The Minneapolis journal., 1903-02-26
The Right to Labor.

The Right to Labor.
Dispatches from Chicago and, Charleston,
West Virginia, indicate labor troubles OF
a character decidedly interesting to the
general public.
Mr.. John Mitchell, finding great diff
Guilty organising the coal miners Of Mary
land and West Virginia under the system
of the United Mine Workers Of America,
has resorted to the device Of formally
debating to the Chicago authorities that
they should not award public contracts for
coal to firms handling Maryland, and West
Virginia coal, and began the boycott by
arranging with the teamsters' ullionato
refuse to deliver such coal on public con-
tract. Mr.. Mitchell himself will inspect
the bids and permit the citysof Chicago to
accept only those which meet his approval.
In West Virginia bloody collision has
and local sheriff on one side. and riot-s
ing miners on the other growing out of
the attempt of the former to enforce an
injunction issued by a federal circuit
judge to restrain the miners from acts
Of lawlessness in the destruction of prop
union men. The proceedings OF President
Mitchell in Chicago look to compelling the
operators to unionize their mines and
destroy the opportunities of nom union
men to get work
There is, of course. no rational justif1ca-
tion for these extraordinary proceedings
OF organized labor. lSt'SO use your own
rights that you impair not the rights Of
others" is a legal maxim-$of recognized
soundness. The violation of the principle
is no more permissible tc labor than it is
to capital. Mr.. E. E. Clark, who repre-
sents labor on the anthracite coal strike
commission, in recent lecture in Boston,
after declaring his belief in the justice Of
strikes, other thar sympathetic strikes,
laid down the following sound principles
which commend themselves to both labor
and employing capital:
| The worker has a right to quit or to
strike in conjunction with his fellows.
Having exercised that right he has neither
right nor license to destroy or damage
the property of the employer. Neither has
use violence against tine man who chooses
| to exercise his right to work. If the
employer rids imself Of the service Of an
employe either by dismissal or by filling
| the place where he struck or quit, the en-
! ployer has no right legal or moral. to
| hamper or defeat that mans efforts to
earn a living in the service Of another en-
ployer by> secretly blackistins him. The
employer who uses the blacklist cannot be
| heard to complain that the ernbpoye uses
| the boycott. And the employe who uses
the boycott beyond the exercise OF his
own free will to trade where he chooses,
cannot be heard to complain that the en-
ployer employees the blacklist.
] Thus the rights Of labor and capital are
not pleadable in justifica tion of entailing
suffering upon the public through then
conflicts. 1t was thought, when public
i opinion, strongly expressed, brought about
i the cessation Of the widely injurious an
/ thracite strike, and reference of questions
at issue to commission appointed by the
president of the United States, that the
initiative was taken in the substitution OF
i arbitration for strikes, boycotts and intimi-
I datfon. But such is not the case. Presi-
4 dent Mitchell who has received deserved
| during the strike and pending the pro:
ceedings before the commission, is un-
fortunate III his determination to boycott
the West Virginia operators and assume
4 authority to dictate to municipality wha,
bids for fuel supply it may: receive, and
! what bids it may not receive: The as
sumption by capital Of dictatorial power:
is condemned by public opinion, and public
1 opinion is no less opposed to the unWar
1 ranted dictation by labor, which likewise
4 is detrimental toithe public interests. Pub
lie opinion, which triumphed in the an
I thracite coal strike case. is destined tt
i gather such force that it will one day b.
+ used eirresstibly to harmonize the interest
Of capital and labor, condition whicl
strongly insures the needed protection t,
all vital public interests