The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-11-26
PAYING DEAR FOR THE WHISTLE.

PAYING DEAR FOR THE WHISTLE.
The defeated strikers at New Orleans,
Buffalo and Homestead have paid dear
for their whistle. They threw up work
and wages that other workmen were glad
to get. go that more than one-half, prob
ably not more than one-third of them,
can go back TO their old jobs. Hundreds
OF the Buffalo switchmen, who had regular
employment at sure wages. are still out of
work and hunting job. Enforced Idle
ness will give these men plenty OF time to
ask themselves and answer the question
whether it pays to throw up good job at
good wages simply because other'working-
men are dissatisfied with their pay. Does
1t pay any man to put himself under obli-
CATION to sacrifice his own living in the
desperate effort to better some other mans
pay? Christianity does not teach US to do
this; on the contrary, it teaches us
that man must first look after his
own household; that those dependent
on him must be provided for. But when
strike is ordered men who are satisfied
with their jobs are required to give them
up because other men are discontinued
with their work. The consequence is that
"a sympathetic" strike, as it is called,
leaves vast number of desirable places to
be filled by some of the great multitude of
non-union men who are always looking
for work.
In the sympathetic strike at Buffalo the
head of the Switchmen's Union ordered
out switchmen who were contented with
their work; these men lost their places to
no purpose. Then the manager of this
sympathetic strike tried to extend it to
the engineers. firemen, brakemen and
tclegraphers for the benefit of a few dis
satisfied switchmen; that is, he tried to
force disinterested strike Of the many
for the sole benefit of the few. He failed;
be ought to have failed, for such vast
sympathetic strike would have been a
gross outrage upon the general public
veal; conspiracy against the peace, good
order and comfort of society, and from the
start such strike never has public opin-
ion behind it. When q corporation sud-
denly turns large body of men loose on
the chance of getting cheaper men public
sympathy generally goes with the men
and against the company, because it is
inhuman without fair warning to sud
denly discharge a large force of labor. but
in the event of large sympathetic strike
large bodies of men are ordered out who
have nothing to complain of on their own
account, who, without grievance of their
own, are compelled to assume the grev-
ance of a few dissatified men, thus dis
turbing wantonly the whole business
of the country, subjecting to great
losses large numbers of men who
plant. In the case Of the Buffalo switch
mems strike the effort to extend it as a
sympathetic strike to the whole force of
railroad operatives utterly failed through
the sound sense of Chief Arthur. of the
Locomotive Brotherhood, who so far as
his own guild was concerned set an ex-
ample of refusal to JOIN in a merely SYM
pathetic strike that was followed by the
other organizations of railroad labor.
On the other hand, in New York city
the whole building trade, with its allied
industries, was paralyzed by svnpa-
thetic strike. Nearly 10000 men were
thrown out of work and wages with which
they were satitiei simply as an exhibition
OF sympathy with q single union whose
original purpose in ordering strike
was the discharSins of single MEM
Der. This sympathetic strike failed,
as did the recent sympathetic strike
at New Orleans, which wantonly called
out $4,000 men from all the industries of
the city. Sympathetic strikes of this sort
are sure TO fail; they always do fail, be.
cause they outrage that intelligent public
opinion upon whose moral support all
labor strikes are directly or indirectly de-
pendent for support and ultimate success
But wanton sympathetic strikes Of the
kind we have described demand a power
of self-sacrihce that human nature.
whether within or without labor unions.
cannot be expected to endure. OF the
essential absurdity Of sympathetic strikes
the New York Sun says:
Iiamau who kept shop should close I'D his
store and refuse to do any business simply be-
cause 3 nelghboring shop5eeper was not making
as much as he wanted, he would be looked Uncn
as g crank. But union workiugmen are
pected and required oy Their unions 10 give up
places with which they are content, ii other
vorklnGuea in their OWN or other unions are
Disseminated witn their work or IN rebellion
against lhe4g union. They are forced 10 add 10
the chances OF losing their jobs ST the will o;
employees, the further chances of losing them
st the command of walking delegates. though
other isoorers are waiting 10 take up the Jobs
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The Democratic Fifty third congress
f.,,f- All