The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-07-19

the employers pay the slightest re-
gard. are in rather bad way
The coal famine caused by the lat
est strike of anthracite miners and
the incipient meat famine caused by
the pending butchers strike furnish
instances of this. A few citizens of
as compared to the whole population,
make their livings- by handling some
staple necessity, some of them as en-
ployers of labor, others as wage
workers. In various ways, mainly by
organization of the wage-workers on
one hand and of the employers on
the other, this little coterie acquires
practical monopoly of the business
staple necessity. If they, for any rea-
son that seems good to themselves,
see fit to cease supplying this staple,
nobody else can step in and take
their Dlaces-at least that is their
theory. Everybody must freeze for
lack of coal or starve for lack of meat
until these few individuals at their
own good pleasure. see fit to attend
TO their business. Some petty squab-
BILE arises in one of these little. groups,
say the meat-supplying group. be-
tween the two opposed organizations
into which the group has subdivided
cares a copper for anything but its
own immediate selfish interests.
Neither concerns itself in the least
with the rights or interests of the
that the consumer has any rights. The
weapon employed by the aggressive
combstant to conquer his own way is
the strike. either a wage-workers'
strike, or an employers strike. COM
monty called lockout" The i'm
mediate result of the strike is ces-
sation of work The result of that is
d cessation of the supply of a staple
necessity and universal deprivation
and suffering among the consumers.
As rule both parties to the SQUAD
BILE are more or less in the wrong
and neither is entitled to the least
public sympathy. The consumers are
i'm no wise responsible for the difficult
ty and the question at issue is no
concern of theirs. How the strike is
settled is nothing to them. But that
1t shall be settled and work resumed
is matter of vital Importance. There
never was a strike that couldn't be
settled in a day, if either side was ca
paDle OF making even trivial sac
rifice of it's own selfish interests. or
even of its petty pride and pig-head- !
ed obstinacy, for the public good.
But neither side is bothering about
the public good. Neither side worries |
in the least about the consumers be- |
cause the consumers can't help them |
selves. Neither side cares how much |
the consumers suffer so long as it |
doesn't suffer. And neither side in a |
strike affecting a staple necessity suf- |
fers as the consumers suffer. Both |
SIDES nave money enough put by to |
keep them without working. Stand |
ing at the source of supply they are |
always able to get enough of the /
staple necessity, of which they are /
depriving the consumers, for their |
own needs. Does anybody suppose
that the anthracite miners during the |
strike had to go without /
coal? Not a bit of it. They wouldn't |
lift pick to supply the consumers
though the consumers froze, but with |
coal within picking reach they weren't |
doing freRZlnZ
either party to one of these strikes
one-thouSandth part of what |
1t makes the consumers suffer no
strike would last a week. When either
side begins to suffer the strike ends,
or would end but for the monumental
folly of the consumers. For as soon
as either side begins to suffer it ap-
pealS to the consumers for sympathy
and aid and the consumers are sufh-
GENTLY unwise and sentimental to con-
tribute sympathy and aid to prolong
the strike and their own suferings.
In every such strike as the butchers
strike and the anthracite strike is pre-
sented the amazing spectacle of mil
lions of innocent third parties, in a
country called free, tamely submitting
to the most serious deprivation, to |
and even to death that a
few insignificant individuals may
amuse themselves by fighting as long
as their unreasonable obstinacy and
bad temper impel them to, in some
silly squabble CT their own, that in no
wise concerns the suffering millions.
To heighten the absurdity the inno-
cent victims actually take sides in |
the quarrel, prolonging it and their
OWN resulting SufferingS by encour-
aging and aiding the combatant that
s getting the worst of it. And to
cap the climax of absurdity these mil
ions of innocent sufferers, because
hey constitute the people of the
United States, the supreme and abso-
ute ruler of this land, have the power
md the right, if they choose to be
IS utterly selfish as the squa bblers
% end instantly this disturbance and
heir own sufferings, by scattering the
'quabblers to the four winds. depriv-
ng them of the means of livelihood
they refuse to exercise and turning
'ver the work of meat supplying or
;oal supplying to those who will car
" it on with some little regard for
he public interest.
This country has the labor union
md the capital union. 1t needs a
bird union. union of all the millions
Who are included in neither of the
lbove named aristocrac ies the mil
ions who do not belong to any la
Dor organization or to any capital or
sanization and don't want to, in order
hat, for lack of organization they {
nay no longer be helpless to resist
he impoSitiOnS now practiced upon :
mem by organized labor and organ
zed capital both when they are fight
ng each, for its own hand, and when
hey are acting tremendously in some
scheme for the exploitation of the
consumers