The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1912-03-29
FRIEND or LABOR.
Wendell Phillips Ever the Foe Of
Oppression.
THE CHAMPION OF FREEDOM.
Having Destroyed Chattel Slavery, He
Took Up the Cause OF the Wagework-
er-HeIped Labor Organize and De-
Tended Trade Unions.


er-Helped Labor Organize and De-
Tended Trade Unions.
Much attention was paid to the one
hundredth anniversary of the birth
of Wendell Phillips. Nov % last, and
deseryelly so. To me, however, in
terested in the great orator not merely
as a leader of the anti-slavery move
ment, but as a champion Of the OPP
pressed everywhere and under all con
ditions it was interesting, writes John
Haynes Holmes in the Twentieth
Century Magazine.
In April, 1871, the American Anti
slavery society held its last meeting
at Steinway hall, in New York, and
such of the warriors as still survived
to witness this closing hour of victory
retired to private life and were heard
of no more. Not so, however. with
Wendell Phillips. Alone of all those
splendid fighters, he saw other battles
TO be fought and new fields to be con-
quered. 1t was in no spirit of mere
bravado but in a spirit rather of the
deepest seriousness, that he closed his
final speech before the Anti-slavery
society with the significant words:
I'VE will not say FAREWELL but All
hail Welcome, new duties! We
sheathe no sword. We only turn the
front of the army upon new foe
The new foe that Wendell Phillips
described and upon which he declared
that the front of the army" must
now be turned, was none other than
capitalism. In the dependence of the
great masses of the laboring popula-
ton upon vast aggregations of capital
he saw a type of servitude only less
terrible and less immediate than the
chattel slavery of the south.
That slavery destroyed, the fight for
better wages, shorter hours, sanitary
conditions of toll, the protection of
women and children in industry, the
reform of taxation. the curbing of the
power Of money, the erection of legal
barriers against the greed of employ
ers in behalf of employees" followed,
in Phillips mind, "as the night the
day"
In entering upon this fight, it is
hardly necessary to point out, Wendell
Phillips was as far ahead of his time
as he had previously been in his fight
for abolition and with even more trag
ic results. During the few years i'm
medlately following the close Of the
civil war he enjoyed for the first time
In his career the boon Of popularity.
After a full generation of persecu
ton he had at last gained the popular
ear aud was listened to as reverently
as he had previously been howled
down, insulted and mobbed. Further
more, he now enjoyed Il degree Of au
thority as a public leader that he had
never possessed at any previous time.
Nominated for governor of Massa
ehusetts by the Labor party in 1870,
he drew up and ran for Office upon
platform that declared war upon tho
wage system; war upon the present
system of industry, which robs labor
and gOrges capital, makes the ricl
richer and the poor poorer and turns
republic into an aristocracy of CAPT
tall war upon the lavish grants of the
public lands to specializing compd-
MES" and that demanded a ten hour
day for factory work as a first step
and eight hours as the ultimate work
ing day, equal pay for women and en-
couragement by law of the principle
Of cooperation in all branches Of in
dustry and trade.
81 am interested in the labor ques
ton" he declared. mot simply be.
cause Of the long hours of labor, not
simply because of the oppression Of
class, but / look out upon Christcn-
dom, with its 3O0O0O0O0 Of people,
and see that out of this number
100000 never have enough to eat.
Give a hundred men good wages
and eight hours work and ninety
nine Of them will disdain to steal.
Give a hundred women a chance to
get a good living and nlnety-nine Of
them will disdain to barter their vir-
tue for gold Now | say that the so
clal civilization which condemns men
to be below the AVERAGE in the nour-
lshment God prepared for them didn't
come from above 1t: It came from be-
low, and the sooner II goes down the
better"