The Pacific commercial advertiser., 1903-10-21
LABOR UNIONS AND THE PRESIDENCY.

ment is fully demonstrated. Perhaps
the most trenchant example of pre-
posterous legislation he mentions is an
enactment that prohibited the trans
ship that. employed dark skinned
cook. This he tells his readers, was
intended to paint call the seas of the
planet white" He shows that, out of
So 600 registered workers in New zea-
land, only 1900 are unionists, and
that this minority, far larger in pro-
portion than exists in the United
States, coolly proposes to secure COM
pulsory monopoly of employment.
Naturally enough, after the vociferous
claims that Australia is the freest
country on earth, he terms this at
tempted sitting. of the majority a
one-legged denDcracy''-that is de-
mocracy in which Bulwer's definition
of sentimental liberty as liberty to
enjoy our kind of hberty'-is brought
to practical issue.
The reaction in Australia, however,
is a small quantity when compared
with the public sentiment in the United
States. not against legitimate labor
combinations, but against that class
of unions that antagoniZe the govern
ment and the laws. The attempt
made by the Central Labor Union of
Washington, D. c., backed by the Chi
cago Federation of Labor, to coerce
President Roosevelt into violation
of his constitutional obligations by
making the test for employment in the
government printing office, not capac-
ity to do the required work, but men,
bership in a union, has excited de-
nunciatory criticism from which there
is no appreciable dissent. Even union
lied labor itself has cauterized this i'm
pudent demand. The Federated Trades
Council of Milwaukee coldly refused its
sanction. The Executive Board of the
knights of Labor retorted: 1.-THE
President is one of the best friends that
organized labor ever had in the White
House." The Amalgamated Journal of
the Iron, Steel and Tin Workers said
that Mr.. Roosevelt sis heart and soul
with the labor union movement" and
that 'if the civil service laws were
broken in this case y the unionists
would be the losers in the end"
1t has not been noticed by the local
organ of disaffected labor, which hard
ly exists in this Territory, that walk
ing delegate Parks was beaten by his
conservative opponent, Buchanan, and
the American unionists at Kansas City,
that personal violence was threatened
as a consequence, but that Parks and
his cohorts quietly subsided and took
the train for New York, without any
demonstration whatever. Nor has it
been observed that newspapers all over
the country ridicule the proposition of
a few of the walking delegates to ac-
quire control of the government by the
defeat of Mr.. Roosevelt. The New
York Journal of Commerce considers
the proposal that the President spurn-
ed "the most audacious proposal ever
made to the head of the Government
of the United States" The Detroit
ic journal, declares that "it is time for
the rest of the people to ascertain
whether we are living in a republic
or under a government of the unions,
by the unions and for the unions"
The Brooklyn Eagle, another Demo-
cratic and independent newspaper,
says: Gwen a wild-eyed Populist
would draw the line at this sort of
thing. - Let us call it government of
minority. Incidentally let US tear the
Constitution into fragments"
An entire weeks issue of the Adver-
tiser could be filled with similar and
even more drastic extracts, the last
of which suggests the influence of the
Tired Australian Evidently the
turbulent and selfish walking delegates
have reckoned without their host. The
weakness of unionized labor, when con-
fronted by the mass of American vo-
ters, is demonstrated by the fact that
the American Federation of Labor,
which claimed 2,50O,vOO members, turns
out, when subjected to the scrutiny of
the U. S. Bureau of Labor, under the
direction of Carroll D. Wright, a most
accurate statistician, to have only
100000. But not third of this unirn-
portant minority would follow the lead
of such men as Parks and Rosenberg.
The Moseley Commission, consisting of
twenty-three trades unionists from
England, carefully investigated labor
conditions in the United States, and,
comparing our workmen to those of
Great Britain, reported the former to
possess more intelligence, higher mo-
raliTv and ha UhoIo crao +a,