The labor argus. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1906-1915, 1909-08-26

and factories do, but reduce them to the
condition OF physical and mental dwarfs ,
and imbeciles.
What are the churches doing to stop
this hideous crimes Practically nothing.
What the colleges and universities! Prac
tically nothing. What the various ethical
and philanthropical societies. Practically
nothing. What body of people are doing
something effective to stop it.
The army of organized labor.
If this monstrous evil ever stopped it
will be by the untiring efforts of organ
lied labor alone.
They alone bring politicians and
public officials to their knees, and secure
the enactment of laws necessary to eradi
cate this evil.
The Chinese coolies system would exist
in these United States today-a land
flowing with milk and honey--but for or
ganized labor. The employing classes
aim to keep the wage limit down to the
bread line, to just enough to keep body
and soul together. How can the work
ngman get an education, get books, pa
pers, magazines, hear lectures, when his
wages permit him only to wear rags and
eat scanty food!
Organized labor alone can and win
stop the oppression and tyranny of the
organized and insatiatc greed and avar-
ice of organized capital.
a skyscraper is being erected here in
ST. Louis within few feet of me. The
ordinances of the city require all con
tractors to put in buildings in course of
70 nd
strong enough to- hold the building ma
teriai and the workingmen who are put
ting it up. The contractor in this case,
a rich man. in order to save a few hun
dred dollars, failed to put in such floor
ing: In consequence workman who
fell from the position in which he was
working went through to the cellar, a
stantly killed. Immediately the trade
unionists who are putting up the build
ing struck in mass, and refused to go
back to work until the law was complied
with, and the building made safe. This
contractor then, who had utterly ignored
the law and treated it with utter con-
tempt, obcyed the command of organized
labor and made the building safe.
Consumption, that awful plague of civ
ilized society, finds it's breeding place in
the sweat shop. Several years ago a com
mittee of the leading physicians Of New
York City attended the annual conven-
ton of the American Federation of La
Dor, and asked for permission to address
the convention. They were granted it.
They said the Medical Society of New
York had appealed in vain to officials of
hn ri q tn
various civic bodies to wipe out the
sweat shop and take other effective steps
to prevent the growth and spread of tu-
bcrcuosis, and that they now turned to
organized labor as the most willing and
effective body for the wping out of this
scourge.
The union label which shallow, ignor-
ant and thoughtlcss persons SO glibly
call the badge of slavery, is the best
guarantee to society of freedom from tu-
bcrculoss, and other infectious and
tagious diseases. The union label is the
only guarantee that the laborer has not
been robbed of that just wage to which
Holy Writ itself says he is entitled.
Organized labor is the only power that
can successfully cope with the organized
neil that the organized greco ana aFar-
ice of the rich, INSCRIPTIONS and power
full would. if they could, establish on this
earth. The public must be educated to
this point. The church should be brought
to see it. Big standing armies one
of the greatest burdens of the human
race, and particularly of the working
classes
1t is the laboring men who make up
the rank and file of armies, and they
are the ones who are butchcred to make
false glory for and enable n few mill
tary despots to live in castles and pal
aces, dress in gold lace and draw big sal
aries, all of which has to be earned by
the working man.
Big standing armies invariably breed
the spirit of rampant militariSm.
Europe is now and always has been
cursed with these armies. and this spirit.
Civil and political liberty not live
in such an atmosphere. There is nothing
the fathers of our republic more solemnly
preached and inveighed against than big
military establishments.
Our public men from the foundation
of the federal government in 11S6 down
to 1898 took these lessons to heart. and
lived up to them, but there is no more