Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1901-08-23

Live and Let Live
Oregonian.
The intelligent leaders of labor fully
appreciate what the establishment of
what are called industrial betterments
by wise and humane employers for the
protection Of health and the increase
of creature comforts mean to labor,
but they fairly say that since improved
living conditions mean improved
health, which means better work, in
telligent employers may be trusted to
make this investment as a good busi-
ness proposition. What labor asks at
the hands OF capital is not the benef-
cent that is dictated by self-interest,
but simple justice. To illustrate:
Judge eager the other day issued an
injunction against the Ansonia Conn.,
strikers that ought to be tested in the
higher courts. Judge eager ordered
that no form of persuasion" should
be used by the strikers to induce other
workmen to join the revolt.
Under this ruling a striker could
not talk with another workman at any
place or time with purpose to con-
vert him to the strikers cause, under
penalty of being punished for contempt
of court. II this injunction will hold
water as the law of the land, why,
then, the Judge can forbid the holding
OF public meetings by the strikers and
the delivering OF addresses designed to
influence non-union workmen. and pro-
hibit the printing of reports of such
meetings in the newspapers. This
Connecticut injunction is direct
blow at free speech, the right OF public
assemblages and the freedom OF the
press. since all these things are in
danger by logical extension OF the doc
trine of contempt of court set forth in
Judge Gager's injunction. The labor
leaders will, of course, carry their sp-
peal from this injunction to the high
est court in the land, if necessary, be-
cause only in this way can their dear
est fundamental rights be vindicated.
1t is not a thing Of vital consequence
to the thoughtful leaders of labor
throughout the country whether An
drew Carnegie gives labor a great Ii
brary or not; the vital concern Of la
Dor is to see to it that in future no
tariff unduly protects Carnegie SO ex.
travagantly that he is able to acquire
an enormous fortune in an incredibly
short time, and is able to cast his mil.
lions into the crowd, right and left,
even as . purse-proud aristocrat in the
Middle Ages flung handful of silver
to The mob as the contemptour largess
Of master to bis menials. Labor can
get along far better without Carnegie
Libraries than with them at the cost OF
the legislation that made Carnegie
possible. Labor wants its fundamen-
tai right vindicated from direct or in.
direct legislative abuses far more than
it does free Libraries. Labor needs
simple Justice; not largess at the
hands of a complaisant plutocrat, who
has money to burn" as incense in his
own honor and glorification.
There is no moral difference be.
tween a Carnegie who gives away a
library and q Carnegie that does not
give away library SO far as his rela-
tions to the rights of the people are
concerned, expressed in the methods
by which he was able to acquire his
enormous fortune. To distribute some-
thing of the swag to the crowd has
been q salient characteristic of every
great pirate, whether he stole without
the law, like = buccaneer, or within
the law, like . railroad wrecker or
juggler in stocks. Labor is right when
it speaks with contempt Of Carnegie,
casting libraries right and left, as he
might handful of silver dollars into
a crowd of gutter snipes to scramble
for, and declines to be grateful to him
for his beneficence. Labor's need is
not beneficence; is not the multiplica-
ton of free books; it is the multipli-
cation OF the defences of free labor
against the successful greed of tariff
protected plutocrats. Justice, not
largees, rights vindicated under law,
10 what labor needs, not free libraries
and soup kitchens and colleges.
Three Kings Before Victoria.
Blackwoo