The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-11-30
FREE WORK IN A FREE LAND

Brooklyn Eagle.
 The organized labor question should be on the way of settling itself. There are ent from some events which rise to the stature of importance. One of them was sermon of late by Dr. Hillis It re- called the best days of Beecher and the many thousands of copies of The Eagle containing 1t have been bought for cir culation within the Republic and round the world. Another significant event was the address of President Eliot, of Har- yard, to company of thinkers in Bos- ton the other day. A man does not have to say ditto to everything which pr. Hillis and President Eliot said. He may not be able in every regard to take their viewpoint. But every man who Is man will stand by the substance of what they said and by the spirit of 1t all
 They conceded the right and condemned contend that unionism was criminal; they said 1t was condemnatory within the linn Its which the moral laws puts on all organizations and which the statute law should put on all of them. But they also contend that the actual working of union ism, beyond those limits, in the anthra- cite fields, had carried it into crime and had made 1t an organized criminal to whom both political parties went on their bellies, by whom So.0O0.00o of people and the governments of their commonwealths, as well as the government of the nation. had been held up and to whom both par ties kowtowed and truckled. Ordinarily. this statement would be so wholesale or so sweeping as to make contradiction in- stead of consent. It has. however, been contradicted only by two classes by or truckled to it. Those who have been held up by 1t, without trucking to 1t, know that what these men said is true.
 The protest thus voiced has taken an- other form. It is @ form of proposed action. It is in its incipiency. It in- wolves the effort to start something which for the present, has called itself The National Association of Independent sometimes historically important. The origination of this new movement belongs to James W. Bellinger, 4Sl West 165th Street. Manhattan, clerk in business with labor, organized or unorganized. He seems, however, to be a citizen of practical turn of mind as well as in. stinct with the spirit of liberty. That spirit leads him to favor an organiza- ton, to secure to It's members the pro- tection of the Government in their right to sell their labor to whom they choose without the consent of labor unions. to compel organized labor to obey the law and to bring to the attention of the Gov ernment officers any violation of the laws which interferes with the right of labor to be independent if 1t so wishes. MT. Bellinger has received even from the only very slight publicity which he was able to give his idea responsive letters from all parts of the United States Roughly speaking it involves union of free workingmen against the existing union abuse of the abstract right of unionism has terrorized parties, coerced or cor rupted politicians and led the President of the United States to an emergent sub of nriyafa azr0Qfnanf for nll6- lie government in American affairs.
 The present stage Of the effort referred to is merely the stage of proposition. to advance to the stage of efforts or or ganization. That can he confidently ex- pected. The American people have love of liberty and genius for organtza- tion. They also have the virtue as well as the wisdom to make that genius for organization harmonize with the love ot liberty. When this power, this tendency and this virtue shall be translated into an organization for free workmen, work men who would like to be free, or freed, will naturally recur to it. Then we will have either one organization Of free workmen. up against another organiza- ton of workmen not free, or we will have the freeing of all workmen brought about by the harmony of unionism with liberty and by the control of both by law. The first of these alternatives would have in- eSllInuDl0 Ndlue. lHClueHldlly Iuc lECc- dom it would give to politics as well as labor would be welcome. Both parties. instead of having to truckle to one or ganization, would find. in the existence of two, the necessity of trucking to neither. And workmen, instead of find ing themselves under duress to one or ganizatlon, would find, in the existence of two. the power to play either against the other or the enviable alternative of ignoring both. leaving the two to wres- tie out their identical or conflicting as- pirations between them.
 A sometimes famboyant, but always sincere and occasionally very impressive orator, who has now gone to his rest, once impassionedly said: T believe, in the justice of God and In the rightfulrfess and in the power of ultimate American opinion." The justice of God is not Tn dispute. What seems to be the ultimate public opinion of America Is becoming apparent It is that men shall be free: that they shall be free in their work as well as in their votes; that they shall be free to sell their work at their own rates of time and wage. with whenever they can agree; that the unit in this free- dom shall be the individual worker, and not the union which would coerce him: that Government shall protect him in this freedom and that politicians, from the President down, who think that per sonal ambition or party popularity will be found on the path of trucking to CO., ercive unionization, will find that to be as fatal a mistake as trucking to cor rupting and coercive capitalism would be. Even today the party. the Governor or the President-that said: '"rh6 next election be damned. right shall be done. though the heavens fall, or though my organization or candidacy goes to eternal smash" would find the people, loving liberty and kindling to courage, ready to assure those who made that stand, an in- definite lease of power.
 The right to strike is not involved. The carrying of the right to strike into kill ing, into mayhem, into dynamiting, into waylaying, into boycottin9. into conspir- acy against the peace, the lives, the homes and the families of non-strikers is brought to an end. It is going to be brought to an end. if not by existing laws and government, then by govern ment and by laws which will be formed and established to take their place. The value of government of any kind is its worth in results. That worth is paid in the coin of order. of safety, of freedom. of equal rights; and the coin of freedom must be such as to insure freedom of work as well as freedom of speech. free thought, freedom of work as we'll as free dom of the press. Thought, speech, printing are forms of work the same as any other labor is. And the work of the hands must rest on the same basis of
 individual freedom, of law-recognized and the brain by pen or voice or types rests on.
 A situation tensely complicated, in- tensely dangerous and freighted with the most acute proba abilities of wholesale dis fashion, a while ago. The allowance of any auch aituatiOn to occur was a scan