The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1900-09-07


children are employed without con
templating the crime which Is being
perpetrated upon posterity. IL there
is any temporary economic advantage
In the employment of children of ten.
der age. 1t is insignificant when meas.
ured against the permanent injury
done to present and future genera.
tions. To rob child of It's school
days is bad enough, but to bend its
back by load for which only the
adult Is fitted is even worse.
The labor organization has also con-
trfbuted toward the shortening of the
hours of toll, and 1t should not cease
its efforts until the eight-hour day is
secured. Approximately, one-third OF
the twenty-folir hours must be given
to sleep; If another third Of the day
is devoted to manual labor, only eight
hours are left for eating, for going to
and from the place of work, for the
reading of current news, for mental
Improvement, recreation, social inter-
course and domestic life. Since the
hours occupied in eating and travel
cannot be encroached upon, every hour
added to the days labor must be TAX
en- from the time for available intellect.
ual development, recreation and the
family.
| The labor organization has been a
consistent and persistent advocate of
the doctrine of arbitration, although
1t Is aiTncult to see why he burden of
this reform should be thrown upon the
laboring man. Surely the employer,
II he would take comprehensive view
| tf his own interests, would be as much
benefited by arbitration as the en-
ploye, and because every prolonged
contest between labor and capital
brings interruption to business and
pecuniary loss to those who are in no
way responsible for the disagreement
society in general is even more inter-
ested than employers or employees. The
desire for justice is SO universal that
the public can be depended upon to
support the finding of an impartial
board Of arbitration as certainly as it
can to support the successful con-
testant in lawsuit. The court of
arbitration is one of the certainties of
the future, and when it is secured and
perfected, we shall wonder why its
coming was delayed so long.
The black list, by means of which
employers combine to deprive the dis
charged workman of unemployment,
is one of the more recent menaces to
the laboring man. The independence
of the wage-earner decreases as the
difficulty Of obtaining employment in
creases, and the skilled workman,
whose life has been spent in acquiring
efficiency in certain trade or occu-
patton, becomes practically the chattel
of tho employer If every opportunity
to make use of his experience is closed
by agreement between employers.
The laboring man is also interested
in legislation prohibiting oriental i'm
migration. 1t is unfair to the Ameri-
can workman, who Is the foundation
OF the nations wealth in time of peace
and Its defense in time of war, to SUBJ
ject him to the danger of having his
occupation given to an oriental la
borer, often brought in by contract,
who has no permanent interest in
our government. II the Asiatics come
here, work for few years. live on
lower scale, and then carry home the
net proceeds of their, toll, the drain
upon our money supply will be similar
to that caused by landlordism In other
countries. The political objections to
oriental labor are scarcely less weighty
than the economic ones. Race preju-
dice cannot be disregarded, and we
have seen how, in every Industrial de-
preston, race animosities result in
riot and bloodshed. We cannot afford
to bring into this country those who
cannot amalgamate with our people.
The attempt to use the injunction Of
court to deprive the laboring man
of trial by Jury should alarm all our
people, for while the wage-earner Is