The San Francisco call., 1909-09-07

Clarence S. Darrow, defender of
Moyer and Haywood, strong in face
and dry of manner, held an audience
for an hour and 35 minutes between
silent attention and cheers and laugh
ter at Shell Mound park yesterday aft
eroon. His speech came late, and the
impatience of the crowd gathered at
the athletic field had held John A. Kelly,
president of the day, President A. M.
Thompson of the state federation of
labor and P. H. Mccarthy of the state
building trades council down to merely
incidental remarks. Darrow began to
speak at o'clock.
When the cheers subsided Darrow
remarked quietly that he was too old
to take any stock in demonstrations of
any kind, either over himself or over
Labor day when everybody cheers
and forgets it the next day" He said
IT was a long time since he had talked
for the sake of jollying a crowd"
Darrow's speech was an arraignment
of our system of government The
right ideal he found in socialism. AS
things progress slowly he believed the
WOrkln 2nen COuIQ gain leHpOEdly du-
vantage through organization. But
he denied the permanence of such re-
suits The fundamental principals of
unionfsm were called tyrannical and
unjust borrowed from capitalism.
Through political action, however, he
saw the day coming when the burden
of toll would be equally distributed.
Neither of the old parties are
friends of the poor" he said. They
are the servers and trucking agents
of the interests engaged in exploiting
our great national resources. So the
only hope for labor can come in or
ganization.
UNIONS MEANS TO AN END
Unions are but a means to an end.
The principles of unionism are not
founded on justice. The great mistake
of unionism is that it has learned all
1t knows from the other side. The
blacklist, the strike, are old weapons of
the monopolies-yet when you turn
around to practice them you go to
Jail.
Then there is the closed shop.
Think of what that means-saying a
man can't work If he desnt belong to
your union. 1t is arbitrary, harsh and
unjustiiable, unsustained by logic or
humanity.
Here on the coast you say a sober
and Industrious Japanese or Chinese
can not land in America to give his
toll to the country-as if what you
want is work and not. the product of
work. You look on the man who comes
here to work as an enemy. Can you
sons of foreigners call that right?
You can't deny also that an honest.
willing boy can not learn a trade un-
less you say so. You limit your pro-
duction like the steel trust. You limit
the amount of work you do by hours,
as well as your numbers. If you
worked as hard as you could you'd be
afraid of running out of work.
Another thing you don't believe in
is machinery, because it takes work
away from your hands.
yet ! believe in trades unions even
| though what they stand for is eter-
nally wrong. It's wrong to say the
man who joins your union is a brother
and the one who does not is foe.
LABOR AND CAPITAL FOES
IF you listen to the newspapers. the
preachers and the college professors
you'll learn that labor and capital are
friends. But they are not The en-
| ployer buys his coal, his iron and his
labor in the lowest market The man
who sells the coal is not the friend OF
/ the manufacturer, for he tries to get
the highest price he can. Labor must