Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1890-12-19
.BEAUM0NT'S POWERFUL SPEECH,

Continuation Of the Address Delivered BY |
Ralph Beaumont at Canton, Octo-
y Der 18, 1890.
A Detailed Expiana tion Of Some Of the
Principles Of the Knights:cf Labor
Organization.
NUMBERv.
Now remember, with all the meanness
that labor organizations have been charg-
ed with, they have yet to be accused of
being mean enough to sell the home from
the family. Yet society does that an
nually. "But," they say, you fellows
are awful mean; you will not let any one
work with you who doesn't belong to
your union. Are we the only fellows
that will not allow anyone to work, that
does not belong to the union? Let US see.
There are the lawyers, do they not have
a union? I think they do. Now, let me
tell you, / can go into the workshop Of q
lawyer-the county courtho house -of my
county, and I can plead a better case than
nine out Of ten lawyers in my county.
And understand more common law
than nine out Of ten Of those fellows. Be-
cause common law is based on common
sense, and there is only one in ten Of
those that are possessed Of any. At least
they never use it in their business, if they
have any Let, any two Of you men get
into dispute about your line fence, and
go to a lawyer at your county seat, and
ask him to give you little common sense
advice to straighten you out. Will he
give it to you? Not q bit Of it. What
will he do? He will 60 to his library and
pull down a book and tell you what a
judge said two hundred years ago on a
case like that, and charge you five dol
lars apiece for it'll Now let us take case
for illustration. Supposing my neighbor
johnson gets into dispute with his
neighbor Jones. He comes to me and
says, Mr.. Beaumont, have got into q
disagreement with my neighbor Jones
about piece Of land and we propose to
settle it in the county court. I would
like you to plead my case for me. I re-
piled all right I will do it. The day Of
the trial comes. Mr.. Jones' lawyer states
his case and sits down. then address the
court, saying, Your Honor, | am here in
the interest Of my client, Mr., johnson.
The Judge says, what is your name. !
reply, my name is Ralph Beaumont He:
Have you got a union card / reply, /
do not know what you mean, sir. Do
you belong to the lawyers union, the bar
Of this county? reply, no, sir. He
then points to the court constable, saying,
remove that man from the room; he Is a
sc0b. A lawyer has law incorporating
his unions, and when a non-union man
goes to work in his shop he puts him out
by law. But in times past when we un-
ion men have undertaken to keep non
union men out Of our jobs, because they
would not pay taxes to keep up the wages,
it has been customary for the governor to
call out the military, and hold him there
at the point Of the bayonet. Thanks to
organized labor that day has gone by.
No governor in America dares to do that
today. He knows that he could not get
elected again If he did. That is the d;f-
ference, my friends, between having
your union Incorporated under the law
and not having in incorporated. I once
asked sone of these limbs of the law how
| it wasthat he had his unions incorporat-
ed, while he denied the right to have
mine receive the same benefits. He re-
piled that it was necessary in order tc
have good lawyers. informed him if
that was the reason the law was made il
was time it was repealed, as it was mis-
erable failure in that respect; that if there
were as many botches in the shoe trade as
there are in the law would disown my
trade. #
The next, Article VII, reads as follows:
.'The enactment Of laws to compel cor
porations to pay their employees weekly in
lawful money, for the labor of the pre-
ceding week, and giving mechanics and
laborers first lien upon the product OF
their labor to the extent of their full
wages"
| IN order to explain this section, will
have to relate an incident that came un-
der my observation some few years ago.
In 1876 l resided in New Jersey, and
within eighteen miles of where l resided
there were that number of glass manu-
featuring establishments. The employees
in these factories only received their pay
once year. That was when their fires
went out for the two hot months in the
year-July and August. Now, my
friends, how do you suppose the people
managed to live during the year. Well,
let me show you. If one of these men
wanted to purchase an article, he went
to the company's Office, and the book
keeper gave him printed due bill with
the figures five, ten, and so on up to fifty,
making five hundred in all, and he then
took this due hill to the comnany store