The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-10
ANARCHISTS AND OTHERS.

of Idaho 10 employ none but non-union
miners in northern idaho, may or may
not cure the evils from which the sec
ton has suffered 1t is doubtful il the
mine-owners will be able to operate
with non-union men exclusively, and
questionable if any good can come
from such a policy.
Men who kill their fellow beings and
destroy properly are criminals, and
should be dealt with as such. But we
DO not believe the miners union or fed
Grafton should be held responsible for
The acts of individuals, or that innocent
members of such organizations should
be made to suffer on account of the
Inisdeeds of individuals, any more than
a church should be condemned and its
entire membership Ostracized for the
misconduct of some of its accredited
ministers or members.
The great trouble is, and the miners,
although many of them are Ignorant
workingmen," see it. there is too much
difference between the way organized
labor is treated and the way organized
capital fares. Scores of eastern news
papers are black in the face right now,
bowling against the anarchists" of the
miners unions, while defending the far
more dangerous anarchists of capital
istic combinations.
That is the way it has been going on
ever since the combination lock was
put upon the doors of mills and fac
tories. When the ironworkers at Home
stead defended themselves from hired
army, they We're dubbed anarchists.
When the miners of Tennessee OBJ
tected to their bread being taken from
their mouths by convict labor they
were called anarchists.
When the railroad employees Of the
country rebelled against a combined
effort 10 reduce their wages until the
support of their families was out of
the question, they were denounced as
anarchists.
When labor troubles have occurred
in any state, the use of the regular
army and the authority of the general
government have been rendered almost
without exception.
But when trusts form to beat down
competition, to destroy the life of trade,
10 turn laboring men adrift, TO control
markets in an unlawful way. the at
torney general of this administration
gives this opinion:
First-That there is no federal law that
can operate against industrial monopoles.
Second-That under the constitutional
limitations. congress can pass no effective
Law against industrial monopolies.
smenable to the laws of the respective
states if amenaole to any law
Yet there never has been a labor or
ganization formed in this country
whose object was as vicious, whose
conduct was as criminal, whose effect
as disastrous, even taking their most
violent critics for it, as the object, the
conduct and the effect of these capital
istic unions are and have been.
When the coal trust was formed it
trampled upon the laws of several
states by creating monopoly of the
trade a court decided the trust IN
constitutional and void. The president
of that trust said: 1.-THE decision Will
have as much effect as if an injunc-
ton had ben directed against a band
Of Sioux Indians" 1t had exactly
that much effect. Was he an anarch-
list? Was his organization denounced
as an aggregation of anarchists and
law-breakers?
There are steel trusts. it doesn't mat
ter how You spell it, and sugar trusts,
and rubber trusts, and oil trusts, and
tin plate trusts, and countless other
trusts formed in violation of the law. in
contemptuous defiance of the American
people. Criminal combinations, they
are, to tyrannize over trade, to
plumber the people, to break the law,
10 increase misery, to corrupt the gov
eminent, to defile the tribunals of
justice, to enslave labor and place the
heavy hand Of insolent rapacity upon
the lips of trembling public.
President Mckinley is empowered to
raise and equip armies. to enlist men
for one purpose and use them for an
other, TO send fleets around the world |
TO protect the downtrodden of other |
lands or order them shot as he sees fit; |
he can make war with the men and |
millions of the nation; he can order |
those fleets and armies to KILL burn. |
destroy and fight for conquest and |
glory and political prestige, but when |
invoked TO stay the invasion of these !
commercial freebooters who are max /
pauperizing trade and depressing labor. |
what does he do? He refers the mat |
ter 10 his attorney general and they |
declare these lawless conspiracies of |
wealth 10 be immune.
These are some of the inequalities |
that laboring men are made to feel, |
some of the in;quities that are over |
looked by administration organs that I!
sneer at labor union men as anarch-
lists When the law is enforced against |
the one it will be all the easier to en-
force it against the other. 1t may |
even cease 70 be necessary TO invoke |
it at all for such ends
We feel confident that the men who
were guilty OF crime at Wardner were
not acting upon the advice or in accord |