The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1905-09-02
pres. GOlMPERs SENDS nj
LABOR DAY GREETINGS
Labor Day 1905 Retrospect
and Prospect Of Organized
Labor in Industry.
Old Philosopher Of Labor Move
ment Gives Some Good
Advice to Union Labor.

Sincerely, cordially, and with all
vigor we greet the hosts of labor Of
America with the fraternal Hail! All
Hail Labor Day!
May you, the toilers Of our land, learn
your full rights, have the understand
ing and the manhood to achieve them"
Upon the shoulders Of the workers
of our time rests the responsibility. To
them is committed the mission by those
who in the past have struggled for
liberty, justice, and right to carry on
the great work where they have laid
! it down.
Within the past two decades much
has been done by the workers in the
fulfillment of this great duty. Organized
labor within that period has immensely
| improved the material, moral, and So
| cial condition of the workers. 1ncreas-
| ed wages have been secured and MAIN
tanned; the workday has been shorten
ed, resulting in better education, more
! books, and better pictures; more food,
better. clothing, better surroundings,
! brighter and better homes; more time
| and opportunity for the cultivation Of
the best that is within us; honorable
labor alternating with healthy leisure
| with all that it implies; leisure to live,
| leisure to love, leisure to taste our free.
dom.
! And withal, for the improvements
which have come to the toilers in their
work, in their homes, or in any other
field, they are indebted and under
obligations to no one or to nothing but
their own increased intelligence, char
acter, and grit, as manifest In their as
ISOLATED capacity in the trade union
| movement.
Much remains to be done for the pre-
sent as we'll as the future, but the
achievements of the trade union move
! ment in the interests Of the workers of
America must prove to all an incentive
to greater effort, To those whose i'm
patience with what they regard as the
slow growth, we commend a/retrospec-
tive view into the conditions of the
past.
| A farmer who was blowing up his
field looked ahead at the ground yet
to be covered and became visibly dis
heartened. An observing friend stand
| ing nearby called his attention to the
work already accomplished, and re-
minded him that by perseverance and
persistence alone is achievement or sue
cess possible. So say we to our fellow
workers.
It is true that conditions are not now
! what we have a right to expect and
hope them to be, but look back and
count with the time when the workers
| were veritable slaves, toiling long hours
for p1tiably low wages under awfully
impoverishing conditions. when the en-
ployer was the master of all he surveyed
and the worker toiled long without
hope or aspiration for himself or his
| kind.
Much Of the burdens of ages which
| were borne by the type, Of ''The Man
With the Hoe" has been lifted, and the
! bent form and the receding forehead
have been changed to the upright at
titude and higher developed manhood,
with a better life today and better
prospect for the days to come, and this
has been accomplished under our
modern Industrial system through the
numbers, power, aggressiveness, intel
ligence, and manhood of our trade union
| movement.
If there need be any proof as to the
advanced position which the workmen
of our country now proudly occupy as
compared to the past, the absolute
mastery of employers and the serv1lty
| of the workmen of the stand in strong
contrast to the dignified and respect
full position now attained and main
| tanned by labor.
Organized labor, the trade union
| movement of America, has compelled
public opinion to take a better and
more comprehensive view Of the rights
Of labor, and to consider and even COM
mend the rational, natural movement
of the workers for self-protection by
associated effort in the trade union
movement.
| In our day all great questions are
considered with view to their eco
nomic and material influence upon the
people, and this of necessity affects the
working people most, inasmuch as they
constitute so large a proportion Of the
people.
Our schools, colleges, and universities
now. have classes in which the great
labor problem in all its phases is in
vestigated and discussed; it forms an
important part Of the curriculum of in
situations Of learning.
The intercollegiate and club debates