Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-12-07
A PROMISING PITTSBURGER.
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH. !

without parallel in human history, and
worth living into this year of grace to see
at that Scotch dinner (of all places in the
! worldly some good man. mentioning the
most Aotable poet of the land o. cakes and
| brither Scots, called him "John" Burns.
| The man who made that blunder was, l
| believe, an Englishman. That accounts for
it. Over there in England nowadays people
are thinking good deal more about John
! Burns than about all the Roberts of that
name who ever lived. There is no poetry
about John Burns. He represents, indeed,
! the m ost unpoetical side of human life. He
is the spokesman of poverty. He is the
! leader of the lowest classes of English work
| ingmen. He is the man who is trying,
harder perhaps than any other man in
| England, to make men out of animals. He
! is the man who organized the great dock
| strike of 1889. still memorable among the
tossings and turnings of uneasy and discon-
| tented labor.
John Burns is q Scotchman who was born
| in London. He is n skilled mechanic. Of
late, however, he has been trying to run
| that most complicated and unsatisfying
| of all machines, the machine of industrial
society. John Burns, Tom Mann, and Ben
Tillett ran that great dock strike They
were the brains of the whole movement.
They had for clients 10000 workmen of the
lowest grade of labor. They had to keep in
order this great army of ignorant brutal,
idle, and hungry men. Ben Tillett was one
of the men themselves. Tom Mann man.
aged the general affairs of the strike, ar
| ranged for the coming in and handing out
of relief, and dealt with the dock directors.
John Burns was in charge of the outdoor
part of it, made speeches every day, kept
hold of men in that way by his persuasive
arguments. and kept up their spirits better
nf
speaking at a midnight meeting, he would
have to walk home five miles, the cabs hav-
ing closed up for the night. This went on
for six weeks. The end of it was victory for
the strikers.
Agitation That Has Helped Toi)ers.
AND the victory Of the strikers was the
beginning of all sorts of improvement in
the condition of labor. Before that, there
HAD been many trade unions but they had
taken in only skilled mechanics. They had
done much good, got excellent laws passed,
and brought about some very neces-
sary and important reforms. But the
good had not reached down very far. 1t had
been like great deal of charitable work,
that is done nearer at hand than London,
which aims to help the observing" poor,
and lets the undeserving poor df there
really are any) ego to the DEVIL as the
lawyer says in DR.. Jekyll, sin their own
way" The trade unions helped the better
classes Of labor greatly, but the common
workmen, the men who had nothing but
brute strength of arm, the dwellers in the
fearful tenements, the people who abode In
the densest shadow of darkest England
these unhappy prisoners of poverty were al
together neglected. No man cared for them,
soul or body.
Then John Burns began the New Trade
Unionism. He took these poor, vagrant,
miserable, hangers-on at the London docks,
and got some idea of organization into them,
and some faint notion of the power of united
effort, and some dim glimmer of brotherly
love (that is to say, Christianity into their
hearts, and they lifted up their heads and
were by some magic, as it seemed, changed
into men. John Burns was persuaded that
these pitiable slaves in tattered breeches
were really men, meant to be in the image of
God, and still capable of showing that image
with some clearness, if they only could be
washed and shined up little. He did,
what the first Socialist did, who went about
doing good in another country, q good while
ago He recognized the manhood of men;
and men responded to that recognition.
Since that strike, the New Trade Union
ism has gone on getting hold of unskilled
labor, working miracles all over England,
and, best of ALL giving men better hearts as
well as better wages. John Burns says that
the working men are the masters of the
future. He is doing all he can to teach |
them the responsibilities, the dangers, and
the duties of mastery, to make them mas
ters of the right sort. And whether he be
a good prophet or not, he is the leader and |
inspirer of some of the best work that has |
been done since England became a nation. |
1t is an encouragement and an inspiration |
to realize that there are living and working |
to-day, giving their very lives for the love of |
their poorer brothers, such men as this |
John Burns
A Pittsburger to Be Proud Or
ALL this I have been stirred up to |
write by the reading of the first chapter of |
a new book, written by a young man whom |
we have reason to be proud of here in Pitts |
burg. English Social Movements" by Rob- |
ert Woods.
Robert Archey Woods, who writes after |
his name on the title-page of his book, Cleo
turer at Andover Seminary, and head of the |
Andover House in Boston," was born here
in Pittsburg. and is graduate of our High |
School. His mother is living now out in the |
East End. Whatever glory this young man
may win for himself, he will have to share
with u.s. And we may anticipate good re-
turn on whatever investments in the way of |
and good influences we have been
able to contribute to the making of Robert
Woods
The last time l saw Woods was just COM
ing out of Westminster Abbey, and he was
just going in. He was going IN, 1 suppose
to say his Presbyterian prayers in that ven-
erable building in which we all have an in
heritance, no matter which of ali the unfor-
tuDate partisan adjectives we set before our
Christian name He was studying at Toyn-
bee Hall, he told me, and asked me to come
over and see him promising to show me all
that was worth seeing in that East London
venture. Unhappily, left London before l
was able to avail myself of that privilege.
Robert Woods kept his eyes wide open all
the time he lived in London. He was there
for purpose. and that purpose was to learn
all that could be learned about the under
takings of earnest Englishmen for the up- |
lifting of the poor. Whenever anybody was
doing any efficient work Woods went over to
look ut it, noted all the points in it. and put
them into the safe keeping of a good men,
ory At Toynbee Hall Woods had his share
in the actual work of that institution. He
lived there in the heart of London pov- |
erty. The city of London stands, as some
one says, on St. Paul's Hill, parting her peo-
pie to the right hand and the left, setting
some in the West End and some in the East
End II is a fine thing in Pittsburg to live
in the East End In London that direction
of residence means Whitechapel and Lon
don docks. Woods went over and lived
among the people of the left, the nccursed,
rs it seemed, of God and man.
Touches a sympathetic Chord.
AND here he made this book. 'sEn-
.lish Social Movements" is the name of it.
1t is O description of the good work that
Robert Woods saw in London. 1t is con-
5ribution to the most pressing of all prob
hol, fI,a |