Arizona republican., 1903-09-13

strung laboriously together-abeut the
 nearest approach to labor of which the | speakers would be guilty. A few of
 these Orations Were so grotesque as to | mark their authors as unique in ab
 surdity. We quoted yesterday from an
 Arizona orator of this class.
 | Of the few addresses of high charac- l ter, perhaps the highest notes were struck by Archbishop Ireland, at St.
 Paul. That great prelate of the Catho-
 lie church spoke to a vast gathering in a spirit of unqualified respect for labor and in words of eloquence and common sense, as the quotations below abund-
 antly prove:
 Capital is stored labor; the fruit and result of labor Its rights must be re- spected; as private property it is sa- cred. IL is necessary to labor. A country without capital is impoverish- ! ed. Labor should invite it into use; | never frighten it away by making it ! unsafe or depriving it of reasona ble profits. These profits are 10 be meas | ured by its value to labor, the intelli- gence and work stored up in it. "On the other hand. capital must re- spect the manhood of the wage earner and allow him, as far as it can without loss to itself( a fair wage. Extrava- gant and needless expenditures by cap italists do harm in irritating the poor ! and should be avoided. A generous use of the capital for the public good,
 whether in purely beneficent or indus
 trial enterprises, does much to soften the asperities of opposition.
 We should not be afraid of capital in whatever form it comes. whether in large personal accumulation or in trusts or in syndicates. Names are bugaboo
 that should not frighten. AS matter
 of fact without large aggregations of
 capital. great enterprises are not pos
 sible, and the country is not developed. It is time enough to hold the hand
 against trusts and syndicates when they do harm, the country will attend to them. If they do no harm and, on
 the contrary, do good, they should be welcomed.
 "The wage earner has rights-his
 right to living wage; his right to req sonable hours; his right to more than even a living wage when circumstance and success warrant it. Wage earners
 have a right to combine. to form trusts
 and syndicates and call them labor un-
 ions. Labor guilds were common in the Middle Ages, and did good. The
 destruction of them produces that hate
 full individualism which would reduce
 the laborer to a mere clod or piece of
 machinery. Labor unions have given wage .earners the consciousness of their
 rights, and have done much to obtain
 higher wages and shorter hours.
 But labor unions must be on their guard against serious evils threatening them. They cannot be tolerated if they interfere with the personal liberty of
 non-union men, who have right to work in or outside unions, as they please. Public opinion and public law will and must protect this liberty It were social chaos if we were to impose
 our opinions on others by force. What
 right have to impose my religious be- lief by force? What right have labor unions to impose their opinions by force?
 Ut is wrong in labor unions to limit ! the output of work on the part of mem- bers. The members themselves are in
 jured; they are reduced to a dead level of inferiority; they are allowed no op- portunity to a higher or better posi- , tion. Society is injured, as it is injured by anything that prevents its members from putting out their talents to best advantage.
 ..The functions of law in regard to capital and labor are to protect the natural rights of both capitalist and
 wage earner, to care for the weddings and the unfortunate. Never should they go SO far as to destroy or limit personal enterprise or personal liberty. State socialism, allowableS in things which cannot be done by individuals, is most hurtful when it goes beyond bounds. The prosperity of America IS due to individual effort. State social ism is utterly abhorrent to American institutions and ideas.
 ''I do not deny the theoretical right
 of the wage earners to strike as rem | edy for what they believe to be injus-
 tices, but, practically strikes do most 1 harm to the strikers themselves. Men are left whole seasons without work.
 without pay The public, in presence of strikes, is turned against labor unions. and without entering for the moment
 into the examination of the rights and
 wrongs of existing strikes. l may say, 1 nothing has arisen for a long time in
 the country which has done m're harm 1 in the public estimation of labor un- l ions than the condition now prevalent | in our large cities. Building operations have been suspended for months, and 1 the whole prosperity of the people has 1 been retarded.
 Public opinion is favorably dispos- ed toward labor. Let wage earners
 ever strive to be reasonable, to ask on | ly what is right Let them be patient l Knowing that great reforms are never
 done in day. Believing that they are right, let them appeal to the good sense of their employers. and, if this is
 not enough, let them call in a board of l arbitration.
 T commend very much the work of | the Civic Federation of America. The power of board of this kind made up
 of wage earners, employers and mem-
 bers and representatives of public opln-
 ion, is such that public opinion will up hold it's verdict, whether against cap | ital or against wage earners. Pubic | on;piO, ;,, Apoorica is orr pinotpnt