The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1905-05-27
John G. Woolley, America
Greatest Liquor Opponent
Writes Forcibly.
Tellsnon- unionists What Union
Labor is Doing to Further
His Great Cause.

Do you think that I don't mean what
I say, when I tell you to stop sending
the same, or are you like the rest union
men, you try to force me to take it
whether I want it or not? I am no
lunatic that don't know what I want
and not want When l get so I can't
attend to my own business I will let
some men help me out; but no butchers
are wanted like those you have In Chi
cago that go under name of SYM
patizers with union Cor strikers). Send
them out where the governor ~of Col.
did when the butchers appeared in the
mining district, they don't need to
work with non-union men, they can
have their own way then. I work with
union men every day. 1t is all right, but
if they get in there head that no others
have Alright to live, they are wrong,
and will find it out to. It is my own
sweet will that no union label shall
come in my house.
GUST A. JOHNSON.
Jamestown, N. T.. May l."
This Is the fearless Wooley's reply:
It is our view that Mr.. johnson did
the proper thing in ordering his paper
union label defiled his house and he
cast it into outer darkness. He lived
up to what light he had.
We believe, however, that If Mr..
Johnson had united with a union Of his
craft and Joined loyalty with his breth-
rem in efforts for their mutual uplift,
the experience would have made him
more tolerant individual, besides i'm
proving his grammar, spelling, and
manners. But irrespective OF all that,
it is healthy sign that when he felt
that he had kick coming" he used
1t good and strong. In other words,
he struck. It will do him good, and
it won't hurt us.
The union label and the brief COM
ment on it in The New Voice, appears
to have created some excitement. Sew
eral labor papers commented thereon
warmly and various letters Of apprecia-
ton reached this office. Among others
was one from the private secretary OF
Samuel Gompers, president of the AM
erican Federation of Labor, who wrote:
president Gompers directs me to say
that he is very much pleased to know
that your paper is now being issued as
a union publication, and he read with
interest your article upon the Union
LABEL
About the same time, Rev. Charles
Stelzle, the "machinist evangelist"
preaching in the First Presbyterian
church at Seattle april ~ declared,
Il want to tell you that the labor I'M
ions themselves are doing more for the
cause Of temperance than the ministry.
I know it. Others may not, but 1 know
that sobriety is encouraged by the la
Dor organizations"
Whatever the labor union movement
may be or may not be, it represents a
struggle for better things against over
whelming odds. It Is a struggle against
the sweat-shop, against child labor
against unsanitary tenements, against
starvation wages, against squalor,
against the Simon Legrees of industry
who had labor stretched on the rack,
wrenching from it's sinews dividends
for the fat and lazy.
Born Of want and sired by necessity,
but inspired by hope and love of off,
spring and kin, the labor movement
began, single-handed, it's struggle for
the higher life.
True, the union movement did not
always do the right thing In the right
place. But let Capital, whose stupen-
dous blunders plunged this nation into
civil war and drenched this land in
b]ood-chiefly the blood Of the laborer
cast the first stone at it.
True, some unions hold their meets
in novels or barns or barracks or even
1r,ho &u
| even free to tempt patronage for the
bar established by the stingy rich to
| make money for the school fund Let
! the cowled, grimacing clergy members
of the Union League Of Philadelphia,
organized to to suck champagne bottles
without a license, heave the first brick
at this.
Who comes to the surface to speak
for this surging, struggling. toiling
sweating mass Of blood and bone and
! hrawn ? It is the Powderlyst, the Com
pers, the Mitchells, the Arthurs, the
Trevellicks, all hurting curses at the
drink that destroyes their kind, that
balks their hopes, that defeats their
strikes, that impoverishes their homes
that fills their union halls with wrang-
ling and gloom.
| The man in whose breast was plac-
ed, by mistake, a gizzard instead of a
heart, sees nothing in all this but the
| strike"
| Suppose there was nothing in it but
the 'strike.'' In heavens name why
don't you strike?
When You see your daily paper print
ing flaming advertisements Of whisky
sellers offering pure whisky at prac-
t!cally the cost Of the tax alone or tel
ling how to nullify prohibitory laws
through the express, why don't you
'strike" and take paper that is clean !
When you see your school board at