The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1912-01-04
COMPARATIVE GUILT
OF LABOR AND CAPITAL

Lately the metropolitan papers
have been devoting about column
day to the Tennessee mine disaster in
which two hundred lives were lost,
about half a column to the Triangle
disaster In New York in which one
hundred and fifty locked-in girls were
burned to death and whole pages to
the Los Angeles disaster In which
twenyt-one lives were lost VIII the
louder shouting about the lesser crime
deafen the public ear to the greater?
Or is the loud shouting the whistle OF
unclean capital through the graveyard
OF protesting labor?-Dixie.
We are really panied to see the above
item appearing in Dixie, for that mat
ter any other Florida newspaper. Mine
and steamboat disasters and confia-
grations that sometimes destroy whole
cities and forests are reckoned in the
nomenclature of our times as provi-
Dental occurrences and are beyond
the power of human agencies to pre-
vent. The building In which the one
hundred and fifty girls were locked in
did not belong to the shirt manufac-
turers who had the girls employed
they were merely tenants and the
building so far as they knew had pass
ed official inspection. The fire, while
an awful calamity, was not planned
1t was not deliberate affair concocted
to destroy property and innocent lives
Banner.
We are afraid the Banner is going
to be panied with successive severity
A more ignorant generation was &C
customed to blaming disasters or
Providence, but this one Is wiser. and
succeeding ones will be wiser still
Capitalists. who in order to heap uI
more dollars. neglect the proper pre-
cautions to preserve life and health
for their employees, may thru technf-
calities escape for few more years
the penalties for the results Of theil
avarice. but the time Is coming nearer
every day when they will answer fully
to justice as well as public opinion
The McNamaras were red-handed muir
derers. but they did not murder fol
money. They were not as despicabls
as the owners of the Iroquois Theatel
or the General Slocum, not one O.
whom has ever been punished. OF al
criminals, the vilest are those who sci
human life and honor for gain, ant
heretofore they have been the mos
seldom punished. Labor has won It
way from slavery to Its present statu
by an unceasing struggle. 1t is in thu
power Of capital to treat labor will
exact Justice; until 1T does so, it neet
not wonder that misguided men fol
low the primeval instinct and resort T.
violence.
1t will be remembered that Cali
said, Am I my brothers keeper"
Is not remembered often enough tina
his argument did not go with the Al
mighty. Every man Is his brother
keeper, in some sense and few NOR
so than the employers of labor. Whel
they say they are not at all responsi
BILE for the lives and health of thei
employees. they are making the argu
ment OF Cain, and society is at las
beginning to give 1t the same answe
that Jehovah gave 1t six thousan
years ago. Society has the claim o
self-interest as well as of ethics O.
Justice, for the greed that overcrowd
fre-trap theaters and 1eaky steam
boats. or causes oyerworked men t
run trains over rotten rails deals on
death and ruin to us all, whether w
work for wages or not.