St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1908-08-29

SruQSes which still exist. Do YOU think
10 bring such conflicting opposite nat
ures into happy family" of unified
voters without taking into account all
the ancient jealousies and racial and
spiritual prejudices2 AS well ATTEMPT
TO swim with fms 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
snow the laboring element that it is
best for their interests that thew
| should vote in a certain way. Well.
they cannot be depended on to vote
for their own interests. "'Tis true, it's
pity and pity It's, It's true" And you
cannot altogether blame them, for they
nave been fattered 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. | met
the labor element at every meeting 7
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
lngs, If salaried politician, as a man
who was there for the purpose of
holding his job" and they took very
little, If any, stock in his protesta-
tons. 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-
tons of such man. But they did not
believe that a well-dressed profess
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-haye
endeavored honestly to better condi-
lions for the laboring man. and have
failed because of 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 sell
dom made the means Of an advance
ment to Office, as 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 its 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 its own people for adj
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,
hoC oil nj !;
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 a 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 l wish to call at
tention to subtle undercurrent of
politics which comes in when these
Tabor" 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 eff
feet of possible labor victory; or a
victory where labor might claim to
have been the means of winning. Curl
Gus, isn't it? But this has been proved
so often that it is almost automatic.
Labor has not yet gained the conf
dence of the conservative or the timid
business element, and they would
rather have its enmity than it's sup
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 a candidate who
honestly a square deaP'
% all men. Sometimes this may be
)ne party, sometimes another. "Prin-
,iples, not men," used to be the old
It isn't worth its salt as
| maxim. The best set of principles
n the world can be ignored by any
nan who wishes to disregard them.
rhe worst platform political party
sver wrote can be shelved by man
Who has the nerve to do it. Men, not
principles, should be the bugle-call-
And things are trending that way.
The labor vote in the cities is popu-
arly supposed to favor the Demo
,ratic party. Well, at recent presi-
lential election, every ward in my
lily except possibly one. went one
way; the most awful landslide in the
:itS's political history. Wards which
we're counted on for thousands in
aunr. of The Democratic ticker went |