The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1899-08-23


they may appear as we'll rs persons who
have mere gather that ali up,
and you could have cooperative assocl-
ations all over this lond.
Lam not saying anything nov about
trades unions You want to know what
think of trades unions. think they
are most beneficial in some directions,
and they have a specific object and in
this day. when there are vast monopo-
li4s-a thousand monopolies coucentra-
ting the wealth Of the people into the
possession ofa few men, unless the Ia
boring men Of this country and all coun-
tries band together they will go under.
There is lawful use of trade union,
bur then there is an unlawful use Ct q
trade union. If it means sympathy in
time Of sickness. If it means finding
work for people when they are out OF
work, if it means the Improvement OF
the financial, the moral or the religious
condition Of the laborirg classes. that
is all right. Do not artists baud togeth
er in an art union? Do not singers
band together in Handel and Haydn So
cieties? Do not newspaper men oand
together in press clubs? DO not minis
ters of religion band together in con-
ferences and associations: There Is
not in all the land city where clergy
men do not cone together, many Of
them once week. to talk over affairs.
For these reasons you should not blame
labor guilds When they are doing
their legitimate work, they are most ad
mirable, but when they come around
with drum and fife and flag and drive
people of from their toll, from their
scafoldings, from their factories, then
they are nihilistic, then they are COM
munistic, then they are barbaric, then
they are curse. If man wants to stop
work, let him stop work, but he cannot
stop ne from work.
Butnow suppose that all the laboling
classes banded together for beneicient
purposes in cooperative association un-
der whatever name they put theirmeans
together Suppose they take the money
that they waste in rum and tobacco and
use it for the elevation Of their famll-
les, for the education of their children
for their moral, intellectual and relig-
ious Improvement, what a different
state of things we would have in this
country and they would have in Great
Britain.
Do you not realize the fact that men
work better without stimulant? You
say, Will you deny the laboring men
this help which they get from strong
drink, borne down as they are with many
anxieties and exhausting work? |
would deny them nothing that is good
for them. | would deny them storng
drink, if l had the power, because it IS
damaging to them. My father SAID:
Il became temperance man in early
life because found that in the harvest
field, while l was naturally weaker than
the other men, | could hold out longer
than any Of them. They took stimu-
liant and | TOOK none.
Everybody knows they cannot endure
great fatlgue-men who indulge in stim.
ulants. All our young men understand
that. When they are preparing for the
regatta or the ball club or the athletic
wrestling, they abstain from strong
drink. Now, suppose all this money
that is wasted were gathered together
and put into cooperative institutions
oh, we would have very different
state of things from what We have now!
remark again: The laboring classes
o: this country are to find great relief
when they learn, all of them learn, fore
cast and Providence. Vast numbers of
them put down their income: and they
put down their expenses, and If the Ia
come meets the expenses that is all that
is necessary. l know laboring men who
are in perfect idget until they have
spent their last dollar. They fly around
everywhere until they get itspent. a
case came under my observation where
young man was receiving 500 year
and earned it by very bard work. The
marriage day came. The bride had re.
cei7ed $500 as an inheritance from her
grandfather. She put the $500 in we'd
ding equipment. Then the twain hired
two rooms on the third story. Then
this man, who had most arduous en-
ployment, just as much as he could
possibly endure, got evening employ
ment so he could earn few dollars
more, and by this extra evening en-
ployment almost extinguished his eye
sight. Why did he take this extra
evening employment? Was 1t to lay
by something for a rainy day? No.
Was it to get life insurance so that If
he should die his wife would not be
pauper?? No. 1t was for the one purpose
Of getting his wife $3.50 sealskin sack.
! an Just giving you fact | know.
The sister of this woman, although she
was a very poor girl, was not to be
eclipsed, and so she went to work day
AID night and toiled and toiled and
toiled almost into the grave until she
got a $3.50 sealskin sack! Well, the
news went abroad all through the street.
Most OF tne people on thal street were
laboring hacdworking people, and they
were not to be outshone in this way,
and they all went to work in the same
direction and practically said, though
not literally, Though the heavens fall,
we must have sealskin sack.
A clergyman in Iowa told me that his
church and the entire neighborhood had
been ruined by the fact that tie people
mortgaged their farms in ordered to go
down to the Philadelphia centennial in
1876. First, one family would go, then
another family, and finally it was not
respectable no. to go to the centennial
at Philadelphia, and they mortgagcd
their farms The church and the
neighborho9d ruinedin that way. Now,
between such fools and pauperism there
is only very short step. In time Of