The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-06-14

the merchant was compelled to buy or
be boycotted. yentured to answer the
preposterous statement by saying that
perchance the merchant was a Mormon
and required that number of tickets.
Notwithstanding such foolish state
ments by men whose sense of justice is
SO warped by the spirit of commercial
ism and hate for the laboring man who
tries to protect himself by the ONLY
means at his command organized labor
is on the increase in Butte and in ev-
cry other city and hamlet in the West
where there are enough men EMPLOYED
to organize a union.
For years the Butte Miners Union
has stood guard on the summit of the
Rocky mountains, reckoning to the
miners and laboring men in other To-
calities to follow her example and mar
shall their forces under the banner of
unionism before the cohorts of organ
lied greed descend upon them and re.
duce their wages and make organiza-
ton a crime. Her treasury has ever
been found open to the poor and needy:
no just appeal from sister unions was
even ignored; their geographical Ioca
ton was never taken into consideration:
the justice of the cause was the only
bond required to accompany an appeal
for aid.
When death in its cruel trail left
sorrowing widows and helpless orphans
depending upon the charity of a cold.
heartless world, where poverty and
want is crime and the unfortunate
victims Stunned by society with a
dread almost as appalling as though
they were suffering from some conta-
geous disease from which there is no
escape the union has been a proyider.
it has been the husband of the widow
and the father of the orphans.
For such charitable purposes IL has
paid the enormous sum Of SIS, 600 Who
can say it's objects are not laudable
and praiseworthy? What orator can
add more honor and glory to the mem
DRY of it's founders than this magnifi-
cent recordp BY their wise co-opera-
ton in it's simplest form they proved
to the world to what heights the la
boring men can ascend if they will
train their minds in the true system
of social evolution and along the lines
of true progressive thought.
While the union has done more than
its share in providing for the helpless
and unemployed and giving encourage
ment to other unions. nature has done
more for organized labor in Butte than
organized labor has done for it's mem
bers. Had nature in her distribution
of wealth Supplanted the brown metal
with white metal the aspect might be
entirely different. Had the mineral de-
posits been composed of silver in place
of copper the hum of industry would
be silent; in place of a procession over
one mile in length your streets would
be deserted and buildings crumbing to
the ground. This proves beyond the
shadow of doubt that labor depends
entirely upon the demand for and con-
sumption of it's product, Destroy the
demand for the product of labor, and
all the unions that ever We're organ
lied cannot maintain wages. This fact
should prove to the labOring people
that pure and simple trades unions will
not solve the social question and re-
store harmony between employer and
employee. There can be no harmony
between organized capitalists and or
ganized labor; the laborng man who
saws that both are identical is either
a demagogue or a blind partisan poll
tician who would have the laboring
men believe that without a master to
dictate to them when and where they
shall work they would actually starve
in the midst of plenty. There is moth
ing in common between the millionaire
and the laboring man, one lives off
the product of the others toll There
can be no harmony between employer
and employee, the former wants long
hours and low wages; the latter wants
short hours and high wages. A prop
er adjustment of these two points has
never been reached; an adjustment
reached in the usual way by injunction
and liberal use of bristling bayonets
and cold lead will not solve it. 1t may
checkmate for a time the evolution of
social reform, but it will not bridge
the deep and ever widening chasm be-
tween the wealth producers and the
moneyed oligarchy; nothing short of
the complete abolition of the present
wage system will ever adjust it. Our
present wage system is slavery in its
worst form. The corporate lions and
trusts have monopolized the necessities
of society and the means of life, SO
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