The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-04-03
II STRIFE FoR GAIN.

THE STRIFE FOR GAIN.
No matter what may be said to the
contrary, the rule seems to be that
J the higher wages are and the more
!, opportunities for employment at re-
munerative pay present themselves
to the wage workers Of the country
the greater becomes the number Of
strikes to be reported. When work
is scarce and idle men p~roportionate-
ly the fewer labor troubles
occur. Men who are fortunate enough
at such times to have employment
reason that 1t would be folly to en-
gage in strikes or walk outs, knowing
that their places could and would be
readily filled by some Of those to
whom work at almost any pay, SO
! long as it was sufficient to enable
them to exc out an existence would
} come as a blessing. @
In both instances human nature as
serts itself. To have something be-
| gets the desire for more and to have
nothing is creative of the wish for
something. Hence strikes and walk
| outs during Flush" times because
men think they r not getting
enough of the good things that r.
passing around, and clinging to posi-
ton when times are hard" because
of the fear of losing what little is
possessed. The desire for riches,
for the possession Of wealth is domi-
nant in all men as at present consti-
| tuted and until human nature changes
most remarkably greed will continue
to be the p%ropelling motive in mans
existence and the spirit OF dissatis-
faction will prevail, even as it has
prevailed eve since man began to
inhabit the earth and there will be a
continuation of social and economic
disturbances.
Just now the men engaged in the
production of certain goods and wares
in eastern towns are in idleness be-
cause their demands for increased
pay have not been met. They do not
deny that the wages they have been
receiving were in excess of those paid
them in former years and that the
pay they now decline to longer ac-
cept would have looked temptingly
large to them a few years back. That
has nothing to do with the ase as
they regard it. They know, or be-
lieve they know that the men who
have been giving them employment
are making larger profits than they
made erstwhile and they demand a
share in them greater than the en-
ployers are to give.
How the strike will end probably
no one can predict with any degree
of certainty. 1t is possible that the
men will win in the end and will re-
turn to their work at the increased
rate of wages demanded by them. All
the time the other possibility must
also be reckoned on. Should they
lose the loss suffered by them will
be great. If they win, unless it is
within a remarkably short time, they
will be still losers, for the weeks,
possibly months of idleness will not
only mean the loss of the money they
might have been earning, but the lit
tie stores some of them have been
accommodating will be eaten into, max.
ing the loss double. It is true that
the employers will also suffer, prob.
ably even to a larger extent, but
they can better afford it, having more
of a reserve upon which to draw dur
ing the period of unproductiveness.
To them it will mean but little more
than to begin where they left off. Not
50 to the workingmen. They may
nope never to regain what they have
lost. The substance consumed dur
ing idleness is gone for all time. Its
equivalent may be restored, but the
fact remains nevertheless that had
there been no time Of nonproductive
, ness the little that had been laid by
would have grown instead of having
decreased and to this extent they are
the losers.
But all this has probably been weigh
ed and considered by them and they
are willing to take the chances they
invited when they decided upon theil
l present step. They are only me1
after all and therefore only human
differing from the rich only in de
gree. Civilization has not yet reach
: ed the stage where men have learned
that enough is better than too mucl
and that true happiness does not al