The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1899-04-15

| fciares would be the first to see that
he had played the fool. Several busi-
ness enterprises band together into a
trust. more because they are afraid of
each other than for any other pur-
pose. Tt is the inevitable consequence
of the present competitive system. \
rich man should not be aHjudged in.
humanity mercenary because he con-
tinues the struggle for more, more, ali
the time more. The poor devil cant
stop. lie dare not cease the struggle.
| lie knows that when business enter
prise ceases to go forward it begins 10
fall behind. because the race belongs to
the swiftest and there are others in the
game. File knows that the bank ac-
| count dwindles when it ceases to
grow. With him it is case of keep
a pounding or else sink beneath the
| waves. Capitalism is the great task
master; the rich and the poor alike,
are but slaves. The rich in livery ara
slaves at the throne, the poor in rags
are slaves in the stables. Blame not
the man who let's fall the task masters s
| whip, but blame the system that forces
him to it.
The sharp competition between large
business enterprises, each struggling
| for IAN existence, has forced each to
economic in every way possible. The
reduction of wages is usually one Of
the first steps taken. They take it i'll
self-defense. Then organized labor re-
bells in self-defense, and again union
ism levies the boycott in self-defense.
And so it goes on and OH, the rich
and the poor wriggling and twisting
in horrible struggle for existence be,
meath the grinding heel of the most
inhuman and unchristian system of
political economy that could possibly
be invented. 1t is a system under
which combination and trust are the
inevitable result. The trust can never
he destroyed until this system is de-
stroyed. That political party which
proposes to destroy the trust and re-
tain the present system is one great
big humbug, and it's followers are
either fakirs and dupes, Or else prac-
titioners of eNpediency waiting for
something better. Under this beastly
barbarian system the trust is an in
sufferable yet Indispensable nuisance,
|! and labor l,nionisn justifiable neces-
sary evil. Capital has boycottetl labor
by great industrial and financial com
bina tions. The trust composed of one
hundred sugar fefineries cah be more
independent in its arrogant and die.
tatorial attitude toward labor than
could one of the component refineries If
operating alone and in competition
with the others. This clearly appar-
ent fact explains the rapidly growing
aggressveness of capital in it's effort
to take away from labor through court
and legislature the very high preroga-
tive it would reserve to itself-the
right of boycott. Since the great Debs
railway fiasco, the strike has grown
more and more impotent every year.
1t is no longer regarded, even by labor
itself, as an effective means to an end.
No employer of labor fears it because
there are always herd of hungry
mortals who will slip in and fill up the
places of the strikers. Then the courts
and the militia stand guard while the
strikers wander out and away to be-
come blacklisted (boycotted by capi-
tall, to think awhile, to count and
feel the cost, then to grow discouraged
before the tear stained eyes of wives
and amid the cries Of hungry children.
The strike having become useless, lab
or resorts to the boycott. What OF
| it? Under existing conditions, facts
demonstrate That the boycott is prac.
tically inefficient in the service of
labor, but all powerful III the hands
OF capital. Capital, fortified as it is
by the courts and the law, boycotts
labor OH every hand and does it with
limpunity. But when labor attempts
to use the same policy, the law and the
courts fosbid.
1t has not been necessary to invoke
the law in order to deprive labor of the
right to boycott. The modern devel-
opment Of trust and monopoly has, Of
| itself. made the boycott useless in the
hands of labor. Imagine boycott Oil
the sugar trust! What effect would 1t
have OH the steel, tobacco. nail, wire,
whiskey, Or lumber trust? Let labor
boycott one large factory of any kin;l
and it simply closes its doors, sits
down in complacent gloominess, and
allows its associates in the same busi
ness to supply the trade. And it can
| remain closed for a century and lose
not a cent. True, labor could boycott
to death some little individual shop