The Western news. [volume] (Stevensville, Mont.) 1890-1977, 1900-10-10
A WORKINGMAN'S VIEWS
Tom East Sizes Up the Politi'
cal Situation--T
ingmen Should Stand To.
gether and Secure the Eight
Hour 1aw---The Anaconda
Standard Lies as Usual.

ana vicinity and who was employed
for several years on Marcus Days
Bitter Root stock farm, and who al
ways gave the best of satisfaction to
ms employers, as they will testify,
nnaily leaving their employ of
his own free will and accord last
spring ,slast week wrote the following
selt-explanatory letter to the editor of
the Western News with the request
that it be published. Tom, who is
close observer of men and things and
current events, sizes up the political
situation this fall strictly from
workingman's viewpoint and his let
ter will be read with interest by his
MANY friends and former comrades
among the workingnen of this valley.
The letter follows:
Butte, Mont. October 6, 1900.
EDITOR WESTERN News:
You would have enjoyed being pres
ent the other evening when Senator
Clark returned, am sure, for when
one sees the glad faces and joyful
feeling of women and children and
old gray haired men who have been
his neighbors for years it brings a
regular old fashioned Fourth of July
feeling. All that stuff in the Ana
conda Standard about people being
paid to turn out and meet him is sick
ening rot. know that in the camp
where worked this summer there
were seventy five men and every one
OF them was Clark man to the core.
He will get every one of their votes
and they won't have to have their fare
paid and time allowed, either, as men
do when they attend a convention of
corporation attorneys. That was a
funny parade the delegates to the .'In-
dependent democratic state conven-
ton had here Tuesday. There were
some company lawyers, and a choice
lot Of big red holsters who are on the
pay roll, and to give the thing a
slight seinblance of respectabiliey,
they seduced .two negroes into their
employ for that day and date, and
split them up and put white man be-
side each Of them IN the parade. One
of the white men was staggering drunk
he said it was the only way to feel
comfortable in that crowd. I tell YOU
Miles, woman ought to feel proud of
a husband who had taken part in
proceeding like that of last Tuesday
in Butte. Any sensible person knows
that eight-hour plank is mere mock
cry. The man who only pays ninety
six cents day for harvest hands, ex-
cept just before election, is the same
man who broke up the labor union,
the only barrier between the common
laborer, his family, and Chinese and
japanese wages. 1t is the same outfit
that pays common labor s. Is andfI
-. so per day in Anaconda where they'll
run things to suit themselves, while in
Butte, less than thirty miles away,
where they don't run every one, a
common laberer gets $500 per day.
am just living now to hate people
of that sort and their methods. They
have no more use for an eight-hour
law than have for them. If they
want eight hours, they won't violate
any law. either human or divine, by
granting it to the miners and mill men
in their employ without waiting to be
forced to do so by the legislature. If
they beat Senator Clark this fall, no
in Montana can truth
fully say that his soul is his own.
Clark has organized and carried on
the fight almost single handed,
and now the laboring men and him
are met on common ground and fight
ing common enemy, and if he is
beaten the laboring men will have to
indemnify the other side for the TN
mense stm it will cost the corp oration
with their muscle. Tom EAST.
School Report.
Report of Fairview School District