The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1903-02-12

Six mOQCQS 6U C0QCSs
The Arbitration board appointed by
the President and now in session will
fail to uphold the miners in
their demand that all employees of the
mines shall be union men, and such
decision would only be just one. The
unions should be given to understand
that this is one OF their principles that
will not be tolerated by the American
people. They must learn that every
wage Garner is guaranteed his individ-
ual liberty and has right to do as he
likes with his labor so long as he does
not interfere with the rights of others.
When the members of union are
able to present evidence of what they
have accomplished, and when they
bring home to the non-union man the
fact that they are responsible in large
measure for increased pay, shorter
hours and other concessions, the nom
union men will probably decide that
they should have membership in such
a union. The success of unions in the
past indicate that it is only question
of time when all workmen will be en-
listed under the banner of union labor,
but until such time they must concede
the right of every man to be his own
union if he so desires.
Another unreasonable demand of the
labor union is that by which they aim
to force the employer to pay the same
scale of wages to all its members, re-
gardless of the skill they possess in
their respective trades.
TIE brick layers union demands, say,
fifty cents per hour. The contractor
finds that one man lays a thousand
brick to every five hundred laid by an
other; he refuses to pay the same
wages to the poorer mechanic, or dis
charges him, and Immediately some
barrel-house bum, disguised as walk
ing delegate, comes around and orders
a strike The card of union should
not only certify to mans member
ship, but also to his skill as work
man. It should state whether he is
first, second or third grade mechanic
and regulate his pay accordingly.
Another unjust and selfish principle
of unionism is the limitation of the
number of apprentices to be employed
in the different trades, thus preventing
many young men who cannot afford a
professional education from learning
trade, and throwing them into the
ever increasing ranks of unskilled Ia
Dor.
The unions should also do away with
their professional agitators, generally
men who never work and whose only
business seems to be to create trouble,
down the booze, down the capitalist,
down with everything. With few ex-
ceptions these agitators and so called
leaders use their positions merely to
further their own political ambitions.
Too lazy to work, but possessed of the
gift of CAB and skilled in barroom TO-
rensics, they soon worm their way to
the front in the councils of the labor
unions and before long we find them
holding down some petty political job,
secured on the strength of their infu-
ence with the laboring man.
! l have known leaders of the cigar
makers union who could not tell the
difference between cabbage leaf and
a leaf of pure havana; leader of the
carpenters union who never did days
work in his life, and the chief of a
bookkeepers' organization whose only
knowledge of the science of accounts
was the ability to balance set of
books on the tip of his highly colored
nose. Political bunco-steerers is their
right name.
4 If the unions would correct some of
the existing evils the present nom
union man would soon begin to study
the question of trade unionism and his
feeling of antagonism would disappear.
i The non-union man es we'll as the
union man realizes that the danger to
, the isolated workman increases as the
; consolidation Of capital goes forward,
but his spirit of Independence rebels
against the idea of being ordered to
leave work by common boezer or
being compelled to work alongside an
inferior mechanic who draws equal
!, pay simply on the strength of his
J unionism. IS .... ,sr.s.s.Af,e
{ A writer in McClure's Magazine,
j Concluded on third page.)