The Green Forest tribune., 1908-08-21

| newly-arrived immigrant with his first papers taken out, and who does not yet know the language. Now then, are you going to solidify all these con- [ flicting elements into q harmonious and compact body of voting strength? You are, are you? How are you going to do it? The prejudices of the Euro pean emigrants date back further than the times of Romulus and Remus. Racial and religious differences, strengthened and cemented by wars of conquest and subjugation, have been drunk in with their mothers milk. Slav, Celt, Frank, Teuton, the Latin and Saxon, how sheer the wall which divides, how deadly bitter the old grudges which still exist Do you think to bring such conflicting opposite nat ures into happy family of unified 1 voters without taking into account all the ancient jealousies and racial and spiritual prejudices? As well attempt to swim with fins of lead, or hew down oaks with rushes."
 All men are created more or less" free and equal. That depends on heredity environment, opportunity, and other things. But to get results in voting, you must have the votes. A very trite conclusion isn't it? Did you ever try any other scheme? So to secure the labor vote you must show the laboring element that it is best for their interests that they rho rNfo they cannot be depended on to vote for their own interests. "'Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true" And you cannot altogether blame them, for they have been flattered and fooled until they are properly distrustful of the promises of the various political Moseses who propose to lead them out of the wilderness.
 My experience regarding the labor vote began early in the game. 1 met the labor element at every meeting I attended in my city. They attended political meetings where the "busi- ness men regularly "side-stepped" such affairs. They naturally looked on speaker who addressed such meet ings, if a salaried politician, as man | who was there for the purpose of holding his job;" and they took very little, if any, stock in his protesta- tions. If the man whom he was talk ing for was one who had made good" in their estimation, so far as fairness to labor was concerned, they agreed with the speaker in his commenda- tions of such a man. But they did not believe that well-dressed profes- sional man could really have any in innate knowledge of their lives or their ambitions, nor entertain any genuine sympathy with them in their struggles so that any views of the speaker in that line generally fell on barren ground.
 And that suggests, as corollary. the proposition that the "uplift' of the labor element must come from the ranks of the laboring man himself Men like Ruskin and Edward Morris in England, men like Phelps-Stokes and Ernest Crosby in America-have endeavored honestly to better condi- tions for the laboring man, and have failed because of a chasm-like differ ence in environment which precluded the possibility of an intelligent and sympathetic joining of forces.
 The labor vote in the cities is in dustriously angled for, and is not sel- dom made the means of an advance ment to office, ss far as the labor vote happens to apply. of some demagogue whose sympathy for labor is wholly fictitious. The labor element is also preyed upon by treacherous members of it's own class. who use their official positions in the union for their own selfish personal aims. And yet at last this element, and whatever political cohesion it can ultimately command, must depend on it's own. people for ad- vancement. Labor's chief hope must lie in national enactments of laws. and yet labor cuts the least figure in the election of the men who go to Wash ington. Concerted opposition of labor to men who have been against it. has almost always resulted disastrous ly The men who seek congressional honors are not yet afraid of the labor vote, except in possible instances in some large city where the district is largely labor district But ordi- narily, as has been shown in several late instances, the labor fights on members of congress have been fail ures.
 And right here I wish to call at tention to a subtle undercurrent of politics which comes in when these labor fights are inaugurated The timid and conservative voters of party which may have the support of labor against an opposition candidate are very apt to shift their votes and plump" them for the opposition can didate just because they fear the ef- feet of possible labor victory; or a victory where labor might claim to have been the means of winning Curi- ous, isn't it? But this has been proved so often that it is almost automatic. Labor has not yet gained the confi- dence of the conservative or the timid business element, and they would rather have it's enmity than it's SUD- port.
 The future of the labor vote would seem to be most advantageous where it attached itself to the right party" where it stood no show of electing it's own representative. Which party? Either of the two dominant parties that puts up candidate who represents honestly square deal'' to all men, Sometimes this may be one party, sometimes another "Prin- nj nloc pot mon v uced to ho tha old |