The weekly examiner., 1901-05-18
w AT BU RY.
THE LABOR SITUATION.

Next Monday will decide the ques- tion for all the labor interests of Wa terbury as to whether or not nine hours of work shall, by our employers or labor, be recognized as a full work ing day. The Examiner man says this for the reason that as no factory manu- featuring products of any kind for the markets can run an hour without the aid of mechanics, so decision Ill favor of nine hours for mechanlcs would in justice and fairness be ex- tended to all other classes of workmen, as no factory could be in successful op- eration ten hours per day when it's machinists worked but nine hours. 50 also, if the decision next Monday is adverse to granting the requests or the machinists, and as consequence every machinist belonging to the union should go out, all manufacturing es- tablishments would be compelled to shut down and all manufacturing 1n- terests in Waterbury would certainly be at a standstill
 What such a condition of business stagnation would mean for us here is a problem of the magnitude and character of whose solution no one can today compute. And such condition of things has thousand more ways Of working irreparable harm to every man, woman and child, whether rich or poor, in Waterbury, than either the particular capital or labor directly and openly lined in apparent antagonism to each other, as the most immediate parties in interest, either themselves ! foresee or, if they suspect, are naturally unwilling to admit.
 Say what one may, the approaching crisis for our whole body of citizens is ominous and foreboding in its present aspect It is the last and most unfor- tunate condition of things in the whole world, on which either side should seek to have it's way through any system of CTS, who assume rather an indifferent way to all appearances of regarding this coming clash, whose result may be either business prosperity and it's con- tinuance for an indefinite period in future or immediate and complete pa ralysis of every dollar of their invest ments, fully realize and dread the outlook which, few hours hence, will decide whether the manufacturing in- terests of Waterbury for the past fifty years, shall cease to be the pride and vitality and life of the city, as here tofore, or shall, on the contingency, become things of the past, outgrown and dead, henceforth for all time. For it is as true as preaching, that if once our manufacturers are sufficiently snort=sig ghtgd as to treat those who labor for them with contempt, and, as a result, the mills are shut down one or two months or more, a volume of business will be diverted from them and from this city which can never be recovered and which it will be hope less to seek to recover. A shutdown ot our manufacturing interests if only for four or five days, means to the manu- lecturers not only daily loss of inn mense proportions, but also indirectly to it's owners of profit on all future goods to be marketed by them for many days, if not years to come.
 On the other hand, as the storm now seems quickly gathering and almost on the very eve, as we go to press, of breaking, the machiniscs throughout the city, as we'll as laboring men in all callings and lines of activity, are not a bit less serious than are the manufacturers over the possible and probable results of conflict to them selves and their families and fellow citizens who, all of them, earn their living by daily toll and bread by the sweat of their faces" And yet, al- though labor has been compelled, as a matter of humanity and justice, to take the initiative step in procuring their just dues to our overworked me chanics, and, so to speak, this makes the first entrance in the drama which may mean so much or so little to us all, the principle of nine hours is in itself so proper and so right on every principle of mans square dealing with his fellowmen that it should really be said, that, however disastrous a future for Waterbury's interests, the setting sun of Monday may shed it's afternoon rays upon, it is the neglect, the deter imitation indicated by their prolonged quiet, and in large measure the tacit refusal, all the weeks preceding. to grant their employees just what God, nature and human civilization com bine to say they should concede them as brethren, as human beings-it is, on this account, our manufacturers themselves who may be properly said to have brought on any collision of