Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1902-07-25

ISSUED in all sincerity. Thus with
abundant logic comments the Spring
field Register says:
'Since the trusts threw themselves
heavily upon the world and have
since swept America with their
great money power, labor has been
drawing closer and closer together.
Labor was first t6 discern conditions
which have arisen. 1t is reasonable
that they should have done so. They
| felt the gradually tightening grasp
| of capital crushing their liberties,
obscuring their individuality and dit
diminishing their citizenship. They
realized first that capital was com
bining to aid capital and that cap
ital was combining to control labor.
Labor was awake to the situation.
Labor combined to aid labor and not
to control capital, for this they could
never do, but to restrain capital
when the climax came.
THAT climax is at hand. What is
the situation in the anthracite coal
fields today? Has labor any indi-
viduality or rights there? Is not the
coal trust buying and selling labor
at its own prices and refusing to
give labor n voice in its sale? Now
that the strike has come as the re-
suit of the coal trusts oppression,
has capital sought arbitration? Has
capital offered labor voice in the
adjustment of the difficulties? Not
much. Capital says, l am the word
and the law. Let labor not be a
judge of justice. Let labor do as l
= Il I I
will make it do so. What is that but
slavery? And is it reasonable that
the American workman will yield to
such plutocracy and oppression while
the law says this is a government of
the people and that slaves and slave
holders are no more?
$50 the Indianapolis convention met
to battle with the trusts. That is
the political issue the democratic
party has urged upon the people. 1t
has pointed with labor to just such
conditions as have arisen. 1t is only
by united effort that justice can be
had. Now the appeal sent out from
Indianapolis should not go unheeded
in any quarter of the nation. The
people SHOULD literally contribute to
this cause. Let the tongue, the pen
and the purse combine to get justice
for the mine worker. He 81 deserves
it.
The miners in their appeal say
that the great combinations of capital
which control the coal industry have
become so powerful that no miner
can hope. through his individual eff
forts, to secure a just share of the
wealth which his labor has produced.
The history of industrial develop
ment in the past has shown that
when capital combines the workers
must associate, else they will all, one
by one. unpitied, be sacrificed in the
struggle for existence. The arbi-
trary assumption by the employers
that neither the miners nor the pub
lie have any rights that are entitled
to consideration by them. have fore
ed us to organize, not for the pur-
pose of taking from the operators
that which belongs to them, but for
the purpose of securing by business
methods better treatment than we
have received in the past and fair
compensation for our labor
us there anything unjust in such
ask anything they do not deserve?
The situation in brief is the oppres-
sion of capital against the rights of
labor. The symPathies of the Ameri-
can people are with labor. for labor
is the foundation of the republic
and the corner stone of the world.
These men have been underpaid. op-
pressed. driven. enslaved. They
make their employers rich. Their
employers make them poor. Just
compensation for their arduous la
Dor under unsanitary conditions is
refused. The miner braves the dam
gers of his labor and he and his
family go in rags while the employ
ers with their capital, combine
against labor and accumulate mil
lions. Prices of necessities are fore
ed up and wages are forced down.
Thus capital reaps a double benefit
and labor the double oppression.
THE appeal from indianapolis is
for justice to both capital and labor.
1t seeks to injure neither but to
benefit both. If labor and capital
were made to live on a basis of JUS
tice both would be beneficiaries, for
the millions lost in strikes would be
distributed between them, the whole
people would profit and the republic
would be firmer. Let the people
heed this appeal for justice and see
that justice is enjoyed by labor as
well as by capital. The miners APP
peal is an appeal from labor asking
the people to hold the trusts in
check"