The oasis., 1894-08-23
AN EQUITY IN THEIR JOBS.

great strike, the second witness, Gen. eral Master Workman Sovereign of the Knights of Labor, struck the key note of the labor situation of today in the following words.
 'I think the laws should recognize laborer's right-his equity in his po- sition. The employers equity is In his plant-the product of his plant. The discharged laborer, if discharged without a just cause, should have the right to go into court and establish a claim for damages
 Those few lines lay down a proposi- tion or principle upon which must be adjusted the complicated relations between capital and labor, in the United States, if free government is to continue to exist.
 The writer is well aware that the old stereotyped cry will be raised that it Is the prerogative of the owner of a mill or factory to employ whom he may please, and that those disliking his regulations, hours of labor or rates of pay are at liberty to seek employ ment elsewhere. That principle was all very good in the early days of the republic, when the virgin soil of west ern states and territories gave a vent for the pent up populations of the east; when there was work for all; when manufactures were simple, and man who had mastered his trade could make by himself almost any thing the trade produced. Then there was a variety and versatility in opera tives which made them far more cap able of unaided, intelligent self sup port. But with the ramification Of manufactures, and the application of machinery to thousands of processes formerly done by hand there has grown in country an entirely different state of affairs, and an entirely differ ent class of operatives. Now the great manufacturing plants have become great machines in which the opera tiyes are naught but cogs and wheels. Frequently their work requires the highest order of intelligence, yet it's finished product is but a part of the product of the factory and of no value without all the rest. Remarkably true is this of the industries which turn out machinery, boots and shoes, sugar, starch, etc. Taken out of the factory the individual is as useless and help less as a cogwheel taken from the ma chine which conducts it's operations under his intelligent direction. Now it is the refinement of cruelty to train and educate a man so he is in that con- dltion and then tell him blunIly that if he doesn't like his surroundings he is at liberty to change them. It has taken the best part of his life to fit him properly into those surroundings, and he cannot change himself to suit others in day.
 And that is just why the worker has an equity in his position, and that equity should be recognized and pro- tected by organized society # organiz- ed society is to continue. The state which makes it crime to take his life either pre- natally or post natally, owes him a living. The state edu- cates him with an idea that the edu- cation given will make him a good citizen. Society, the product of the state, has made it impossible for him to make living save in a certain way. It is the duty of society and'the state to so regulate his relation with his employer that that living shall be given him and that it shall equal in standard the standard of the educa- tion it has given him. That duty is not effectively discharged until the