Thomas County cat., 1890-09-11
ABOUT lrs PHILOSOPHY.

ABOUT ITS PHILOSOPHY.
The strikes appear 10 be over for the
present. These come like changes oa
the season, at regular intervals, and
seem to bs epidemic in their character:
But there are two reasons why strikes
are not remedy and cannot be perma-
rently successful-we mean practical
reasons. The first is in the nature ol
things under the property ideas of civ
ilization-that one man owns absolute
ly and that the other works absolutely.
The primary fact is that all men must
eat-say three times day. As some
body owns everything we do eat, there
must money come from somewhere to
buy it. In these strike cases the money
comes from the owners Of the railways,
the factories, or any form of wage
earning employment. If the money is
not earned the bread cannot be bought,
and the man is face to face with star.
walton.
Now. say the Central road people
strike. To get that bread three times
day they must get the money to buy
it elsewhere. From where? From
their fellow workmen who are earn
ing it on other roads. The Boston
& Albany favor the Central, to help
their friends there is a strike on
that road, and the bread for the two
bodies of striking workmen must
come from those working for other
roads. 1t is only question Of time
when the bread gives out. Human
nature is the same in boards of direct
ors or stockholders as it is in workmen
only they are supposed to be more
selfish and soulless- if the work
men combine to help one another the
corporations will do so. Iron rails, ties,
roadbeds, cars, and locomotives don't
eat bread, and as the surplus money is
in the hands of the owners, the end is
as sure as that the human body can't
be idle like machinery.
It needs no words after this state.
ment of the situation to tell how disas-
trous strikes must be, always, as long
as the laws of corporate property are as
now. We have, we think, shown the
difference between the rights and priv
ileges of corporate and individual
property, and nee1 not go over that
ground here. only to say that, getting
the power to hold and operate from
society, it is quasi-public in its nature.
even under present conditions.
Another reason for the failure of
strikes is in supposing them remedy
for anything. because they are simply
the employment of force, which is de-
structive. A strike destroys, but it
never constructs. 1t always leaves less
than it found, begets loss and bad
blood all round. In other words, it
meets the force of oppression and
wrong with the force of war and de-
struction. This condition is not a
healthy or desirable one. But is there
no remedy for wrong like this of cap
ita, against labor? OF course there is.
And right here is one great mistake;
there is no natural antagonism between
capital and labor. The disability has
always come from the laws OF society,
that give preference to capital over
labor; that entrench the strong at the
expense of the weak. This has been
the case in all history. 1t begins with
the divinity that hedges king; that
confers privileges and power on noble;
that protected the Shareholder in the
monev he had invested in man, and
that holds the franchise and property
of corporation as paramount to that
of the individual in his muscle.
Now, it matters not what tho one side
or the other says or feels that is the
one reason why there is an inequality
or hostility between the worker and
the employer. 1t is not capital, but the
law ehind it. Why, every impulse be-
hind every worker, the spur to his en-
deavor, is to acquire and hold some
thing beyond his daily wants-or to get
the one thing needed is to
e9ualize, as far as natural conditions
will allow, the opportunities of men. or
the law should be impartial. Next, If
it is right that railway should be opera
ted without interruption or suspen-
sion in its earning power, it is right
that the man who works at its operation