Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-11-08
Lessons for Labor to Learn.


Gently, have recalled the grim specter
Of the Haymarket riots. Half hun
dred policemen carrying clubs and
drawn reviewers. charging a crowd Of
several thousand garment workers
| brings to mind wildly those other
bloody days. In a clash the other day
fifteen rioters were seriously injured
and one policeman was stabbed.
In the New York and New Jersey
strike rioting of late the deplorable
incidents have been almost number
less. AS has been quite common in
| the past during such exciting periods,
a girl has inspired the rioters to deeds
Of violence. In clash with the po-
| lice Josie Mielewski, a fourteen-year-
Old girl, at the word "Charge!" from
the police, shouted: Get together
| men! Charge the police. Get the
jump on 'em!" The strikers responded
to her call and charged the blue coats
The police used their clubs freely and
gradually beat back the mob. The girl
fought to the last, continuing her re-
sistance even when she was placed in
tire patrol wagon, and on the way to
the police station.
Such children. brought up in an in
| tiuence which reeks in defiance of law,
| make up one of the most dangerous
, elements with which justice has to
contend. They resent every restraint
OF their own notions of justice and
| right (Which depend wholly on might
and are beyond the influence of the bet
| ter clements Of society. Time which
| they should spend in church or school
| is devoted largely to discussing or lis
| tenin@ to discussions OF real or fun
| cicd wrongs and ways and means by
| which they may circumvent the law
| or its mlnions. Then, on the excuse
for which they had been waiting. they
! break forth in mad and open defiance,
Of their class their own valor and
| hatred for legal and social control.
1t seems to us that labor organIza-
| tons must eventually bring themselves
| to consideration of this phase of
conditions with which they have to
| deal Instead of dcvoting all their
energies to teaching the i!litcratc
! workers. with which their business
naturally puts them in touch, to pre-
pare for securing their demands
against those for whom they labor,
they should teach them something of
| the rights of their employers and the
general public. With scarcely more
than one-tenth Of all labor organized
| il seems that the other nine-tcnths
should not be put in distress and all
| classes of society Inconvenience and
all kinds of business obstructed to
| suit the taste of a few radical leaders
and their hordcs of irresponsible fol-
lowers.
| We hope within the next decade that
organized labor will have reached a
| standard where "pickets" in a strike
Will not so in groups and small listed
mobs. ready to oyerawc any laborer
Wnonl they meet or to offer physical
violence if such laborer happens to
| have his own notions of his rights to
| work or not to work as he sees fit
| ut the same time We hope that it will
| be hard and fast rule Of labor or
| CARNATIONS that no member shall be
| allowed to participate or even be pres
ent in . crowd OF rioters which has
| grown out of strike sympathy. 1t
| should be strictly against labor or
| ganization laws, also, to halt any man
| on his way 70 or from work, to lay
| Il hand upon the person Of such laborcr
| or to use any opprobriouS term in ad-
dressing him while trying to persuade
or influence him against work dur
| ing strike. When labor laws of this
kind are rigidly enforced by the lead
| erS and the intelligent element of Ia
Dor organizations, then and then only,
will they hold the sympathy of the
great public which suffers most
through the quarrels of labor and
capital.