The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-03-17

rection. For twenty years San Fran
cisco fought the distribution of the
school money on just the same grounds,
holding that she should pay no more
into the school fund than she draws out;
that every district, no matter how
sparsely settled and distant, should
maintain itself and look for no aid from
the richer and more happily located dis
tricts. But the people understood better
than did San Francisco, and held that
education, to raise up youth to good
citizenship, and that no matter where
the child is, it should have equal oppor-
tunity to have a good common school
training with every other child. That
this principle is sound and wise is now
nowhere denied, not even in San Fran
cisco; yet but a few years ago that city
bitterly opposed the per capita system
just as now she is opposing the systema-
tizing and undermining of road building,
and on precisely the same grounds.
AS we understand it the cause of the
Leadville strike that continued SO
many months and cost the mine owners
81 COG, 600 and the strikers as much
more was due to a demand of unskilled
workers on the mine dumps at 81 30 a
40 no CHI 10
the same sum paid the skilled workers
in the mine. In the meantime
| the mines have been worked for most
of the time, with men obtained from
the East. The strike has recently been
formally declared eff; that is to say,
the mines do not resume, for they have
| been worked all the While, with the
exception perhaps of two weeks in all.
A dozen human beings have been kill
ed and the State OF Colorado has been
put to an enormous expense. 1t seems
the Leadville miners, neither the un-
skilled workmen of that place nor the
skilled men realizing that they were
hard used until some Occur d Alene
busy bodies interfered. Now that it is
all over and the miners who struck are
permanently out, and the new men per-
mamently in, the people are forced to
reflect upon the moral of it all. Work
men must be protected in their rights
precisely as are others under the law,
or under human justice. They have a
right to organize and peacefully and
properly conserve their own interests
and general betterment. But when it
! comes to methods there are considera-
! tions which should move them aside
from the danger of infringing upon the
same law that guarantees them enjoy
ment of rights they and all others have
in common, namely. the reasonableness
and justice of the method employed;
| justice to themselves as we'll as to
| others The Leadville men now see
that their strike has been futile and
provocative only of misery, suffering
and loss of human life, and that wis
dom should have taught them to reject
the advice of outsiders, to whom it is
said all the trouble was primarily due.
pathy to the unfortunate men must go
| out. No one can witness the suffering
of his fellows, even if self-infiicted, and
not feel panied. Just people want the
workmen of the land to prosper as fully
as any others They wish labor to have
| its just share of its production. They
| want the toiler to be in the highest de-
gree prosperous and happy not only
because it is his human right to get the
most satisfaction out of life that he
can, but because upon his prosperity
that of all others SO much depends.
But the strike, as manifest in the great
Leadville trouble, is not and never will
be a remedy for any evil that may as
sail labor. The wage earners of the
| higher and more humane efforts to
right wrongs and prevent evils. With
the power they have, possessing by far
| the larger measure as citizens of a
common country, they can adopt and
carry out methods for the redress of
| wrongs compatible with law and good
conscience harmonious with justice
| and not in violation of the rights of
others. That such a rule as to meth
DDS must and will be dominant among
who have faith in the scheme of civ
| ilization and the spread of enlight-
| ment.