The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1904-10-08
personal LIBERTY"
fALLACY IS EXPOSED
Contention Would Be Plausible
If Employers Were Inter-
ested In Labor.
Non-unionst, Sometimes Called
An Industrial Hero, Is An
Industrial Slave.

There is a class Of people, very res
pectable and intaelligent by the way.
who while not actively opposed to
trade-union organizations, yet have
become champions Of the non-unionist,
and are at times loud and emphatic in
their denunciation Of those methods of
trade organizations which they are
pleased to regard as unwarranted in
Engagements upon the personal liberty
of the citizen. They seem to be i'm
pressed with the idea that 1t Is better
personally for the individual, and in
directly, in broader sense. proHotive
of the general good, if each wage
worker individually played his part on
the industrial stage. Unfortunately
for their contention. history furnishes
abundant proof of the fallacy of their
personal liberty theory, so far, at least,
as it applies to the condition Of the
working class and their relations to
their employers.
Their contention would be plausible,
at least, If the employers generally
would voluntarily advance eand main
tain the wages of the workers at such
rate as would insure them comfortable
and respectable conditions Of living.
But unfortunately for the contention OF
these champions of this so-called per-
sonal liberty history Is as barren of
such instances as 1t is of angel visits.
In the commercial arena sentiment
plays no part; motives. desires. and
activities bear indelibly the dollar
mark. The employee doesn't expend
his energy Of Drawn and brain In toll
ing for another simply for healthful
exercise. Neither does an Individual
employ smother from philantropic
motives, or invest his capital for the
sole purpose of giving a man work.
The harsh truth is that men are In
business for all the money profits they
can derive. This truthfully being the
conditions of our Industrial system,
were all organiza tons of workingmen
qisbanded. should collective efforts to
maintain the wages, hours, and con-
ditions of labor be abandoned by the
wage workers, and the woarker in the
exercise of his industrial liberty de-
pend alone upon his individual efforts
to maintain himself in his relations
with organized capital, who can truth
fully assert that the conditions of the
wage workers would improve or even
remain as it it at present? Upon what
single fact in the Industrial history
of the race, from the time of labor in
the sun-parched brick yards Of ancient
Egypt to the present day. can the
slightest hope be based that the or
ganized can accomplish anything in
asserting and maintaining the decency
and dignity and manhood Of the wage
worker. History is barren Of a single
incident where the non-organized wage
workers, through millions in numbers,
ever increased their wages a penny,
decreased the day of labor a moment,
or. changed a single condition Of labor,
however arbitrarily or unjustly I'M
posed by their master.
In truth. the non-unlon workingman
in his panoply Of boosted Industrial
liberty, posed as a hero by a certain
class Of union ,haters. has always been
and always will be an Industrial slave
and a veritable coward:-Washingto
Union Herald.