The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1903-10-23
LABOR UNIONS AND THE PRESIDENCY

<husNluId, ltS ds-
cendancy, Is mercilessly exposed, and
the vigorous reaction of public senti.
ment is fully demonstrated. Perhaps
the most trenchant example of pre-
posterous legislation he mentions Is an
enactment that prohibited the trans
mission of Australian letters on any
ship that employed dark skinned
cook. This, he tells his readers, was
intended to paint "all the seas of the
planet white" He shows that, out of
$4,000 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 a 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 democracy"-that is a de-
mocracy in which Bulwer's definition
of sentimental liberty as liberty to
enjoy our kind of liberty"-is brought
to practical issue.
The reaction in Australia, however
Is 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-
mandatory criticism from which there
is no appreciab BILE 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: 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 lis heart and soul
with the labor union movement and
that "if the civil service laws were
broken in this case " 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 consequence, but that Parks and
his cohorts quietly subsidized 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 &C
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
Free Press, an Independent Democrat
ic journal, declares that 'ft is time for
the rest of the people to ascertain
whether We are living in 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: Even wild-eyed Populist
would draw the line at this sort of
thing. = Let us call it government of
the minority, by the minority, for the
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-
tiers, is demonstrated by the fact that
the American Federation of Labor,
which claimed 100000 members, turns
out, when subjected to the scrutiny of
the L. S. Bureau of Labor, under the
direction of Carroll d. Wright a most
accurate statistician, to have only
1,40O 600. But not third of this unim-
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-
ralty, and on the whole greater effi-
cheney. These impartial conclusions
are fully justified. American wage
earners have never submitted, in po-
litical contests, to the rule of dema-
gogues. They will not begin now.
They comprehend facts and will think
and vote for themselves, as their po-
litical affiliations and personal knowl-
edge may prescribe.
A straw that shows which way the
wind blows was recently dlscerned In
San Francisco, where municipal own
ership of street railroads has been
favorite dogma of a class of labor
unions. After voting more than seven
teen millions for public improvements,
that will give employment to an army
of wage earners, the voters Of that me-
tropolis defeated the project for the
purchase of the Geary street railroad,
which was Historically supported by
the Examiner and vigorously combat
ted by The Call and other newspapers.
The reorganization of demoralized
unions and the legalization of labor
combinations is in the air and will
speedily touch the ground.
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