El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1897-09-15
blane?
THE PRIMARY COERCION.

| DIANE.
THE PRIMARY COERCION.
The very worst the strikers do OF
think of doing is ito prevent others
themselves any work-may earn g
scant living by hard toll. But what are
the dogs in-the-mauger doing who are
holding unused city lots, farm lands,
mines and forests-the natural oppor-
tunities, in short, that nature offers to
labor? They are preventing other
, people from working, not that they
NAV work Themselves, but that they
may live in idleness on that those who
want to work are compelled to pay
them for the privilege of going 10
work. If laborers we're to form socie-
ties which should by force prevent any
> one from going to work without their
permission; were to- charge the
highest price for the privi-
lege of going to work, which
the necessities of others would compel
them to pay. and were then to sit down
and live in idleness on this b!ackmail,
they would only be doing to others
what organized society permits others
to do to them.
While it perfectly true IS an alb
stract proposition, that no one ought
to be permitted to interfere with the
legitimate business of aonther, or by
going out of his right to inf1ict or
threaten injury or loss as means OF
coercion, yet it is only by combining
| together to interfere with the legiti-
mate business of others, and to cOerce
others by the fear of injury or loss that
| workmen are at all able to resist the
tendency to crowd wages down to the
point of bare existence. The great
fact that is ignored by those who talk
so f1ippanlly about the wickedness OF
coercion in strikes is that all this CO.
ercion is in reality coercion against
coercion, the attempt to use force in
| are attemp ting to do is to secure for
| themselves a monopoly in. supplying
| labor, and the real cause and only JUS
LITIGATION of this effort is the existence
OF monopolies in the things vitality
necessary to the use OF labor.
AN ILLUSTRATIVE STORY.
Before the cadi of an eastern city
there came from the desert two torn
and bruised travellers.
"There were five of u.s." they said,
''on our way hither with merchandise.
A days journey hence we halted and
made our camp, when following us
there came crowd of ill-conditioned
fellows, who demanded entrance to our
camp, and who, on our refusing lt,used
to US violent and threatening words, land,
when we answered not their threats
SET upon US WIFI lOTC0. uToo Vi Us
were slain, and we two barely escap-
ed with our lives to ask for Justice"
"Justice you shall have" answered
the cadi. ''If what you say be true,
they who assaulted you when you had
not assaulted them shall die. If what
you say be no true, your own lives
shall pay the penalty of fslseho-d.''
When the assailants of the merchants
arrived they were brought at once be-
fore tho ca6i
lis the merchants story true?" he
asked.
1T is, but
81 will hear no moren' cried the
Cadi. "You admit having reviled
men who had not reproached you. and
having assaulted men who had not as
saulted you. In this you have deserv
ed death"
But as they were being carried off to
execution the prisoners still tried to
explain.
Hear them, Cadi, 'said an old man,
'1est you commit justic :"
But they have admitted the mer-
chants words are true"
Eyes, but their words may not be all
the TRUTH
So the Cadi heard them, and they
said that when they came up to the
merchants hating place they
found that the merchants had pitched
that part of the desert, and refused to
let them enter and drink. They first
demonstrated, then threatened, and
then, rather than die of thirst, rushed
upon the merchants camp, and in the
melee three OF the merchants were
slain.
SIS this also true?" asked the Cadi
The merchants were forced to admit |
that it was.
"Then," said the Cadi, "you told me
truth that, being only part of the |
truth, was really a falsehood. You |
were the aggressors by taking for your |
selves alone the only we'll from which |
these men could drink. Now the death |
have decreed is for you"
INHERENT WEAKNESS OF THE STRIKE.
In the attempt to meet coercion by
coercion workingmen, under the pre-
sent conditions, are at fearful disad-
vantage. 1t is not merely that the cap
italists aud corporations against whom
they fight have control of the organs
of pu bic opinion aud of the courts, but
that they can combine, can cOe ~ce, can
infiict injury and loss in q much more
quiet and effective way than can work
ingmen. They can evade or take ad-
vantage of the law, while wOrkingmen.
to do things of essentially the same
kluU3 muSU UGLY 'AO Ao"' iAooOA ouA
rounded by law-made and law-support
ed m onopolies of all kinds is virtually
told by the law tn at the only coerc We
force it can apply to fight off the cOer-
cion to which it is subjected is t. stop
work and starve.
Conscious of the coercion those who
have only labor to sell are subjected to,
though without fully realizing its
cause, there are active men in the lie.
Dor organizations who have dreamed OF
80 fully organizing all kinds of labor in
mutually supporting combinations as
to make labor. by the stopping OF all
work, master of the situation. But this
dream is hardly capable of realization.
For, putting aside all the difficulties
of inducing so many diverse trades to
act in concert with any persistence, and
putting aside the surety that there
must remain outside of any possible
com nation a body of laborers pressed
nv the direct peceSSity to take work on