The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1916-06-30
Status Of En1ploye
and Employer

q .
The average man, whether or net
he belong to a labor organization, has
at the bottom of his nature a certain
more or less distinct aspiration for
more or less exalted thing. There can
be no combination, association or I'M
ion Of men without common ideals;
for without ideals there is lacking
the internal bond that carries men
along despite the temptation to pur-
sue selfish aims. No one can under
stand the purposes Of unionism I'M
less he has some conception of its
fundamental ideals. 1t will be easier
to comprehend these ideals of the la
Dor union if one consider for mo-
ment the ideals of men opposed to it.
The conception of some of the en-
ployes of this Lead Belt is that they
are men of different class, a differ
ent race, or may almost say, differ
ent species from his workingman. In
the eyes of these people the ideal
state of affairs is one in which the
benefcent employer is surrounded
and served by throngs of faithful,
servants called wage earners, loyal
to their interest, protected by them,
and grateful for the bounties which
they in their goodness and at their
sole discretion bestow upon them,
These employers frequently speak as
though two or three dollars day
were enough for q workingman, al
though they themselves may be
spending twenty or fifty or two hun
bred dollars q day. These employers
talk of the "disleyalty" of others,
thus assuming that the wage Garner
is bound to his employer by ties of
personal allegiance, instead of by a
contracted relation, supposedly based
upon the interest of both parties.
There is something feudal in the man
ner in which these great lords of in
dustry occasionally speak of their
employees. They seem to believe that
they possess what is almost pro-
perty right in the services of the men
engaged by them. They speak as
though they were comforting a ben
eft upon man by letting him work
for them, but they would consider
that the end of time had almost ar
rived if the workingman should for
moment assert that, in accepting
work, he was comforting an even
greater advantage upon them.
The labor union does not stand for
paternalism of the employer, but for
broad and self-forgetting frater-
nalism of all workers. 1t does not
stand for the loyalty" of the work
er to his employer, but for fair, re-
ciprocal contract, between these two
parties. 1t does not stand for the
between employer and workingman,
recognition of a difference in species
or for spirit of blind, silent content
on the part of the employee, but it in
sists upon the substantial equality of
all men and upon the right of the
workers to secure iii that they can
by fair and reasonable methods. I'm
ionism repudiates the doctrine of the
employer that in giving work to a
man he is comforting a benefit upon
him. The reverse is also true, labor
unions do not teach that by accepting
employment a man is corferring a
favor upon the employer. An ideal
employer is one whose manner toward
his employees is one Of mental, moral
and social equality, and it has not
been so very many years ago that
this equality was recognized and
practieed by employers of the Lead
Belt, but those who were in charge
then have passed onto their reward
and others have rose up to take their
places who show by their bearing to-
ward the workingman that thew re-
gard him as their inferior in every
respect. The rumblings of industrial
unrest can be heard the length and
breadth of this entire Lead Belt, and
it will not be long until there will be
mighty shaking up ain the valley
of dry bones" that will cause some
wise men of the east to become a
great deal wiser than they are at
present. There is just one thing that
will prevent an industrial upheaval in
this Lead Belt and that is the placing
of men in charge of affairs who have
some regard for human beings, men
who will not place their employees up
on the same mental and moral level
as the mules that assist the men in
bringing forth the valuable ores. We
venture to assert that if this Lead