The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1904-12-10

| ganized laborers, to resist to the point
of such suffering as organized society
may have the power to impose, Those
who will not defend at all hazards
rights once acquired-natural rights
once ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS never have
acquired them, and will not long re-
tain them.
! In the labOrer's long and weary
march from slavery to freedom, from
being property to the recognition that
his life is the same kind Of life as that
| which exists in the blue blooded aris-
tocrat, or in the employer of labor,
there have been, and in plenty hang
ings, impalings, imprisonments, sc4sur-
| ings, prescriptions, starvations and
want. AS the equal right to life was
earned, so it may have to be defended
in order to be retained, and If in the
| be lost
| This legal fiction, which of necessity
must be maintained in order that the
| writ of injunction may be applied in
labor disputes as such, proves that the
citizen who becomes a laborer is con-
sidered as having lost his right
citizen and to have entered into a
separate legal status. This is a brutal
denial of fundamental principles, Chris
! ton and American. If labor power be
an entity by itself, capable of being
| divorced in this Fictitious way from the
laborer, then the evidence of such
! transfer may be transferred from one
man or one set of men to another, and
the bill of sale would become a negoti-,
liable document Tom Jones has sold
his labor power to Jim Smith, and Jim
Smith transfers it to Mr. Arnold or
anyone else wishing to acquire it, 1t
| was with the full understanding of all
the champions of liberty and the de-
tenders of the dignity Of human life
insisted that life and liberty should be
forever inalienable.
| The laborer under our American sys-
| TEN is either free and full citizen, or
| he Is not a citizen, but a chattel. The
| acceptation a fact of the legal fic-
ton that labor is property serves fur
Their as a foundation for another as
sumption, namely, that the ownership
of property in the shape of tools and
| appliances carries with 1T a. vested
right to. so. much labor power as will
|
able Thus, the Union Iron Works, of
! San Francisco, is magnificent proper
ty. There exist all the appliances
necessary for building all kinds of
ships Society is bound to protect that
| property against deterioration, caused
be enemies Of the public peace. But
| society is not bound. nor has the
! Judiciary any right, to protect the earn
| ing power Of that any other kind OF
property against the kind of perecia-
ton which may result from a scarcity
of laborers, or from an increase in their
wages, or from the shortening of their
hours Of labor. If the earning power
of property be property, it can only be
because labor is property because the
earning power of a plant, it's tools and
i appliances depends upon whether or
not it can obtain laborers
The labor movement. e., trade
unionism-is engaged in an effort to
destroy all fictitious differences bet
tween Tom Jones, the laborer, and Tom
Jones, the citizen. IT, you will be will
ing to assist in that effort, then give
to this movement your hearty support.
If, on the other hand, you believe that
such effort would be destructive of the
best interests Of human society; If you
believe that this struggle Is un-Chris-
tan and un-A American, then please join
the Citizens Alliance, and support it's
policy as exemplified by some of it's
publications, and some of the things
now happening in Colorado.
The fiction that labor is property,
and that the ownership of tools and
appliances carries with it vested
right In the necessary labor power to
make such tools and appliances profit
able, serves also as the foundation for
one Of the greatest industrial evils one
. as yet but slightly understood, the
capitalization Of the earning power OF
certain businesses and the making and
: putting on the market Of kind of
: bastard currency called stocks and
: bonds. through which wages already
: paid are confiscated and a mortgage
placed upon the labor Of the future
: Through these means wages are re-
duced directly through lengthening OF
the hours and a decrease in the daily
rate of pay, and indirectly, through the
raising of the. prices of necessaries an6
: lluxuries of life thus manipulated:
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