Oxford eagle. (Oxford, Lafayette Co., Miss.) 1876-current, 1902-12-04

check the unscrupulous man, whether
employer or employe, without weakening
individual initiative, without hamperlng
and cramping the industrial development
of the country, is problem fraught with
great difficulties and one which IT Is OF
the highest Importance to solve on lines
of sanity and far-sighted common sense
as well as of devotion to the right. This
is an era of federation and combination
Exactly as business men find they must
often work through corporations, and as
1t Is constant tendency of these cor
porations to grow larger, so it is often
necessary for laboring men to work in
federations, and these have become i'm
portant factors of modern Industrial life.
labor, can do much good. and as a nee
essary corrollary they can both do evil
Opposition to each kind of organization
should take the form OF opposition to
whatever is bad in the conduct of any
given corporation or union-not of at
tacks upon corporations as such nor upon
Unions as such: for some of the most
far-reaching beneficent work for our peo-
pie has been accomplished through both
corporations and unions. Each must re-
frain from arbitrary or tyrannous inter-
ference with the rights of others. Or
ganiZed capital and organized labor alike
should remember that In the long run
the interest of each must be brought
into harmony with the interest of the
general public; and the conduct OF each
must conform to the fundamental rules
of obedience to the law, of individual
freedom, and of Justice and fair dealing
toward all. Each should remember that
in addition to power it must strive after
the realization of healthy, lofty and gen.
erous ideals. Every employer. every
wage worker, must be guaranteed his
liberty and his right to do as he likes
with his property or his labor so long
as he does not infringe upon the rights
of others. 1t is of the highest impor-
tance that employer and employe alike
should endeavor to appreciate each the
viewpoint of the other and the sure dis
aster that will come upon both in the
long run if either grows to take as habit
ual an attitude of sour hostility and dis
trust toward the other. Few people de-
serve better of the country than those
representatives both of capital and labor
and there are many such-who Work
continually to bring about good under
standing of this kind, based upon wisdom
and upon broad and kindly sympathy be-
tween employers and employed. Above
all, we need to remember that any kind
of class animosty in the political world
is if possible, even more wicked, even
more destructive to national welfare,
than sectional, race or religious animos-
ity. We can get good government only
upon condition that we keep true to the
principles upon which this nation was
founded, and judge each man not as
part of class, but upon his individual
merits All that we have right to ask
of any man, rich or poor whatever his
creed, his occupation, his birthplace, or
his residence. is that he shall act well
and honorably by his neighbor and by
his country. We are neither for the rich
man as such nor for the poor man IS
such; we are for the upright man, rich
or poor. So far as the constitutional
powers of the national government touch
these matters of general and vital mo-
ment to the nation, they should be exer-
cised in conformity with the principles
above set forth.
Recommends Department of Com
merce.
II is earnestly hoped that a secretary of
commerce may be created, with a seat in
the cabinet The rapid multiplication of
questions affecting labor anG capital, the
growth and complexlty of the organizations
through which both labor and capital now
find expression, the steady tendency to-
WARD the employment of capital in huge
corporations, and the wonderful strides of