Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1903-06-26
LABOR UNIONS AND RIOTS.
Organized WOrkingmen Save Society
More Trouble Than They Cause.

Organized WOrkingmen Save Society
More Trouble Than They Cause.
Professor John II. Gray of Evanston
voiced what seems to be .the crystal
lization of public opinion when he said
that trades unions, with all their mis-
| takes, had saved society great deal
more trouble than they had ever
caused it. Even the organized hate
that begins to be too apparent in some
quarters is safer than unorganiZed
class hatred that does not have any
test of qualification for membership.
Abolish trades unionism, and hoboism
Is Immediately in good standing, ready
to make itself apparent the moment
either labor or idleness has a griev-
ance. Disband all organiza tons, and
there are but two classes in society-the
haves and the have nots. Unorgan-
lied, the have not with firebrand is
just as much a committee authorized
to act as is the one with petition to
legislature. Trades unionism or
ganizes the productive laborers, the
Intelligence, the Industrious. The hobo
is hoboized and classified.
No question could come up today, no
trades union strike is possible, that
would reproduce the scenes of 1877,
says Ethelbert Stewart of the United
States department Of labor. No pres
ent or future mayor of Chicago will
ever have to face what Mayor Heath
faced. The double header may
cause another and many another strike
before the abomination Is given up by
the railroads, but while railroad men
are organized there will never be an
1877. Let Chicago remember how near
destruction it was on the evening of
that July day and then consider Pro
fessor Gray's remarks that trades I'M
ions, with all their mistakes, have
saved society more troubles than they
have ever caused it.
1t would seem of late that there are
some hotheads on the other side who
need to cool off. Recently a federal
Judge in ST. Louis issued an injunction
against the union of Wabash railroad
employees to restrain them from inter
fering with themselves because they
were perfectly satisfied and happy and
were being paid more than anybody
else. The men said, while the injunc-
ton holds we will obey It." No doubt
they bit their lips, but they obeyed the
law, no matter how unjust it was
Then the judge found that he had been
lied to under oath, and he said so and
dissolved the injunction. But suppose
the Wabash men had been morgan
lied, had had the same grievance and
that injunction or a similar irritating
thing had happened, what could have
controlled them?
1t is just as well to remember that
there are strikes where there are no
unions and that the worst labor trou-
bleS we have ever had in this country
have been caused by unorganized la
Dor. The so called Molly Mcguire trou-
bles were mob consplracies inaugural
ed after the unions which John Siney
had lived and died for had been
stamped out of the coal fields by means
Of the blacklist The riots of 1877,
which were worse than the draft riots
In New York in 1864; the earlier an
thracite strikes, in which Hungarian
mobs were moved down-these were
unorganized. | am not forgetful of the
southwestern strike under the Knights
Of Labor, nor of the Debs strike, so
called, nor of the eight hour strikes of
1886, but all these put together We're
not so destructive, so general, SO expen-
sive. What is more to the point just
now, all put together did not culver
with destruction to civilization as did
the strike of 1877. Beginning as a pro-
test against double headers" 1t shook
loose all the accumulated grievances
and protests against wrongs that had
grown up under the terrible depression
In wages which began in 1873 and, Gu
riously enough, began to end when the
red danger signals were swung out. BY
the time the riots reached California
the cry was "Chinese cooliesp and no.
where west of Pennsylvania was the
original cause of the trouble real
grievance.
Certainly under trades unionism,
| however strong it may become, it will
never become necessary to mix local
| questions up in general riot, as was
done then under unorganized labor.
Where Workers own Mills.
| The city of Oldham, England is the