The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-09-12
l INDUSTRIAL TYRANNY! ~

Much is heard about the Employers
Association of San Francisco as body
which, by it's brutality, compelled the
present strike. What the Employers
Association is and what it has done,
is reported as follows, and we believe
automatically, by the News Letter:
The Employers Association is simply
an organs ation of employers formed for
mutual protection against aggressive
radesunions. 1t came into this contro-
,ersy after the Brotherhood of Team
sters and the City Front Federation had
assailed the business interests of it's
members and sought to WI est the man.
igement of their affairs from their
nands. 1t is now assisting it's members
in this controversy But neither the As
ISOLATION nor it's membership are max
ing a fight on unioniSm." They have
simply declined to recognize unions or
walking delegates or business agents.
The employees may join as many unions
as they please, but the employers claim
the future right to select their own hired
men without regard to whether they be-
long to any or all unions. They will deal
with men, and not with organizations,
and one of their principal reasons for
this Is to be found in the fact that ex-
perience has demonstrated that trades
unions will make solemn agreements and
will reckleSsly break their terms Gas In
the case of the Pacific Coast Steamship
Company and its firemen) when they feel
so disposed. Besides that, employers
have learned by bitter experience that
they cannot manage a successful bust
ness and yet be subject to the dtctat on
of union presidents, walking delegates,
and business agents. F. s. Ghadbourne
q, 4, l,-ity htIc h
city some years ago by that sort of thing,
and the making of furniture has been
entirely suspended upon this coast
through it's agency. The attempt of the
teamsters to tell their employers whom
they should and should not accept pat
ronage from, is an illustration of the in
solent and overbearing recklessness with
which these irresponsible concerns have
been wont to assail valuable business in
terests The employers have united to
resist that kind of thing. but they are
making no fight" upon trades unionism
They are on the defensive. They are
simply declining to be further trampled
upon by trades-unions.
1t is hard to argue against the phi
-losophy of trades unions, which seems
sound enough, but the practice does not
live up TO the preaching. The tyranny
of capital, about which trades-union-
lists complain, was never a whit worse
than the tyranny of trades-unions, of
which the public complains, and which,
in our opinion, amounts to a conspiracy
in restraint of trade as that offence is
described in the Federal laws. Labor
has often complained that capital
coerces its vote and probes It's most
private interests. If so a trades union
for defence is natural and inevitabl
But on the other hand trades unions
assume the right to dictate the terms
upon which a free American citizen
may do business, even listing those of
whom he may not buy and to whom he
may not sell. Thus the massing of all
good citizens for the preservation of
their vested rights becomes necessary
and imperative. Again, the trusts of
capital increase prices and diminish
competition; but 1t is no argument
against them for trades-unions to raise
prices also and assail competition in
their own lines. That merely com
pounds the offence and increases the
danger. One feels, in looking at the
contending factions, like exclaiming
with Mercutio in the play: "a plague
on both your housesi"