The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-07-29
THE NECESSITY FoR WISDOM.

II was reported In our dispatches yester-
day that the strikers at Homestead were
determined to rule or ruin the CARNEGIE
mills at that place. One of the advisory
committee Of the striking workmen is rep
resented as saying:
We viii not under any circumstances permit
those mills TO run. if there is any agency which
may be employed TO prevent It, We have al
ready selected men who will go into those mills
as fast as they can secure employment, who are
instructed and sworn TO carry. out our orcers. in
concentrating the policy which we have agreed
upon. When we are sure there is no longer
any hope for US our representatives in the mills
Will place explosives where they viii do the
most harm to the machinery. We have def
nitely determined that these mills shall not be
operated by non-union men and one Of the prin-
cipal ways 10 prevent It is either to control or
wreck the property.
If this report be true the workmen at
Homestead are preparing to make very
sad blunder blunder which the expert
ence Of labor unions in this country will
render inexcusable. Of al men on earth
the laboring men can least afford to nave
recourse to such means as those contem-
plated in the alleged remarks of the com
mitteeman. Labnr has just as good a right
to organize for its protection against the
greed of capital, as capitalists have to organ
ize to promote their interests Indeed, 1t
is difficult to determine how else labor
shall be aole to free itself from being en-
tirely at the tender mercy OF organized
capital But to be merciful in its attempt
TO secure what is fair and just from those
who employ 1t, organized labor must keep
on its side the sympathy Of the American
people, without which nothing can sue
coed in this country; and nothing is so sure
to rob labor Of that sympathy, or drive it
across the line to the other side, as re-
course TO violence and the destruction Of
property. The people in the United States
in their sympathies are with labor but
they are also ia favor Of law and order;
for on that depends peace. pros
perity and happiness. On that
depends the protection Of the home, and the
perpetulty OF the state. This fact is deeply
fixed in the minds Of the people, and when
ever the law and order are threatened. and
through that the peace Of their homes and
the security Of the stste, it at once alienates
their sympsthies from the cause which pro
duces the menace. Labor, therefore
wounds itself when it resorts to violent
methods, to the destruction of life and
property.
The dispatches also report five hundred
Anarchists in Pittsburg, and one thousand
in western Pennsylvania. These are SO
many enemies of mankind, to laborers
as well as to capitalists. and both
are equally interested in sup
pressing them Just now they
are liable to do great injury to the cause OF
organized labor, since in the confusion in
separately connected with such a contest as
that now under way at Homestead, the
actions Of these fends in human form are
apt to be credited to the striking work
men, when in reality they may not only
have nothing to do with those actions. but
no sympathy with them. Wisdom. there
fore, would suggest that the working men
at Homestead take some vigorous measures
to separate their cause from that of the
anarchists iocking into western Pennsyl-
vania.
In no country in the world is sthere less
tACNSco AOA 4dbOA ACSDLbiLB u N1Ol6QCe tQaQ
in the United States. The great mass of
the population are working people
and hence are in sympathy with
the cause of labor; to this fact is added
that other fact that the people are SOW
ereign in this country, and rule, or may
DO so when they will and can enact such
laws as will both make capital secure and
Go justice to labor-that is, so far as gov
ernment can and has a right TO deal In
these matters. They can, at their pleas
ure, at least, make all men equal before
the law. by demanding the abolition OF that
class legislation which favors The wealthy
manufacturer, TO the injury OF the people
at large: ana which to build their palatial
residences aud clothe their limbs in silken
CLOTH has taxed the people Of their hard
earnings. when in reality the only thing
for which the people should be taxed is the
support of the government and that tax so
adjusted as to bear most heavily on those
best able TO bear It.
Meantime it is just as well that the
wealthy Of the land who employ labor
should understand that there Is limit to
the endurance Of the suffering. uatient
multitude; aud that when the burden be-
comes no longer endurable they are liable
10 throw it of rather unceremoniously. or
course in medieval times the baron or lord
Of the manor held his serfs il subsection.