Fairhaven herald. [volume] (Fairhaven, Wash.) 1890-????, 1892-09-15
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wright to handle.
The strike is quite a modern affair.
In the oldon time the workmen were
actually or virtually slaves. A strike
was an insurrection, and instruction
meant death certainly and torture prob
ably. Nevertheless, though they had no
strikes, they got up some very respecta-
BILE limitations, as for instance that of
Spartacus.
With motley army of gladiators and
slaves he held the Romans at bay for
two years, defeated four consular armies
and only failed of final success because
of the intractable nature of his troops.
| The French revolution first took active
form in a strike. When the workmen
in paper manufactures in Paris struck,
early in 1889, a wealthy capitalist told
them they could live as well as they de-
served on fifteen cents a day. There
upon they mobbed his works and burned
them, and the example was contagious.
Labor movements IN England are usu-
! ally dated from Wat Tyler's rebellion.
The movements of Jack Straw, John
Ball and Jack Cade are also counted
"labor troubles" During all the ages of
despotism it was the custom to send
such agitators and conspirators as were
not executed to labor in the mines, and
fugitives often went there for conceal
ment. They continued their planning
and plotting under ground, and the re-
suit was that the miners were first and
most thoroughly organized of all la
borers.
Thus did Gustavus Vasa organize the
miners of Sweden who helped restore
him to power. In England the miners
of Cornwall were so early and so thor
oughly organized that a Cornish mob
was long a national terror. 1t is be-
heved that some of these organizations
centuries old continued with only a
change of name till they became the
Mollie Maguires of Pennsylvania. In
1850 the British parliament passed the
famous Statute of laborers"-the first
of a long series of acts to prevent rise
in wages.
After the great plague, all old con-
tracts being at an end and lands calling !
for cultivators, the wages of men rose so |
per cent. and those of women 100 per
cent. in few years. Then long and
in the end terrible struggle began. The
first rage of laborers seems to have been
directed against machinery, and the first
sawmin set up in England was torn
down by the whip sawyers. This move
ment against machines went to such
lengths after the Napoleonic wars that
It amounted TO a rebellion, and $4,000
'Luddites" were in ranks at one time.
A half witted Lad named Judd, who
had been leased by some boys, pursued
them into shop, where they took refuge
behind lace mill. In his rage he broke
the machine to pieces, so the proprietor,
IN order TO fill his contracts, had TO re-
employ the women who had been dis
placed by the new invention There
upon the other women of the lace dis
trict gathered In mobs and smashed the
rest Of the lace mills, the men followed
1t mp on all machinery which had dis
placed their labor, and the once famous |
''Luddite war" was begun. One fact |
must be Chronological the advance |
laborers have secured has been the re-
suit Of their combining and resisting.
1t Is huniliating, but it is fact.
In 1884 the great strike of the London |
tailors occurred, but they were beaten.
The next strike, In the Staffordshire pot
teries. was won by the men after des-
perate struggle. The great Preston
strike OF 1853 attracted the attention Of
the world. Forty-nine cotton and other
mills were closed, and before the strike
ended 14,972 paupers were added to the
list. The men were defeated