The record-union., 1894-03-20
SOCIALIOTlC IDEAS.
How They Are Growing in the Great
Eastern Cities.
The Great Contest VIII Really be Be-
tween the Labor Leaders and
the Socialists.


bright, warm sunshine this week strewed
the snow-covered streets and houses with
blinking jewels. drove into the parks and
driveways hundreds of ponies with
phaetons filled with the women and chill
dren of Fifth avenue, and on the dreary
east side the people swarmed out of the
tenements upon the streets. Weakly
mothers with blue babies perched on the
fire-escapes to bask in the sunshine.
There was a pleasing picture everywhere
one looked. pitious at times. but always
relief after the dismal season OF winter
naturally mild, but humanity hard. If
one could stop with the satisfaction ex-
pressed even in the tossing heads Of the
ladies' ponies or the miSchievous snow
pelting of the boys, this letter would be
full of sunshine. But | have set out to
tell some of the troublesome things that
are to be expected when the crop of the
winter comes to ffuition.
A man named Feeney stopped me in
the street yesterday and asked me why
the newspaper men were letting the labor
difficulties so much alone. Did they
amount to anything? No, not yet. he
said. But they are brewing trouble that
may fill columns. MIR. teeney is the
tate Labor commissioner. His chief
function, as | have known him, is to
compromise strikes and lockouts. But
he told Inc yesterday that he had been
studying the unions all over the State,
visiting manufacturing towns and talk
ing with leaders and men and OCCASION
ally with an employer.
Yes, sir,' he said "All the material
results of labor contests for tie past two
or three years have been lost during the
hard times. Wages have been cut down
as well rs time, and, as everybody
knows, thousands have been thrown out
of jobs. Well, workmen have submitted
in all but few cases to these reductions,
knowing iC was useless to fight. Many
men have Striven TO be OF the few who
were kept at work, so that competition
among themselves has both facilitated
the reductions and increased them. Dis
content is general, ill-will and the chance
of q reckoning is widespread. This has
been the fulcrum on which labor leaders
have raised their powers, added TO their
organizations, and idleneSS, forced and
sullen, has furnished the opportunities
for talk, and, TOO, thought. knowing
all this and having heard the harangues
and seen the crowds, having visited the
homes and felt with their sentiments, l
may have lost my calmneSs of judgment.
be outbreaks all over the state SO soon
as the industries resume their activity
and the men their places. Wages rise
last of all. Production and business
will get into full swing before the price
OF labor responds TO the revival of life.
But impatient labor will be in furor
as soon as its stomach is tllled and It's
need is felt"
That is true, but that isn't all. If it
were, the trouble would not be SO great
as is feared by the Commissioners. For |
know that experienced employers have
advanced a long stadium i'll their views
about labor. When they cut down ex-
penses they made it policy to distribute
the reduction. Pay was diminished all
along the line, but so far as was possible
the hours and not the number of en-
ployes were reduced. When that did not
lessen costs enough, men were dis
charged, and in heavy proportions; this
was necessary and was done. Even
when this last resort was reached, dis
elimination on humane principles was
shown, and the unmarried men were
dropped first. This all was the practice
generally throughout the East, and, be-
lieve, everywhere in the United States.
In like spirit / am informed by the
greatest employers of labor in the city,
men will be taken on at the first oppor-
tunity. Hours will be increased next.
with proportionate Increase OF pay, and
the payment of full wages will be re-
sumed last but at the earliest possible
moment. Were this known to working
men, patience could be counted upon.
Only few of the more intelligent leaders
know it, and it is not in their interest to
publish it to their followers. For another
purpose actuates them than the mere
restoration of former conditions. The
general discomfort must be availed OF
while it lasts, to knit moro firmly the
organizations and to urge men on toward
the ultimate end.
These enQS are SOcialistic and economic;
two, not OF kind, but completely antag-
oniStic. They are not both Strlven for by
the same leaders, but form the division
between the two classes of leaders, Of
whom the socialists are the less selfish.
Socialist leaders have sowN their ideas
and arguments industriously and at ieis-
ure, and during the enforced idleness of
the winter socialism has extended its in
fuence very widely among the INDUS
trial classes. 1t will form the basis of de-
inands new in the history of labor con-
flicts. Indeed, the outcry for State en-
ployment OF the unemployed already has
shown the direction OF the tendency.
Tentative recognition of this duty has
been obtained from Governors and May
ors, whose refusal to grant the request
invariably had been supported only by
the plea of the difficulties in the way Of
putting into execution the plan proposed.
in New York City public works have
been begun before the time fixed for
them, III response to this demand.
But the most surprising and serious
advance made by socialism is among
well-known thinking men, heretofore on
the conservative side OF liberal competi-
ton in all things. Several New York
editors have had 20 refuse to pub
lish letters from literary men and
men OF scientific training, who. under
the stress of sympathy with misery, have
gone over to the radicals. The sup
preston was jusiifable on the ground
that the communication bore on their
face the marks of abnormal feelings, and,
weak in argument as they were, would
influence those only who are susceptible
to the influence of a great name and inca
pable of analyzing an augmentation.
Still, the significance remains, and IL
points to the upward growth of socialistic
ideas. In Boston particularly, but in
Massachusetts generally, and in all the
great Northern cities, repulsion from the
common sight of destitution among the
helpless has affected men of influence
ana ability who will aid the propaganda
OF sociaIistic ideas.
What is of more immediate interest,
however, is the influence they will have
in Fastening and mbittering the strifes
predicted for the period of industrial re-
organization. They are men who once liz
motion will be difficult of restraint. They
have more brains than the ordinary half
educated labor leader and, still more dam
gerous, they have more energy and
greater resources.
Powerful opposition will be met with.
1t will come from the men who now are
stumping labor from the same platform
with the socialists. 1t will not be direct,
but it Will be all the more effective for
that reason. 1t will come in the course of
the agitation from those heads Of unions
who always struggle toward the economic
end-the organizers of labor trusts. They
are the men more in control, and they,
III