Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1908-08-27

W wv he Ol luc
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
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."
My experience regarding the labor
vote began early In the game. | met
the labor element at every meeting l
attended in my city. They attended
political meetings where the "busi-
ness" men regularly "side-stepped"
such affairs. They naturally looked on
a speaker who addressed such meet
ings, 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-
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 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 a 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 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 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 1t,
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 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 I wish to call at
tention to subtle undercurrent of
politics which comes in when these
labor fights are inaugurated. The
timid and conservative voters Of a
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
victory where labor might claim to
have been the means of winning Curl
ous 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 its own representative Which
party? Either of the two dominant
parties that puts up a candidate who
represents honestly a square deal"
to all men. Sometimes this may be
one party, sometimes another. "Prin-
ciples, not men," used to be the old
war-whoop. 1t isn't worth its salt as
a maxim. The best set of principles
in the world can be ignored by any
man who wishes to disregard them
The worst platform a political party
ever wrote can be shelved by a 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-
larly supposed to favor the Demo