not May ], 1880. l have record not
only of the delegates to that convention. but
likewise of every visitor that could scare up
on the matter, in the city of St. Paul during
the convention that the eight-hour day was
met with universal opposition from Canada to
the Gulf, and between the two oceans, if thrust
upon them May l.