Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-08-28

strength and often times deaf to the
cries of their followers, have suffered
exploitation and the invasion OF their
most sacred rights without resistance"
The report in part follows:
I'VE find the basic cause of indus
trial dissatisfaction to be low wages,
or, stated in another way, the fact that
the workers of the nation, through
compulsory and oppressive methods,
legal and illegal are denied the full
product of their toll.
I'VE further find that unrest among
the workers in industry has grown
to proportions that already menace
the social good will and the peace of
the nation. Citizens numbering mill
lions smart under a sense of injustice
and oppression.
The extent and depth of industrial
unrest can hardly be exaggerated.
State and national conventions of labor
organizations numbering many thou
sands of members, have cheered the
names of leaders imprisoned for parti-
cipation in a campaign of violence,
conducted as one phase of a conflict
with organized employers.
Employers have created and main
tanned small private armies and used
these forces to intimidate and sup
press their striking employees by de-
porting, imprisoning, assaulting and
killing their leaders.
Elaborate spy systems are main
tanned to discover and forestall the
movements of the enemy. The use
of State troops in policing strikes has
bred a bitter hostility to the militia
system.
Wage-Earners Have Belief
Courts, legislatures and governors
have been rightfully accused of serv-
sr,ry ,,NI1 30 AAfA Af 81 inn
and, while counter charges come from
employers and their agents, with al
most negligible exceptions, 1t is the
wage-earners who believe, assert and
prove, that the very institutions of
their country have been perverted by
the power of the employer.
ITO the support of the militant and
aggressive propaganda organized
labor, within recent years, small, but
rapidly increasing host of ministers,
college professors, writer's, Journalists,
and others of the professional classes,
distinguished in many instances by
exceptional talent which they devote
to agitation, with no hope of material
reward.
I'VE find the unrest here described
to be but the latest manifestation of
the age-long struggle of the race for
freedom of opportunity for every in
dividual to live his life to the highest
ends.
Unrest Augmented by Changes
The unrest of the wage -earners has
been augmented by recent changes and
developments in industry. Chief of
these are the rapid and univrsal In
PRODUCTION and extension of machinery
by which unskilled workers may be
substituted for the skilled, and an
equally rapid development of means
of rapid transportation and communi-
,aft IRxTN Nflaf fah Of a nj oil hn.
been enabled to organize in great
corporations.
Work formerly done at home or
in small neighborhood shops has been
transferred to great factories where
the individual workers becomes an
impersonal element, under the con-
troll of impersonal corporations. Wo-
men in increased numbers have fol-
lowed their work from the home to
the factory and even children have
been enlisted.
Now, more than ever, the profits of
great industries under centralized
control pour into the Golfers of stock
holders and directors who never have
so much as visited the plants, and
who perform no service in return.
I'VE find that many entire COM
munities exist under the arbitrary
economic control of corporation off,
cials, charged with the management
OF an industry or group Oh industries
and we find that in such communities
political liberty does not exist, and
its forms are hollow mockeries.
Family in Employers Hands
"In larger communities where
espionage becomes impossible the
wage Garner who is unsupported by a
collective organization may enjoy
freedom of expression outside the
workshop, but there his freedom ends.
And 1t is a freedom more apparent
than real. For the house he lives in,
for the food he eats, the clothing he
wears, the environment of his wife
and children, and his own health and
own safety are in the hands of the
employer, through the arbitrary power
ne exercises in fixing his wages and
working conditions.
THE responsibility for the condi-
tions which have been described
above, we declare rests primarily upon
workers, who, blind to their collective
strength and often times deaf to the
cries of their followers have suffered
exploitation and the invasion of their
most sacred rights without resistance
A large measure of responsibility must
| however, attach to the great mass OF
citizens. But, until the workers them
selves realize their responsibility and
utilize to the full their collective
power, no action, where governmental
or altruistic, can work any geuine
and lasting Improvement.
I'VE call upon our citizenship, re-
gardless of politics or economic con-