The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1902-04-19

economics; the history Of the struggles
of the workers Of the world: who has
participated with them in their glories
as well as their defeats, I am happy
in being in mental company with Abra-
ham Lincoln when he said: THANK
God, we have a system of labor where
there can be strike. Whatever the
pressure, there is a point where the
Workman may stop"
trust that the day will never come
when the workers, the wealth producers
Of our country and our time will sur
render their light to strike. The attacks
on labor organizations and strikes are
repetitions of the old cry of laissez
faire. ''let we'll enough alone" which
is as old as the hills, and just as easily
susceptible to an advance step or pro-
gressive thought. The same cry went
up when women in England, half
naked, worked on all tours in the mines,
and seldom left them except to give
birth to a child, of whose paternity
they themselves were in doubt, and to
be returned to the clay from whence
they came.
In the early part Of the century,
when the organized workers made the
first attempt to secure relief or a
remedy for this brutal condition of
affairs, the same cry went up from
the faddists, theorists and effeminate
men. Then, as now, even some of the
dignitaries of the church held up their
hands in holy horror, and denounced
the attempt of the labor organizations
to secure parliamentary relief, and de-
clared that it was an attempt against
the Divine VIII to prevent these women
from earning their bread. The con-
science of England's lawmakers was
aroused and quickened by the mighty
protest of the toiling masses of that
country, and the barbarous practice
was abolished.
In our own country, the attempt
made years ago to save tine women and
children from the mines and mills and
factories and workshops was met with
the same hue and cry; and now we
face the same protest, and from the
same source; when we are attempting
to save the children of the southern
states from the brutal greed and
avarice of dividend maniacs, not only
who are residing in the South, but par
l1\u1o1 y A~ol tACI II anu IdoLCA II AOIOcIS
of securities in the Southern mills The
same class ignorance and vile avarice
prompted the Alabama legislature six
years ago to repeal the law limiting the
labor of children under twelve years of
age to sixty hours a week.
The srtike of the textile workers of
Danville in 1901 for the maintenance of
the 10hour- day law Of Virginia was
resisted by all the powers that could
be brought against the men and women
there, when, in the language of that
departed statesman, "al the resources
of civilization were brought into play,
the finer art of slow and cruel starva-
ton was used as the means Of defeating
those who stood for right and justice
and for humanity.
In this world of ours those who do
not make themselves heard have no
grievance to redress. Those who are
not willing to bear burdens and even
temporary sacrifices in striking for
their rights may be given a passing
word of sympathy; books and essays
may be written upon social inequali-
ties, and the awful condition of the
slums; but they are usually "passed by
on the other side," and left in their
squalor and misery. The workers, or