The record-union., 1894-07-20
THE MORALS OF BOYCOTT
STRIKES.

tanned also among large number OF the
people, who narrow the issue to one be-
tween the railroads and their employees.
Phis indicates two things, lack of moral
perception and dangerous loss OF abil-
ity to distinguish between individual
rights and the rights Of society as body.
Ag natural result there is blindness to
the inevitable leading of such sentiment.
6oz it carries its adherents straight on
ward to anarchy. which is the other name
for discoT6 and subversion of govern
ment.
Every man has the right to decide whom
he viii work for, and for what wages.
precisely as every man has the right to
decide what he will pay and whom he
will employ. But if number of men
combine to refuse to work for q given
wage and to make that combination de-
structive of the right of another, and to
prevent others workers working for that
ether, legal and moral crime is COM
mitted. This truth has been recognized
from the earliest time.
The striker then may employ any
rational method to induce his fellows TO
side with him. But he must stop there,
and if he does not he becomes law
breaker and attempts to destroy the very
principle that iustifies his right to cease
zorIx opd iDduoa svrunatnv
So that declaration that work refused
by ga" shall not be done by ''B" who is
willing to do it, is dangerous and destruc-
tive ofa human right and hence is immoral
and tyrannous. So, too, whenever there
is an attempt to dictate to another whom
he shall employ under penalty of punish
ment if he disobeys, it is an act of tyr
amy. 1t would be no more tyrannous
for the employer to attempt to compel a
manto work for him who has exercised
hisxight to refuse.
If these things are not true. then Sc
ciety does not exist and we have anarchy,
or we justify the use of force to compel
submission to tyranny, either on the part
of the employer or the employe.
When this tyranny extends to the pun
ties, to the seizure of property and the
stoppage of goods an trGasSitas, it becomes
open rebellion against the Government,
TO the guarantee of which every man has
the right to appeal for the protection of
hisproperty and his individual right.
Society could not exist twenty-four
hours if the defiance of all legal rights
implied in the demands of the strikers
were permitted or sanctioned. Hence it
is that the issue changes from one of dis
agreement between employer and en-
pleye to one between Government and
lswbreakers, between morals and immor-
slity.
The intelligent striker must see that the
doctrine of the late strike would speedily
place the liberties and possessions of
every man in the country at the mercy
Of mob caprice, or organized greed, or
organized tyranny.
Whenever these coerciye policies are
advanced the communist and the anarch-
ist become conspicuous with their coun-
sells, and by specious reasoning seek to
blind moral perceptions by antagonizing
natural rights to those secured by sur.
render of certain individual rights that
Government may be erected out of them.
If the principles of the late strike were
generally accepted then the outcome
would be the enslavement of the weak
by the strong everywhere. For if, as
the communists and the sympathizers
with the strikers contend-the latter most
largely unconscious of the dangerous
leading of their sympsthy-nen may use
force to compel an employer to a course
Of action, the Inevitable logic of the doc
trine carries US to q situation in which
the same force might be used to compel
she unemployed TO sccede to the demand
of the employer.
We should then have not q question
Of human rights. but one of superior
physical force. Under such standard of
authority liberty dies, independence van
ishes and slavery is established.
These truths are so important, and are
so intimately connected with every fiber
of civilization, that they cannot be lost
sight of for a moment without endanger-
ing the whole fabric of society, precisely
IS anarchism desires shall be done.
It is the special function of the press,
and ought to be of all clear-thinking men,
therefore. at such time as this. to disen-
fangle confused issues and present CEN
traI facts and truths and their rational
conclusions.
Thus 1t is the very razor-edge of danger
to let pass unrebuked and uncorrected
the doctrine that has been preached
hourly for the last three weeks, that be-
cause of wsge-contention resort to vio-
lence. duress and coercion is justiiable.
When the advocates of that doctrine are
logically driven TO the wall many of them
have boldly gone over to the anarchical
rsnks-unthinkingly. let as hope-and
declared 'then the Government ought to
be overthrown and the law overridden."
But not one of these misguided citizens
has as yet even suggested what shall take
the place Of the Government.
The simple truth is that the limits of