Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1894-07-12
Labor Crushing Labor.


of the insanity Of support given to
the boycott by laboring men than
the fortunes of the employees Of the
Wood Harvester company of this
city. This concern has been
engaged in completing its splendid
plant and preparing for active
work as soon as the conditions Of
trade would warrant. A short
time ago it set all its machinery in
motion, with a splendid outlook
for the season. This at once gave
work to over 700 men, who had
been waiting anXiously for a
chance to earn living. The
benefit of such an outlet for unem-
ploycd labor, of such an addition
to the wage receipts of a
community, is very great. And
any capitalist who should have
interfered in the matter, who
should have compelled the Wood
Harvester people to shut their
shops and discharge their men
because he had interests in some
other direction, would have
received the universal eXecration
Of the labor world.
This great calamity has fallen
upon these working people, by
direction of the appointed leaders
Of labor. The Wood Harvester
company had business enough to
keep its plant in operation. It
was satisfied with its employees and
they with it. They are not even
involved in any strike. But rail
road communication being cut Oft,
so that the company can neither
receive material from without nor
ship its product when finished,
there is nothing to be done but to
put out the fires and close the
works. With capital ready to go
on producing, with a sufficient
demand existing for the product
with the kindliest feeling possible
between labor and capital, with the
employer DESTROYS of keeping his
men at work and the employee
anxious to retain his job, Industry
ceases. The wealth Of the com
munity is Iessened by what would
have been the output Of the works,
and three or four thousand people
are deprived at once Of their means
Of support, and left to face the
coming winter without the re-
sources upon which they had
counted to stand between them
and much suffering.
Now this is but single case
out of thousands. The same story
is told in every city and in every
industry. Just at a time when the
clouds above the business world
were beginning to break, just when
labor was feeling once more the
demand for its services, there comSe
an order, delivered by a chosen
representative of organized labor,
which deprives Of their support
tens Of thousands of men outside
of the immediate conflict, having
no direct relation with the railroads
whatever. All this was inevitable
in advance. Debs knew just as
we'll when he set out to tie up all
the roads in the country that this
must be the effect of it as he does
now. They who stand by him and
support him knew it. And they
have persisted in their diaboIicaI
work as remorseIessIy as any
military commander ever ordered
bodies Of unoffending men, women
and children shot down for the
purpose of terrorizing others.
The unions that engage in this
strike, like the military upstairs
who have sacrificed armies to their
ambition, use the laboring man as
the power that they must burn to
work themselves into positions of
supreme command.
1t has come to this mainly
because the laboring man will not
help himself. Protesting against
the tyranny of capital, he offers
his neck to the heel Of a labor
tyranny that towers above it. II