Gilpin observer., 1904-09-01

u0 men Ol DeuVeT anu SOlO-
RADIO will do well to heed the lesson
taught by San Francisco union labor.
Two hundred years experience in self
government have not made the working
classes really capable of managing a
political party. To be sure, it is not
because we have no brains in our
ranks. The workers. as class to-day
understand the science Of government
better than the merchants as a class.
But government and politics constitute
a distinct department of human ac-
tivity. The control of political party
is one of the high arts developed by our
modern complex civilization.
Unions are not organized for political
purposes; and never will be.
When they are they will become
political party and cease to be unions.
In the very nature of things their
membership is limited to men who ex-
pect to reap immediate Industrial ben
efits from combination.
For the same reason every union is
Immediately a pariah, not only to-
wards non-union labor, the employers
and the general public, but in the last
word, towards every other union.
No amount of slush about brother
hood, class consciousness. fraternity,
ETC., can destroy this cold fact. OF
course, there are comradeship, fra
ternity, brotherhood, cash assistance,
moral support, and all the rest of 1t.
But what does it all mean?
Merely this, | must help you up or
you will pull me down. l must raise
your wages or you will lower mine.
Brotherhood is all very fine and grand
and Christian, but it is also an exceed
ingly practical thing-an exceedingly
simple thing.
Now leave the domain of industry,
enter politics, and where does your
craft interest lie? Where even does
your class interest come in? Certainly
not in electing a few glib-tongued Ia
bor agitators to Office. Sad experience
has taught us that the men who roar
loudest in political campaigns about
the class interests of the working class
know really least about those interests
Furthermore, the man who has most
faith in politics has least faith in the
unions and cares less about them.
No man should be trusted with the
vital interests of an institution who
does not believe in it and love it.
When the labor politician says the
unions are failures and politics the
remedy for industrial ills, he ought to
be told to get out of the unions and go
into politics. He is not fit to be trust
ed with leadership.
He may be a man of parts, but there
are many employers who have brains
and use them against the unions.
1t is time to be frank and plain.
The worst enemy of the labor move
ment to-day is the labor politician who
attempts to lead the movement cut of
industrialism into the Quagmire of pol
itics.
The man who says unions are fail
ures and yet stays with them to croak
and howl calamity, is a traitor at heart.
He should be told to go and join Par
ry's assassination society, where he be-
longs.
Another thing is also clear. when his
union is threatened he won't refuse the
funds secured from other unions
through sacrifice and self-denial.
This paper is about ready to speak
out in meeting and fair warning is
given to the clique of would-be mon
archs of the western labor movement
that this scientific game of double
crossing must stop.
The trade unions of the West are not
dead nor dying. Neither are they going
to die. They are here to stay and Parry
and his hypocritical allies in the labor
movement will multiply their forces
many times before we are outnumbered
and outfought
Politics never did anything for the
workers and the unions through the
old time-tried methods have brought
the worker from serfdom to the place
he occupies to-day. We will not throw
away what has done something for us
and take up something that never did
nxvt1 tv,ey fnr cir hnnnIrcn
spell-binders need dose of pills. q
The vote of the union is important,
of course. 1t is an expression of po-
litical liberty. But the union card is
infinitely more important, because it is
the earnest of measure of industrial
liberty. that never was and never will
be obtained in any other way.
The eight-hour law is all right. Let
us get it on the statute book If we can.
But don't forget that we have won the
eight-hour day in Colorado through our
unions, and at the present time bid
fair to lose 1t through accursed crazy
quilt politics.
The men who roar loudest for labor
party to divide the workers again in
Colorado remind one of bull chained
to post. They paw and below, but
don't get anywhere.
Meanwhile. in the face of an indus
trial depression, the unions go right
along doing business at the old stand.
maintaining the dignity of the work
ers. controlling the greed of unscrupu-
lous employers; and ia some instances
lettering the conditions of labor, even
in the face of the most adverse con-
ditions.
Ability 20 spout revolutionary
phrases and eloquently picture social
inequalities, is all right. II it leads to
practical steps In the direction of So
cial advance.
But lurid pictures of sweatshops, and
air castles of cooperative common
wealths, where the treesap is wine and
the balmy air is thick with the scent