The Hawaiian gazette., 1901-09-13
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 organlzat ton of employers formed for
mutual protection against aggressive
tradesunions. Ii came into this contro-
versy after the brotherhood of Team
sters and the City Front Federation had
assailed the business interests of It's
members and sought to wrest the man
agement of their affairs from their
hands. Ii Is now assisting Its members
In this controversy. But neither the As
ISOLATION nor its 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 eN-
percnce 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 fremen) when they feel
SO disposed. Besides that employers
have learned by bitter experience that
| they cannot manage n successful busi-
| ness and yet be subject to the dictat or
of union presidents. walking delegates
and business agents, f. $. Lhadbourn,
A. Il ri. httgi 10, IA.
city some years ago by that sort of thing
and the making of furniture has beer
entirely suspended upon this coast
through its agency. The attempt of tn,
| Transfers 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 hay,
been wont to assail valuable business In
terests. The employers have united t,
resist that kind of thing. but they arr
making no fight upon trades unionism
They are on the defensive. They ar,
simply declining to be further trample,
upon by trades unions. 60.
J II Is hard to argue against the phi
| losophy of trades unions, which Seems
sound enough, but the practice does no
live up to the preaching. The tyrann,
Of capital. about which trades union
lists complain, was never whit wors,
than the tyranny of trades-unions, o
which the public. complains, and which
In our opinion. amounts to q conspirac.
In restraint of trade as that offence i
described in the Federal laws. Labo
has often complained that capita
lcoerces its vote and probes Its mos
Iprivate interests. If so a trades unioI
for defence IN natural and incyitab,
But on the other hand trades union
assume the right TO dictate the term
upon which n free American Glitter
may do business, even listing those o
whom he may not buy and to whom h
may not sell. Thus the massinE of al
good citizens for the preservation o
their vested rights becomes necessar.
and Imperative. Again, the trusts o
capital increase prices and diminish
competitions; but it Is no argumcn
against them for trades-unlons 10 rails
prices also and assail competition il
their own lines. That merely com
pounds the offence and increases I'll
danger one feels, in looking at tn
contending factions, like exclaimin
with Mercutio in the play: "A plagu
on both your houses!"