The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-02-07
OTIS TELLS OF HIS
 FIGHT WITH UNION
Words from an Employer Who
 s Whipped the Labor Trust .:.. in California.

Copyright. 1904, by Frank c. Carpenter.) Washington, D. c.
 My interview today is with an independ- ent employer who has been successfully fighting organized labor for more than decade, and who has radical views as to labor and capital. I refer to Major General Harrison Gray Otis. the editor and chief owner of The Los Angeles Times, one of the great newspaper properties of the far west. General Otis has edited The Times for more than quarter of century. he has employed all sorts of labor. and in 1890 his office was filled with union men. They made certain demands which Otis refused to grant. They struck. and Otis whose education in fighting began with four years in our civil war, fought back He filled his office with non-union men. He was boycotted. but he continued to fight, and has been fighting ever since. 7 he was brigadier general in the Philip pines and on the firing line at the time of our Spanish war.
 Labor in California.
 My first question was as to labor condi- tions on the Pacific slope. General Otis replied:
 Tn Southern California, where live, we have to large extent industrial freedom. We are comparatively free from strikes, and as result. perhaps, we are growing more than any other part of the State. We are building railroads. pumping oil. getting out minerals and becoming rich. It is different in San Francisco. The la- bor situation there is bad, and serious disturbances have been going on for a long time. The effect has been to par alyze industrial activity, cripple commerce and restrict manufactures. The losses amounted into the millions, and the great est losses have been felt by labor itself because least able to stand them. There have been strikes, boycotts and frequent acts of industrial violence. owing to the domination of the unions, and men have been persecuted. beaten, maimed and murdered for refusing to do their bid ding
 The Trades Union.
 What do you ttt'k of the growth of the unions? Will they ever control the labor of the country?''
 ''I think not. They constitute only a small per centage of all the toilers and the law-abiding majority will never sur render to the too often lawless minority It cannot do so in the very nature of the case. Industrial freedom is as sacred as personal freedom, political freedom or re- ligious freedom My position is that ev- cry citizen has the lawful right to pursue undisturbed and unhampered any lawful . occupation in lawful way. and to be protected in that right by the whole pow CT of the government if need be.
 ''This is warranted by the Constitution and the law, and nothing less than this will serve. As to the growth of the trades unions. that would not be a mem ace to the country if their tendencies were not so unreasonable and monopolis- tic as many of them have been in recent years. I have never opposed unions as such, but only their tendency toward law lessness. As they are today. their domi- nation would paralyze industry and be an intolerable despotism. The right not to join unions is as sacred as the right to join them, and it is not for one class of citizens to say what another class shall or shall not do in this regard"
 s@seg.L .LaboTs Worst Enemy.
 sssCsive4 me your Idear-of the labor Isitua- lion, General Otls.''
 "It Is abnormal threatening. bads' was the reply. :It is a serious drawback to the progress of the country. The remedy lies in the enforcement. of the laws as they stand. We don't need new legisla- tion, but we must enforce the existing laws The fundamental right of indepen- dent labor must be preserved and the lib- erty of all workmen be protected. If it is not, all will suffer together. and the la- boring classes most. What labor needs is to be protected from itself.'
 What do you mean by that, General?" I. asked
 '"I mean that organized labor has so faa drifted from the right lines that it Is now the most bitter foe of its natural brother. unorganjzed labor, which it Is wickedly at tempting to crush. Capital is not the nat