Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1892-09-21

success. All the powers or so-caued
civil government are at the disposal Of
capital in all such contests. The tele-
graph system and the daily press are
employed to disseminate false impress
sions among the people, always to the
prejudice of labor. Every possible
agency and fundamentally is brought
to the service of capital. The idle
hordes, which it has been a part Of
our public policy to produce and main
tain, are always available from which
to recruit substitutes for strikers, and
nearly all such contests result either in
the submission of the union men to less
favorable conditions than they former
ly enjoyed, or in their entire displace-
ment by men who are not affiliated with
any labor organization 1t must be
granted, therefore, that such methods
are decidedly unsatisfactory in their re-
suits
At Homestead, the men are locked
out because they refused to comply
with the unjust demands of the Carne-
gle company and place themselves COM
pletely at the mercy of such heartless
tyrant as manager Frick, and their
places are being filed, very slowly, to
be sure, but with a persistaut deter
mination that promises ultimate sue
cess.
In case of the switchmen's strike at
Buffalo, N. Y, the outcome is the same.
The ultimate triumph of the corpora
ton was never a matter of serious
doubt.
In Tennessee is presented another
phase of the labor problem. The en-
ploymeut of convicts there supercedes
free labor and robs the families. of
honest men Of their daily bread But
there seems to be more in this convict
labor system than appears upon the
surface. Senator Thomas C. Platt,
president of the Tennessee Coal s. Iron
| Co., in a recent interview respecting
this system, said:
Zone of the chief reasons which first
induced the company to take up the
system was the great chance which It
seemed to present for overcoming
strikes For some years after we began
the convict labor system we found that
we were right in calculating that tho
free laborers would be loath to enter
upon strikes when they saw that the
company was amply provided with con-
vict labor, and as 1 am one that does
| not approve Of the convict system, ]
don't mind saying that for many years
the company found this an effective
club to be held over the heads of the
free laborers.''
Think of this for a moment. A
wealthy mining company whose presi-
dent has been honored by seat in the
United States senate, employing peni-
tentiary convicts at cheap rates with
the idea that free laborers, seeing the
company was amply provided with
convict labor. would be loath to enter
upon strikes" and holding this fact as
CLUB over the heads" of honest men
to terrorize them into the most abiect
submission.
But it is unnecessary to detail special
instances Of the encroachments OF
capital upon the rights of labor, or the
unsatisfactory results of past or present
methods of resistance Nothing has
yet been attempted by the great body
of organized laborers intended to change
the conditions that render strikes and
lock-outs possible. It must begin to
dawn upon the minds of laboring men
that this is the only practical solution of
the labor problem Everything else is
mereley of temporary benefit, even If
successful AS long as these conditions
exist. there is no hope or possibility of
permanent relief
How Is this change to be effected?
The conditions have grown up under a
system of class legislation and class
favoritism for which existing political
parties are responsible, and which thew
manifest no disposition to remedy; and
II laboring men would make their
organizations effectual for the per-
manent betterment of their condition.
they should utilize them politically for
the overthrow of parties that propose
no practical plan of relief, and in
support OF party that is pledged to
such revolution as will enable the In
dustrial classes to legislate in their
own interests. There are laws that
must be repealed and others that must
be enacted The power TO control the
volume of currency must be taken from
corporations and restored to the people
where 1t tconstitutionally belongs. Taxa
ton must be limited to the necessities oj
an economically administered govern
|
possessions and the incomes of the
wealthy rather than upon the necessi.
ties consumed by the poor The labor.
Or must be protected against the ''pau-
per labor of Europe" not by a duty
upon manufactured products, but by
effective protection against the impor.
tation of the pauper labor itself Labor
must be rewarded with the product o
its own industry. wealth belongs to
him who creates it," and avarice and
greed must not be permitted to rob him
of the fruits of his toll These things
can only be secured by legislation, and
such legislation can be secured only by
! the political cooperation of the labor
forces of the country. The sooner Ia
Dor organizations recognize this fact
and cease their strikes, except at tho
polls. p.e sooner will they realize ar
J Improvement in their condition. .-Tope-
L.