Connecticut western news., 1897-09-02
LABOR'S HOLIDAY
Food for Serious Thought
 Sept. 6.
rHEMACHINE ANDINDUSTRY

Labor's Wrong and the Only
 Remedy.
 The Genesis of Strikes, Riots, Tramps and the Sweatshop-The Great Labor Prob lem Considered From Standpoint of Justice to Both Employer and Employ ed-The Movement For a Reduction of the Hours of Toll.
 Monday, Sept 6, is Labor day and national holiday. More than 1000, 900 of active and enrolled representatives of labor will celebrate it, while twice this number from the ranks of unorganized teil will bear them sympathetic com pany.
 A good deal has been said to the effect that no reason has ever existed for speci- flying such holiday any more than there would be for "capital" day. Yet few would object seriously if capi- tai were to have holiday, and it might likewise be said that whatever is bene- fcial to labor and permanently advances the interest of the general industrial world must necessarily operate to the advantage of all other branches of busi- ness and social life. Labor day is there fore properly every body s day, Let those who labor with their brains as we'll as : those who labor with their hands ob- serve it.
 As rule, public holidays are not conducive to much serious thought. The Fourth of July oration is usually regarded as somewhat perfunctory, and the people who listen to it are anxious to get out under the trees and hear the band play or see the fireworks. Thanks giving day very much bellies it's name, and Memorial day has likewise become a misnomer. Probably the parades of the coming Labor day will be the over mastering feature of the occasion, but the real a2[k&l lesson will be found in the siISM nous teachings of those selected lore labor its grievance and the Smedy. It is as good a time as1 employers as we'll as employe (pnsider this problem. Most at settle the labor ques- tion hal bade without any effort to disco eal cause of the trouble When q 1kn is called to see pa tient, hkes diagnosis of the disease tempt to prescribe other. wise v little short of crime. Yet Ee prescribing every day for t trouble without having made1 test attempt to learn the
 kst, tho Wrong.
 It'd known axiom of law that ther1 Wrong for which there if not 3y. Has labor a wrong or grieS If so. what is the wrong and what IS the remedy?
 First as to the wrong. Is there one?
 Yes. The wrony-the grievance-and the only one that the workingman can justly complain of, is that his labor is a drug. It is all the time trembling on the verge of declining market. The supply of workers far exceeds the de- mand. It is this that has caused all the strikes and riots. It is this that has multiplied the army of tramps and de- veloped the sweatshop. It is this that has inspired labor organizations them selves, for all these are effects and not causes. They are simply the purulent sores that come from the common dis ease, a lack of work, for when an en- ployer caf1 say te the workingmen, ''Take these wages or leave them; it matters not to me-, we have the first requisite of tyranny and consequent dis content
 But while general conditions clearly indicate that the whole trouble is due to lessened demand for labor and that strikes, riots, sweatshops and labor or ganizations are the result of it, Hon. Carroll D. Wright, commissioner of la bor, uses Q good deal of clean, white paper in the August Chautauquan mag azine to answer the question, Do Labor Saving Machines Deprive Men of La bor?" in the negative.
 This question is quite as paradoxical as it would be to ask. "Does food de prive 1aboring men of hunger?" If 8 machine does not deprive men of labor, it is not "labor saving" of course, and likewise if it be "labor saving' it must deprive men of labor. Any other con clusion would make a plaything o1 reason, common sense and the English language. The fact that it requires la bor 10 construct the machine that is de signed to save labor is of no conse quence. A machine that requires more labor to build than it will save after i be builtwould be useless, of course. IT the article by MT. Wright just referred to he says:
 When linotype machine was frs intro 1uced successfully, some appre hension existed on the part of th' compositors of the country, and many fears were expressed that their occupa tion would be seriously injured ant many men permanently thrown out O employment. Many men were throwI out of employment, but have been in formed by members of the Typograph ical union, by publishers and by news paper managers that at the presen time, in all probability, there are a many men employed in setting type either by the old methods or by tn new, as were employed when the limo type was introduced.
 That is not the question, MT. Wright Although as many men may be em ployed as ever, the issue is whethe steady employment in printing offices more difficult to obtain now than it wa before the machines were brought int use. Let any printer whose experienc goes back to the time when "sub lists were unknown and when he preferre' the position of a substitute" to that o a "reoular' answer