Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1916-08-10

human being can acquire a right in
the labor of another human being.
(Applause.) No such right can be found
to exist by any governmental body or
any student of economics. It is true
that that thought goes all through the
industrial system, it seems to be per-
meating. it goes through every system
of production that perhaps the world
has ever known, until we reach Sys-
tenn of production under a democracy,
but under no form of social organiza-
ton can there be either political free
dom or political democracy unless
there is industrial democracy still go
ing all through the body polite.
The Right to Live.
There is one right that no human
| being can deny us and that is the right
/ to live. Correlative with the right of
being or the right of existence Is mans
Iinalienable right to labor-his right to
earn a living. God. the Divinity-na-
ture-has provided the only means by
which mankind can maintain life. be-
ing the field and the stream, and if his
activities are obstructed or stopped or
deranged, then the whole body becomes
gave us one way for man to earn his
right to live. He gave everyone a way
to carry out. his mandate that man
must earn his bread in the sweat of
his face, and that was the land to till,
the land to make productive. the rivers
of the earth to fish in, the air to
breathe and cause production, and
Knight say here today that before we
get a final solution for the ills that
inflict the industrial body, we must
come back to the proposition that man
has a right to the land just as he has
to the air to breathe and the water to
drink, and until we get down to the
main proposition that there can be no
lust title to land, except through use,
we will be floundering in the slews Of
industrial despair so long as we live.
(Applause.)
i The Right to a Living Wage.
But it has been truly said, my
friends, by someone, that after all man
kind is driven to do his chiefest good,
and therefore you are here to say
what you may do to advance your
fright, if I understand the spirit that
animates you. Therefore, I am here
to make my humble suggestion. Cor
Irelative again with the right to live,
of course, comes the right to living
wage, and I say that any, system of
collective bargaining that has ever
been devised will be but another sys-
tenn of slavery. or another opportunity
of welding chains upon human beings
Ethat does not start out with the pro-
position that the right to living
wage is far beyond collective bargain
ing, arbitration or anything else. But
this want to say to you: from the in
Ivestigation have made, an industry in
my opinion should not live that does
not pay living wage to every man
in that Industry wage that meas
ures up to what they call American
standards. (Applause.) The people
ought to consider 1t an embargo upon
the activities of their government and
insist on the necessary keeping alive
of the people-on the maintenance of
the right to live, and such an industry
should be taken over so that the work
ers could conduct 1t comparatively for
themselves or the government could
conduct it in order to keep life in the
people dependent on that industry.
Jour Investigations, however, show us
that there Is no such industry in the
United States, that the industries that
are the greatest offenders against the
law Of life, are those that can we'll at
ford to pay a living wage and do not
do so.
Enormous Dividends versus The
i Living Wage.
I refer now to such corporations as
the American .Fertfltzing Company.
one of the greatest interests in the
United States, owned by a man who
owned and operated other great basic
industries in this country-industrie
which we showed, with small capital
ization, earn more upon it. than prob
ably any other industry in this Repub-
lie. (Applause.)
I point to both Of the Telegraph
Companies, that Of course are not IN
der any proper system of government,
doing everything to fight down or
ganization. in order that men and wo
men may bring profits to their great
concerns on less than a living wage.
! point to the steel industry And I
point to the industry that you men in
train service. by collective bargain
ing, have rightfully wrested improved
conditions from. But think Of the
great body of laborers on the rail-
roads of this country that do not get
living wages-trackmen, telegraphers
and others. -
point to the great mining industry.
Notwithstanding so much having been
done. the great districts of the whole
United States show that the men in
that industry, on an average. earn
something like one hundred dollars
more, per year, than living wage. So.
the problem Of the living wage goes
beyond collective bargaining. There is
no union that can honor its true prin-
ciples-the principles upon which it is
founded, that would begin to bargain
with the operators Of industry, unless
they would demand as the first con-
sideration a minimum wage that pro-
yided life for its members. (Applause)
Not Freeman II Subject to
Arbitrary Discharge. III
Might 1 make one other suggestion
upon this point Any workingmah in
any industry is not a freeman. socially
or economically, unless. by some means
he is protected against arbitrary dis
charge on the part. Of his employer.
(Ap1Iauoa \ The rfCh% ~ fha vU0rlynr