The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-07-03
4. 4, 4, X, e de k

III fact IL 1t could be known just how
many millions of fathers and
mothers there are in this country
today in whose mind the thought Is
constantly arising:
What shall we do with our boys?"
1t is the most momentous question
before the American people-this ques-
ton of providing right training and OPP
portunities for the millions of boys who
are now growing to manhood and who
win be the citizens on whose shoulders
will rest the burdens and obligations of
American citizenship in the next gener-
alton.
And yet it Is one of the most amazing
things which can be found for contem-
Dlation by any one who will study the
social conditions of our people, that as
nation we are giving small heed to
this great problem.
The great majority Of our politicians
and party leaders give to 1t practically
no consideration.
As a rule, they are too busy with par
ty politics, with building up great
army and a greater navy, with digging
an isthnian canal, or with lodging the
labor question and being both friends
and foes of the trusts, to give much
thought to the plain and simple every
day problem of a right system of edu-
cation for boys who will be soldiers in
the great industrial army of peace, in
stead of in the armies of war; or of
formulating and carrying into practical
operation a national policy which will
open up to every boy who wants to
pass through it, the wide open gateway
to a home on the land, where he can
build the altar of a family freside and
anchor it to a rock of independence
from which mo social or commercial
storm will ever tear it from it's foun-
dations.
Every such home wherever it may be
founded, throughout the length and
breadth of the territory of this nation,
is a block of granite In a wall of de-
Tense against any social disturbance or
political upheaval, and they are blind,
indeed, who do not see the dangers now
confronting this country from those
sources unless safeguards are created
against them.
1t is pitiful thing, indeed, to go to
our great cities and look over the vast
growing to manhood in the midst of the
throbbing, surging human ocean that
b GIBBS and flows through the streets Of
those cities.
Most OF them are the sons Of men
who are working for a living-vast
numbers of them members Of organiza-
lions which make up the great aggre-
gate mass of organized labor-and yet
CT vtron Two
hensible as 1t may seem, 1t is a fixed
principle Of trade unionism that the
number of apprentices must be limit
ed, and no provision made for honor
able employment or the opening UP Of
a vocation for an honest livelihood to
every boy who may be born to mother
who is the wife of a working man.
To those who look upon the conflicts
and complications involved in the
struggle of organized labor for the bet
sent-those who must labor with their
hands-it is the most difficult Of all to
understand this condition.
1t is hard to grasp a conception Of
the mental processes of men who shut
the door of opportunity insthe faces Of
their own sons, and seem to give no
thought or heed to whether they shall
In their turn become honorable citizens,
earning their living by the sweat of
their brow, or be driven by lack of en-
ployment to criminality, dissipation and
destruction.
1t is just as pitiful to see men getting
together and forming organizations for
the purpose of controlling and limiting
opportunities of employment without
giving the slightest thought to the fact
that 1t is the Unborn and Inherent right
of every citizen Of this country who is
willing to earn an honest living by hon.
est labor to have the chance to do 1t.
1t is not the fact that they organize,
1t is not the fact that they seek to limit
the number who shall have employment
In any special trade, it is not the fact
that they strive to increase wages and
lessen hours Of work by controlling and
limiting the number who shall be en-
ployed, which constitutes the astound-
ing and extraordinary attitude of the
labor organizations with reference to
their fellow men.
1t is the fact that their rules and pur-
poses deal with the man who has no
work, and who has not joined a labor
union. or does not want to join union,
or who has been denied admission to one.
with an inhuman heartlessness and sell
fish cruelty which shocks and appals
the mind that contemplates the prob
lem from the point of view that all
men In this free country have equal
rights and should have equal oppor-
tunities.
And the fact which is still more
strange and extraordinary in the atti-
tude of the labor organizations Is that
their policy creates a condition which
they cannot control. and which will in
evitably sweep over and destroy the uI-
Innate object Of all their purposes and
plans.
With rapidly increasing popula-
ton, increasing both by tremendous
volume Of immigration, as well as by
the natural increase of our own people.
coupled with labor saving devices
which decrease the proportion of hui
man labor to aggregate production.
there is rising tide of men who must
work to live. which viii. in a few years.
break over the highest embankment
which the labor organizations can build
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