The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-07-06
ONE VIEW OF THE SITUATION.

The most important right possessed
by the majority of mankind is religious
liberty; the right to believe and worship
according to the dictates of reason and
faith. Following closely this right,
which will In America never be surren-
dered, is the right of the individual to
bargain, without molestation or intimi-
dalton, for his personal skill and SER
vices, or for his money. At present, 1t
| Is, to all appearances, not so sure that
| that right is not to be surrendered. The
| tendency of these times seems to be to-
ward condition which if a man de-
| clines, for any reason, to work for
wages he, by virtue of that decision,
which he undoubtedly has the right to
make, immediately decides that he has
the right to say no other man has right
to the employment and emolument
which he has declined to accept. 1t is a
decision he has, obviously, no shadow
Of right to make. The absurdity of
his claim is acknowledged on all sides.
But hitherto no adequate action
has been taken by the authori
ties to protect the man who is
for any reason, willing to accept the
employment which has been declined
and spurned by the previous incumbent,
nor to restrain the voluntarily unem-
ployed from recourse to force TO prevent
the man who is willing to accept a SER
vice, the terms of which are satisfactory
to him.
The workingmen of this country are
much concerned, to all appearance, in
establishing new departures and in lay
ing down new precedents. But they
have not seen the new departures lead to
destruction, nor that the precedent3,
like the lies in the Spanish proverb, may
come back home to roost, for if tie vol
unfairly unemployed, the strikers, whose
blows are so certainly killing the goose
that laid the monometallic eggs, are
right in deciding what the involuntarily
unemployed may or may not do, what
becomes of the right of the other moiety
of mankind, if perchance they are to
have any rights. AS they either must
have equal rights or gradually shrivel
up and disappear leaving the field to the
salt OF the earth, who have rights, the
most important of which is to do wrong
If they so choose.
Working men, the men who employ
skill, talent or strength, to enable them
selves and their dependent ones to live,
are the large majority of the adult
males of the civilized world, and the
man who shoves the plane, holds the
throttle, or wields the pick has no mo-
nopoly of the title. The shining tile of
the professional man, the picturesque
artist, tue respectfully clad shopman, are
all only exteriorally different from the
so-called working man. They do not be.
long to a different order of mankind
from the man who Yields the pick, and
only vary from him in pluck, energy
and skill. And as this class of workman
are unprovided for in the later day fer
ment, what Is to be expected from him.
lie Is numerous, so Numerous in fact, |
that no plan that ignores him is worth |
considering. FOR reinforced as he is bound |
to be IN the end, by the myriads |
of independent farmers, they will form |
an immense majority in the United
States, aud one whose instincts, training
and loyalty to right, will create united |
conservative element that will sweep the |
united folly of the American Railway |
Union, the banded bandits of monopoly, |
the weakened demagogic governors of
states, the Populists, the cranks, the An
archistS and other criminals under more |
titles, from the face of this |
fair land, and by removing the dust aud |
rust from our institutions will find them |
what the fathers intended, what they
most certainly are, the best devised as |
well as the most complete, the wisest and |
falrest that were ever promulgated by |
man, and good enough to die under,
and, If need be, to die for.