St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1913-04-09
cAPIrAL AND LABOR
A Correspondent Thinks Organiza-
ton i'm st. JOhnsbury Unneces-

Editor of Caledonian:
Having read the articles on Cap
ital and Labor in the April End is
sue of your paper and feeling an
interest in the subject, send you
a few ideas in regard to it which if
not deemed worthy of publication
you can drop in the waste basket.
There is no doubt that the organi-
l'zation of labor in some sections
where a majority of the laborers
are foreigners is necessary and a
benefit to the laboring class, but is
ST. Johnsbury in need of a federated
labor organization? Are the la
borers under-paid or unjustly de-
prived of any privilege that should
be theirs? 1t has the largest cor
poration of it's kind in the world,
which has been in operation for
nearly or quite a century and / have
yet to learn of any serious trouble
with it's employees. | have passed
the four score year milestone and
have several acquaintance and
relatives some of whom were en-
ployed by the scale company for so
years or more and 1 have never
heard any one. of them complain
about wages or conditions of their
employment Some of them have
died in the harness, others are
still working for the company. Now
why this long serenity and employ
ment? Isn't it because they employ
intelligent American men?
Now if st. Johnsbury had a
labor organization and the Scale
company employed foreign labor to
some extent, with a few Haywoods,
Ettors and Giovanniottis to advise
them, do you suppose the company
would be immune from strikes all
these years it has been doing bus
mess? Labor organizations are all
right if they would conf1ne them
selves to reasonable measures and
conditions, but when the employees
say to their employer: You must
not employ a non-union man, and
you must not discharge a union
man, or there will be a strike, or
in other words, when the union en-
ployes undertake to run his business
in so far as the employing and dis
charging of help is concerned they
are imposing an unreasonable con-
dition and one that public opinion
will not sustain, and are discred
iting their organization.
One speaker in the recent labor
meeting, thought it not right for a
laboring man to receive only $3.50
per day and go home at night and
hear his babies crying for the ne
cessities of life, and I would ask the
gentleman,-in all candor and |
fairness-if he knows of any such |
condition in st. Johnsbury,- it |
is St. Johnsbury we are discussing
and whether it really needs a labor |
organization. He also said: cap |
ital is dishonest The Fairbanks !
Company are capitalists, and are
the citizens of st. Johnsbury ready |
to say they are dishonest? An
other speaker from distant town
said he came to the meeting for the |
benefit of the workingman of St. |
Johnsbury, to help uplift him. Are
the workingmen of st. Johnsbury |
unduly and unjustly crushed down /
and must men from distant towns |
and from Massachusetts be imported |
to uplift them?; and do these i'm
ported speakers know the condition
of the ST. Johnsbury workingmen
better than the men themselves,
and do they come to the meeting
purely through their solicitude for
the welfare of St. Johnsbury work
ingmen or because they want labor
organizations to grow until they be-
come factor in politics and dom
inant in questions between capital
and labor?
One speaker said he understood
the Scale Company was not oppos-
ed to organized labor because they
found the lack of the union label
on their goods affected their sales
to some extent He did not give
the source of his information, but /
it would seem that with their pro-
ducts so well known and in use in
every part of the civilized world |
that the name Fairbanks" would |
be all the name needed. One great
source of the trouble between cap !
ital and labor and the occasion or
so many strikes in this country is
the immigration of ignorant foreign
ers. A majority of the laboring
class that come to this country are
of a low class in their own country,
MANY of them criminals who leave
to escape punishment, and our con-
gress has not yet found reliable
method to prevent their coming.
The literacy test bill that President
Taft .etoed would have been of lit
| tie use if it became law, as it does
not necessarily follow that because
| a man can read he would make a
desirable citizen. Some of the
greatest criminals are educated per-
sons But seemingly it ought not
to be difficult to prevent undesir-
able immigration, if our govern
ment would establish in foreign
shipping ports what might properly
be called bureaus of information,
one or more persons for each port,
to whom the officials of the shipping
office were required to give the
names of all applicants applying for
passage in season so they could be
looked up; that, together with the
restrictions already in use in our
ports, and the steamship companies
required to give free transportation
to those sent back-which would
| tend to make them cooperate in
shutting out undesirables,-it
would seem that but few of them
would get by.
-