The wageworker. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1904-????, 1908-05-30
WHAT OUTSIDERS THINK.

When Margaret A. Haley spoke in |
Lincoln last week. there were Just /
twenty union men in the audience
This. too. in spite of the fact that
Mis- Haley is one of the best known
trades unioniStS in America, q woman
g. wonderful executive ability, an
organizer who has accomplished woE>
SerS. and an educator whose rsputa-
ton rs as wide as the continent
She spoke on n subject that is u
vital importance TO every man who
works TOR wages. and who hopes TO
leave TO his children something that
viii make their lot easier and better
than their fathers
And there were lust twenty unioc
men in her audience,
Among the no1-unioniStS present
Sss one Of the best known lawyers
n Lincoln, snd he listened 20 Miss
Haley with the deepest interest 4
Gay OF two after the meeting he met
tie editor of The wageworker and
ssid>
1t is little short Of \ crime that
ti.ers were 50 few union men out 70
hear Miss Haley Union men love 20
claim that their unfonism stands for
more than better wages and shorter
hours. and they grow indignant
when non-unionists, especially their
opponents. insist that the wage and
the hours are all that unionists fight
fer But can you blame the average
nan who is not a trades unionist for
taking this view, when they See
every day Just such lack OF interest
in things educational and uplifting
IS Miss Haley-s address, Had thai
meeting at the Christian church been
called by employers TO discuss the
question of decreasing wages and
frightening hours, the mere mention
Of it would have been heard by every
union man in Lincoln, and would
have been resented. But here came
a woman with a message, a woman
Who could explain why the children
OF workinsmen were being sold into
sweat shops. kept in ignorance and
made TO be competitors with their
elders in the Industrial market She
came to point out the remedy, TO
show workingmen how they could bet
ter their children. better the educa-
g., - 10 II,
dren and meet the menace OF the
Manufacturers associations determin-
alton to make the public school sys-
| tenn merely an apprenticeship factory
| Tor union destroyers- And twenty
trades unionists out of over two thou
sand in Lincoln were all that took
enough interest to go out ard hear
her Yet You wonder Why people
misiudge your unions
Union men ought TO ponder over
what this attorney said Theren
come a time when almost anybody
eSn get an audience If he announces
that he viii talk ON labor topics
But it viii be an audience of men
filed with despair: an audience Of
men tired by walking the streets in
4 vain search for work
The twenty union men VINO heard
Miss Haley viii never forget her ad
dress Nothing better was evel
heard in Lincoln 1t was the plain
unadorned story of what can be done
by determined workers who know
: t,sey are right and are bent on sc
. curing justice 1t vas an expose o
political rottenness appalling in it
scope 1t was . word picture o
: the slavery of political parties t
capital and the neglect of men VII
n we're deaf and blind to their duty.
And what these two women, Mis-
I Haley and Miss Goggin. accomplishe
is story that viii be told long year
9 after they have passed from the seen
of action