The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-07-26
THE NEW LABOR ORGANIZATION.


Unless the mass of wage earners are
lacking the good sense with which they are
credited they will not tumble over each
other TO join the new labor organization
which is announced from Chicago. As an
nounced it will cover the same field the
Knights of Labor occupies. If the Knights
of Labor is a strong organization, a dupli-
cate will be superfiuous: if it is not, it is
because it has gone to pieces, and, by
going TO pieces, has demonstrated that the
gather-alI system Of organization is not
sound one Not many years ago the
Knights overshadowed all other organiza-
tons. 1t was power in the land. Its
management was in a constant quarrel, but
Mr.. Powderly a resourceful leader.
Nevertheless in the face of the American
Federation. the Knights of Labor has
drifted to the rear as the years have
passed, changing positions in regard to
membership, that of the Knights having
shrunk from over a million to sixty-four
thousand. and that of the Federation hav-
ing increased from nominal figure to
about $4,000. Judged by the criterion of
success, the American Federation of La
Dor has stood the test of years and met
the approval of a large and increasing body
of wage-earners in all the industries. while
the knights, brough. to the same test,
have not succeeded. And it must stand to
reason that an organization made up of
the delegates of the respective trades, hav-
ing all the fellowship and esprit du corps
which men who are Of one trade will have
must be stronger than associations made
up of all the wage earners within a given
territory. ranging from railway engineers
and printers to hod-carriers and day la
borers
Now these allies of Debs in Chicago are
proposing to repeat the experiment of the
Knights of Labor-to build up a vast ag-
gregation of laborers who shall be allied
with the A. r. u. 1t means that these
men who are behind it are not satisfied
with the federation Of which Mr.. Gompers
is president. They might be if they were
at it's head If Debs had been an engineer
he would have been satisfied with the
brotherhood if he could have had Chief
Arthur's place. The various Debses who
are behind this new movement are anxious
to lead-to travel over the country, to draw
large salaries from the dues paid by men,
bers. and to magnify their positions by
fomenting strikes and keeping up a dis
turbance which will interfere with the in
dustry and business of the country. Mr..
Gompers and his associates are not of that
class. They do not believe in strikes as
the end of organization, as do Debs and
these new men. but in the opposite policy.
which Mr.. Gompers has called mediation.
In short. the men behind the proposed or
ganzation aim to multiply the influence
and change the policy of the trades unions
as the Debs A. r. L. undertook to wipe
out the railway brotherhoods They are agi-
tators. either dishonest or unsafe. self
seekers. who are determined to escape la
Dor themselves by living upon taxes wrest-
ed from the earnings of thousands of hard
working men, in return for which they
will, if they can. involve them in conten-
tions, strikes and lockouts. To-day the
policy of all intelligent and honest leaders
in organization is to prevent the inter-
ruption of the orderly movement of the in
dustries of the country. 1t is. in a notable
degree, the policy in Great Britain.