Los Angeles herald., 1907-09-13
BOYCOTT VS.. BLACKLIST

L AMOELt COMPERS. president o.
IN the American Federation o.
~ Labor, is said to uphold the us'
Of the boycott, giving as his reason
therefor that the large employers made
use of The blacklist against laborinl
men and the latter are justified in re-
prisal. In this connection the public
utterances of James w. Van Cleave
president of the National Association
of Manufacturers, on the blacklist are
timedy. He said:
I'm every instance in which 1 have
heard the blacklist mentioned by men,
bers of the National Association Of
Manufacturers, or by employers of any
sort or in any place, 1t was condemned
as a cowardly oppression of the weak by
the strong. For this practice no de-
Tense, no apology, has ever been Of
fered, or even can be offered which is
worth a moments consideration. To
this statement there are no exceptions,
no reservations, no limitations. The
question of the blacklist has only one
side, and that side is base"
an editorial in American Industries in
which he asks: "How many manufac-
turers and employers could, if they
should so elect, go into court and ask
for the relief vouchsafed by our laws,
declaring at the same time that they
came with clean hands and that in
the dark and devious ways sought by
the boycott it had not been met by its
companion and fellow conspirator, the
blacklist?"
Having thus made a case for the
honest employers, he proceeds to ar
raign the American Federation for its
unfair tactics, and cites the following
from the 1905 report of the committee
on boycotts of that body. held in Pitts
burg:
I'VE must recognize the fact that a
boycott means war, and to successfully
carry on a war we must adopt the
tactics that history has shown are most
successful in war. The greatest mas
ter of war said that War was the
trade of barbarian, and that the
secret of success was to concentrate all
your forces upon one point of the
enemy the weakest if possible In view
of these facts the committee recon-
mends that the state declarations and
central bodies lay aside minor griev-
ances and concentrate their efforts and
energies upon the least number of I'M
fair parties or places in their jurisdic-
ton. One would be preferable. If
every available means at the command
Of the state declarations and central
bodies were concentrated upon one such,
and kept up until successful, the next
on the list would be more easily
brought to terms and within a reason
able time none opposed to fair wages,
conditions and hours but would be
brought to see the error of their ways
and submit to the inevitable. Under the
present system our efforts are largely
wasted and our ammunition scattered.
Let us reduce the boycotts to the
lowest possible number and concen-
trate our efforts upon those, and we
feel certain better results will be OBJ
tained."
Both the boycott and the blacklist are
condemned in the minds of all men who
believe in Justice and fair play, and the
man who would stoop to blacklist a
striking workman is just as bad as he
or they who would, under cover of or
ganization and for purposes of extort-
ing their desires from helpless dealer
or manufacturer, prey upon his legiti-
mate business till he was forced to
yield or become bankrupt.
The public pulse on these matters of
boyeotting and blacklisting is very
rapid and either side of the great labor
questions using them will lose public
good opinion and eventually their own
cause.
That employers have used the black
list and workingnen the boycott is
proved as above, but the constant clash
for the past ten years has taught both
sides many salutary lessons, chief of
which is that there is a third party to
all labor and capital troubles, viz, the
great American public; and that public
aligns itself with justice and manly
dealing and condemns both these tricks
of organization in toto. The blacklist
and the boycott are and must remain
anachronisms.