The bee., 1901-08-15
DOWN IN THE MINES.

ment, and upon their families. EN-
ployers, far better than employees
can bear the burdens resulting from
a strike; employers suffer large
financial losses, but to them such
losses are comparatively small and
part of their expected revenues,
while the losses brought to employees
take from these all that they have
and open before them the door to
suffering that will be long lasting,
if not starvation itself.
"Of course, to employees entering
willingly into strike the matter is
one that is their personal concern,
and others have but to concede to
them their legal right to act in such
matter as they will. Men are the
masters of their hands and of their
labor; the liberty is theirs to work
or not to work, provided they under
stand the consequences that follow,
and are satisfied to accept and en-
dure such consequences.
Il am laying down general prin-
ciples of ethics. not discussing the
merits of any particular case. But
while the right to enter upon strike
is and must be conceded as right
belonging to the personal freedom
of workingmen, this much must ever
be demanded-and in the name of
the same prime iple of personal free
dom under which men act who re-
fuse to work-that thev who cease to
work must in no way interfere with
the liberty of others who may wish
to work. The personal freedom of
the individual citizen is the most
sacred and precious right of the
Americans. The constitution and
the laws authorize it, the spirit of
the country proclaims it; the pros
perity of the people, the very life of
the Nation, require it. Whatever
the other interests at stake, that of
the personal freedom of the indi-
vidual outranks them all, and this
must be sustained, even if those are
to be sacrificed. Neither State nor
fellow-citizen may interfere with my
personal liberty. This is the very
core of Americanism. This is the
teaching, positive and clear, of nat
ural and of Christian ethics. 1t is
not for me to dispute the benefits
that may be believed to accrue to
the workingman from labor unions,
nor am L prepared to say, from the
information that comes to me
through the newspaper, that in the
present strike unions pretend to
shorten personal freedom of men
who do not ioin their ranks.
"But this must be ever emphatic
ally asserted and maintained as an
individual principle, that, however
much they have the legal and moral
right to do this, through pacific and
persuasive methods, they must not
attempt to wrest from men outside
their ranks the right to work, or to
seek to coerce them into inactivity
by illegal or unjust attacks upon
their civil and moral freedom.
Equity and law are superior to the
personal welfare Cf an individual or
aggregations of individuals, and
equity and law demand that the
personal freedom of the citizen,
whoever he is, be made sacred and
secure. So long as this freedom is
respected, the questions evoked in
the present strike may be left, in nv
opinion, to the men, employers and
employees who are directly con-
cerned in it. although meanwhile all
citizens have many reasons to hope
and to pray that brotherly love and
calm counsel will prevail both
among employers and employees, and
that peace will soon again reign in
the land"
When will the outrages being al
most weekly perpetrated by the U.
NJ. WIS cease? When will the laws
of our state protect the peaceable
citizens while following their daily
vocations or on pleasure trip? Only
a few days ago this gang above re-
ferred to attempted, it seems, to kill
or provoke him to attempt self-de-
Tense so as to give them a cause or
preteXt to murder him, miner
while on a business trip through
Central City. Now comes the latest,
when Manager Ben w. Robinson
and f. B. Arnold were called to
Sturgis last Monday to look at a
piece of machinery they contem-
- %AuEn AH UuuuH