The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-04-25
THE EIGHT HOUR DAY.

THE EIGHT HOUR DAY.
AS rule public sympathy is with labor
strikes, because as rule the strikers have
real grievance. They are ground down
and oppressed, are not paid enough to sup
port themselves decently, are worked too
hard or too long hours, are compelled to
trade at employers stores, or are other
wise treated unfairly and uniustly. Their
necessities are taken advantage of, and
when they strike it is usually to right an
apparent wrong. Only when the strikers
turn desperate and do things not sanctioned
by law or approved by accepted ideas of
justice, does the public side with the en-
ployers against the men.
The indications are that May will wit
ness one of the greatest strikes that the
world has ever seen. It will not be con-
fined to one country or continent or one
trade, but will extend over America and
embrace the mechanics, miners, laborers
and so on. It is estimated that in Chicago
alone, where the preliminary struggle is
already on, $4,000 working people will be
involved In Pennsylvania more than
test, and an equal number of workers in
New York state will have to take part in
the struggle. Not all these laborers will
voluntarily 60 out, but they will have to
stop work because of the strike by what
may be comparatively small percentage
of the whole. 1t may also be said that the
sympathies and earnest wishes for their
success of the many who do not quit work
of their own accord will be with the strik-
ers, the strike being for an eight-hour day
while the public may be counted upon to
stand with the laborers in their contest.
The agitation which will eliminate in the
emphatic demand next week that eight
hours labor shall be deemed a days work,
has beer going ON for generations; in fact,
ever since one of the British kings appor-
toned the time into eight-hour periods and
designated that one period should be for
work, another for recreation and the third
for sleep; but only now have the laborers
felt themselves strong enough to engage
in the fight with a reasonable prospect Of
success. That they will win we sincerely
believe; that they should win we emphati-
cally assert. The one who labors eight hours
| faithfully has done all the work that
should be required of him in the twenty
four hours; he has earned the right to the
recreation which the mind and body both
require and if he has not earned the money
that his legitimate necessities demand,
there has not been proper adjustment be-
tween labor and wages. 1t is true enough
that professional men, business men and
capitalists labor more, working from ten to
fifteen or eighteen hours out of the twenty
! four; but this fact furnishes no argument
against an eight hour labor day. The car
penter or the man who digs may also work
ten or fifteen hours if his greed is greater
than his desire for recreation. or his neces-
sites require extraordinary exertion; but
let the excess be voluntary rather than
I'compulsory.
Of course if the movement shall sue
coed there will have to be REIMBURSEMENT
of wages and re arrangement Of the
prices of those articles whose value lies
chiefly in the labor that it requires to pro-
duce them. The contractor cannot pay as
much for eight hours work as he has been
paying for ten hours labor, and he will be
compelled to make the proprietors pay for
the two hours labor; the value of the labor
in ton Of coal will be increased one-fifth
when the miner who has worked ten hours
works but eight; and so it viii go through
all the trades and products and manufac
lures where labor is principal element
in the value or price.
1t is to be hoped that satisfactory ad
liustment can be arrived at without long
and bitter contest such as is now threat
ened, and which would paralyze. the indus
tries of the country and bring much hard
ship and suffering upon the laboring classes
We believe the workers are going to wiz
this time and hope the employers viii
early see the folly of resisting the inevita
BILE. The sooner the contest is determined
the better for all concerned, and every
body is concerned in the coming struggle