The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1894-07-24
ELL ARP ON STRIKES.
Let Everybody Quit Work For Il
Whilc-Agitators Have to DO Some
thing to Keep the Boys Interested,
or the Salaries Would Not BE Paid.

thing to Keep the boys Interested,
or the Salaries Would Not BE Paid.
We are crowded now. What with
all the ramifications Of the big strike.
the widespread war between labor and
capital, tho miserable contention over
the tariff bill and the red-hot strife Of
candidates for office, our weak minds
are kept on q continual strain. Every
trade or occupation has got a union
now, oven to the BARRIERS and the news
boys, and if these unions don't strike
or boycott something occasionally the
boys get lukewarm and quit paying
their dues and hat cuts off the salaries
of the officers, and SO they must get up
a carousomont to fire up the boys again.
1t is like the great mOnarchies Of Eu-
rope. When their people get restless
and discontinued and threaten the gov
eminent, the monarch gets up O little
war with some other nation and that
unites the people and kills off the sur
plus. Suppose we all strike for a lit
tie while and swear off from any kind
OF work unless we can get moro for it.
Let the newspapers strike against the
newsboys and quit publishing papers.
Lie tho railroads stop running. Let
the merchants quit buying and selling.
Let all the manufactures close up for
awhile. Let us all wear our old clothes
and live off Il gardens. Capital is
ter than both. 1t takes all three to
keep the world going and If they can
not get along in peace let us dissolve
the partnership awhile and everybody
and everything get on q strike.
But that wOulden't do. Just think of
tho poor; not the farmers nor the la
borers on the railroads and in the work
shops, but the poor women and chill
dren who toll in tho cotton mills or at
the needle in some miserable garrett
the sewing m in the great cities
who make u garments for q mere
trife and who still sing "The Song of
the Shirt" Who is striking for them?
Nobody. 1t is not the very poor who
are raising all this racket. 1t is the
able-bodied mon who have employment
at living wages. I heard a farmer saw
yesterday that they could get along If
labor was not SO high, and no doubt his
laborers are growing because wages
are not higher, and so it goes. The
farmer grumbles because wheat Ia
down to 60 cents a bushel and the lab
orer would reduce it to so cents if he
could. And yet all classes who are not
rich enough to live without work SYM
pathize with the strike, and in Its last
analysis the primo cause is envy and
selfishness. How rich will q man be
allowed to get and still have the good
will Of his poorer neighbors? How
poor must u man get before he will
have the help and pity of the rich?
But every day the press ventilates the
whole business and everybody knows
all about it.
1t was a relief when Mrs. Arp told
me this morning she wanted that big
red oak that stood near the corner Of
the garden cut bown. I've been hint
Ing about that q long time, but she is
opposed to cutting down shade trees,
and so L never argued the case at all.
Some years ago | proposed to thin out
the trees in the front yard, but she OBJ
jected. While she was off to Rome on
a visit | got the boys and we cut down
three OF them level with the ground
and didn't leave a sign of o stump, and
we hauled away every chip and scrap
and covered the places with grass and
she never found it out for two months,
and wouldn't have then, but one of the
mischievous girls remarked one day
that we dident use to see the hills as
plain as we do now, and nv wife
caught on to the business right away.
She always does. But she suggested
this morning that that oak would have
to come down and it would give us
more garden. AS woman sometimes
changes her mind, I went at it like
killing snakes. The trunk of the tree
was perpendicular. l know it was, for
l planted 1t. [ tied q pair of big scis-
sors to II string and stood off and sight
ed and was sure it would fall up the
hill where [ wanted it. II it went
down the hill 1t would fall across the
narrow lane and onto the widows fence
and smash up the fruit trees in her lot.
So to be sure | climbed the ladder and
sawed off some big limbs on that side,
and / knew that the limbs on the other
side would pull 1t that way.
L sharpened the axe and then I and
Uncle Sam went to work. When ii
was most down the good widow, who is
our nearest neighbor and lives alone i'm
her cottage, came along and looked
~anxiously at what we were doing. /
assured her the tree was bound to fall
up the hill on my side, and so she went
on to spend the day at q friends, and
we chopped on q little more. The
wind was blowing quito a breeze, and I
got my plumb and sighted again.
Then | sighted the top in line with an
other tree, and told Uncle Sam to chop
some more. BY and by | saw it was
moving q little up the hill aud all right.
tits going all right, Uncle SAM said
L. LET her go-give another lick or |