The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-09-05
The Men and the Man Of tn" Day.

Laborng men, in or out of unions, are
very much like all other men IN all the
other walks of life there are. They in
clide good men and bad men, but as we
have learned to look on humanity, the
bad men are the few and the good men
the many.
The vast majority of the men who
work for living are self-respecting men.
Every man of them has personal ambl-
ton of some kind, and in almost every
one of them it is an honest and credita-
BILE ambition.
What is it that sustains the man who
tolls in all callings? Is it placid content
with the day and its yield, and content
that the morrow shall be the same sort
of day with the same yield? Not bit of
it. Every man has that within him which
makes him, consciously or unconsciously
look straight-eyed and hopeful to the
future His own efforts or his faith in
fortune are his constant and never-tall-
ing pledge that the future has something
in store for him.
Tomorrow is not necessarily to he
the same AS to-day. Things will change.
Things must change, and the human
heart in sound and normal man imagnes
and contrives all changes for the better.
For the man who is an American, or
for the man who has cast in his lot with
America, no other concept of the future
is possible. We care not how owly be
a mans achievement, how small and
circumscribed that which he has done,
there is nothing that can kill the am
bition with which his eyes close at night
and with which he opens them in the
morning
This truth is universal in this country.
II all the to-morrows were to be the same
as to-day life would not be tolerable. 1t
would not be worth living. Only the
morally dead and the depraved could
stand it,
Ninety-nine per cent. of unionized labor
is made up of men who think toll is an
honor, a means to independence and to
the enjoyment of liberty; men who re-
spect themselves and who mean that
others shall respect them; men who are
conscious Of their own manhood and
every one Of whom has buried within him
his own personal, private and individual
concept Of his own particular future.
This last is his inalienable thing of value;
the lamp of his soul, burn it dim or burn
it bright Without 1t he would be poor
indeed.
Now comes Labor Day, and every man
who belongs to union will celebrate
it according to his light and his inteli-
gence, and to every one of them The
Sun heartily wishes all the joy and all
the profit that there is to be had in it,
There is nothing in unionism that is
good that THE sun does not approve,
and every wholesome and honest principle
OF unionism has always had its support
and its encouragement. Very different
has been it's attitude toward the evils Of
unionism toward the perversion Of the
principle Of unionism, and toward the
men who have used unionism to put
money in their own pockets, to make it
religion for the rank and file and foul
and shameful livelihood for themselves.
In respect of these things The sun will
never change; it will remain as steadfast
as the orb of day.
At this time, therefore, THE Sun
makes no appeal to the leaders of the
unions. 1t does not respect them, 1t
looks upon them with contempt. 1t is to
the men, the bone and sinew of labor,
the Americans of birth, adoption and fact
that it would address itself. Wherein
will the individual man who works feel
himself bettered, wherein will he feel
that he can hold his head higher, wherein
will he know that the union which he
loves and for which he is so willing to
suffer is placed upon a higher scale OF
power, solidarity or influence, by his
walking up Broadway behind PARKS?