The Jersey City news., 1906-09-13
VALUE OF ORGANIZATION.
BY Union Alone May the ToiIer Sc.
cure HIS Rights.


cure His Rights.
The man who fails to join a union
works against his best interests. Or
ganization Is the basis of all human
work, says the Shoe Workers Journal.
To organization alone labor owes
whatever advance it has made The
family is an organized body for the
preservation of our species and the
promotion Of the happiness Of man
kind; the state In all its relations is ar
organization by which the people gov
ern themselves; the church Is an Or
ganization to impress upon mankind
moral and religious principles and pre-
pare the individual man for future hap
piness in heaven, and by organization
men provide for many of their wants,
such as social enjoyments and the
means of living during the sickness or
after the death of the breadwinners of
the families. Every class of people or
ganize in some way to improve their
condition except the workers.
1t may be said that we contradict
ourselves in the last sentence because
in the beginning of this article we have
said that all the workers have gained
has been through organization. Both
statements are true, for, while few
of the workers have organized and ad-
vanced the good of the whole, less than
one-fourth of the wage earners Of the
United States are members of labor or
ganlzations, and those who are have
not believed that it is necessary for all
classes of labor to be closely united for
the benefit of all. Until the majority
of wage earners are ready to recognize
every other wage Garner as brother
they will not be organized as they
should be.
How many hold back from joining
organizations because Of an absurd
feeling of independence. They don't
see or feel that a wage Garner as an
individual is t'e weakest creature to
secure his rights in the universe. A
babe Is not more dependent for its nour-
ishment or care upon its mother than
the wage Garner is dependent on organ
ization for the wages that maintain
him. Knock out the support which or
ganized labor gives to the wage Garner.
whether he belongs to an organization
or not, and he will be crushed to the
earth by the ardent and unfeeling com.
petition of this competitive commercial
age.
Some wage earners will not join or
ganizations for fear of their employers
This Is a cowardly and absurd fear
The wisest employers desire their em.
ployees to belong to organized labor,
and those who would vent their malice
on workmen who organize would only
gnaw file If all workmen should do
their duty to each other How do such
men keep their places? Often by sink
ing their manhood and humiliating their
self respect. For any good they do in
the world except supporting themselves
and their families they might as well
have never existed. Is the world any
better for their having lived? Have
they benefited a single creature? Have
they not only degraded themselves, but
given an example to others that sub
mission to mans tyranny is better than
resistance and endeavored to show that
1t is better to purchase the means of
existence by debasing manhood than to
make an earnest contention for the
rights which God gave all men when
he made them and which some men
withhold from them?
And when the day of their calamity
cometh, when these cowardly wage
earners have to turn against their OPP
pressors or be crushed, to whom do
they appeaI2 To whom but to organ
lied labor, which their cowardly fears
before compelled them to shun?