Los Angeles herald., 1890-11-13
FEDERATED TRADES MEETING.
Speeches Made Reviewing the Situation
of the Labor Question.

OF the LABOR Question.
The mass meeting called by the fed
Grated trades at Turnverein last night
was we'll attended. The meeting was
opened by Major Will H. Voorhees,, who
said that speeches should not exceed
ten or fifteen minutes, in order not to
tire out the audience, and he specially
called the attention of those present to
the fact that the meeting was not a
political ole.
J. ID. Bailey, a carpenter, said that the
working mep OF Los Angeles are slaves
who have not the freedom of the colored
man in ante-bellum times. The negro
had food, clothes, a place to sleep in,
his DOCTORS bills were paid and when he
died he was given a decent resting
place. The workingman is forced to sell
himself from day to day, year in and
year out, and the capitalists pay him
what they like. The capitalist should
teach the mechanic lesson. What are
trusts but thoroughly organized associa-
tions of capitalists? If the capitalist
has right to organize, so has the
laborer. Wherever we go we behold or
ganization, and without it nothing can
be done. In Los Angeles we have some
strong unions, but we are not thor
oughly organized. We are behind the
times as compared with the east, and all
over Europe, under the very nose of the
crowned heads. They ask for eight
hours as days work, for all kinds of
labor. But, l say, we are behind the
times. do not mean the Daily Times
(applause). That paper has imported
labor, refusing our own people protec-
ton, and all the time it was preaching
protection for the laboring man. 1t is
by union, by cooperation that the
workingman can assert his right and
force the capitalist to pay him decent
days wages. The duty of every man
belonging to union is to stay with it,
and he should attempt to right his
wrongs within that union. The labor
organizations of this city secured nine
hours for days work and obtained the
passage of an eight hours ordinance by
the city council. The speaker advocated
great national organization of labor,
which should do its own voting and
thinking instead of working for the
capitalist.
f. B. Colver, printer, spoke of the
good that had been done by the typo
graphical unions of the United States in
general, and what the Los Angeles union
in particular had achieved for the relief
of it's members. Organized labor has
the right to combine and fix the price OF
its work, just as much as the doctor,
the storekeeper or the lawyer. No one
will dispute that labor is governed by
the laws of supply and demand, and the
unions command the supply by organ
ization. If the capitalists can combine
to put a price on every commodity in
this country, have not workingmen an
equal right to put price upon their
labor? The speaker reviewed few
strikes from the time OF Moses until our
forefathers threw cargoes of tea into
Boston harbor. Organized labor asks
that taxation shall fall equally upon the
rich and the poor, and it wants the
Australian ballot system. Even as
Harriet Beecher Stowe had been the
primary cause of the abolition of negro
slavery, so Bellamy now was the agi-
tator who would abolish the slavery OF
labor.
A. Vinette of the Carpenters union
made a speech, dealing with many
phases of the labor question. He be-
lieved that his masters drank the cham
pagne and he, the laborer, could chew
the corks.
This speaker was followed by T. E..
Cross and M. McGlynn, delegate at large
of the Federated Trades of the Pacific
coast, after which the meeting ad-
iourned.