United labor bulletin., 1914-06-13
RIGHT TO ORGANIZE
TO BE MAINTAINED
ROCkefeller'S Brand of Liberty
Exposed in Congress
Should Standard Oil Conception Of
Freedom Prevail Employers Would
Become Industrial Despots

While the house of representatives
was considering, as committee OF the
whole, bill to revise the laws relating
to the judiciary, Representative Buchan-
an OF Illinois, a member of the labor
group, took occasion to deliver spirited
address ON the Colorado strike and the
right of workers to organize. He said
in part:
Consider the marvellous advantages
for freedom afforded the workers OF the
Colorado Fuel and Iron company, con-
trollcd by the Rockefeller STANDARD Oil
company. Only such men as have not
been blacklisted are at liberty to lin
ger on the private property of the com
pany. lie is at liberty to patronize
the company stores in order to keep his
job. Likewise he is at liberty to rent
company houses, employ company physi-
clans and Use company bathrooms, for
which he is at liberty to pay the com
pany fee. lie is at liberty to accept
what wages he is offered, to accept what
weight the company sees fit to give him
for his output, and to work as il sees
tit TO suggest. A virtual civil war has
existed in Colorado for the last six
months to force upon the miners this
conception Of freedom and liberty
The original conflict between the
miners and the Rockefeller interests was
wages, hours and other details OF EN-
ployment, but in order to combine its
forces in order to cope with the com
bnation of capital the issue evolved
into one of unionism. To Mr.. Rockefcl-
Ter this is evidently n new conflict, yet
in principle il is similar to that which
has ragged in one form or another for
many generations. Some sixty years
ago Abraham Lincoln touched upon the
situation in the following words:
at is the eternal struggle between
these two principles--right and wrong
throughout the world. The one is the
common right of humanity and the
other the divine right OF kings. II Is
the same principle in whatever form il
shapes itself. We are for both
the man and the dollar, but in just as
many hours as the company case of con-
flict we are for the man before the dol
lar. Capital is only the fruit
of labor and could never have existed
if labor had not first existed. Labor is
the superior of capital and deserves
much the higher consideration
This was, OF course, a restatement
of the principles laid down by Thomas
jefferson. Plutocracy got hold on the
reins Of the party he founded and had
come to represent the supremacy Of
properly rghts. Inc enormous loss OF
life in the civil war demonstrates the
cost of the conflict as it appeared in
the days of Lincoln.
THE issue today is fundamentally the
same as it ever has been. Every person
who has any knowledge of the condi-
tions in the Industrial world today
realizes that shrould the Standard Oil
company's conception of freedom pre-
vail, real industrial freedom would van
ish, and employers would be firmly es-
tablished as masters of industrial des-
potism. OF what consequence are the
grievances of an individual miner to the
agents of the Colorado Fuel and Iron
company? What sort of chance has
an individual free worker to get re-
dress from the absent owners of this