The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-03-16
HOPE OF LABOR
San Francisco Labor Clarion)

| Organized labor STANDS Tor SOCIAL
Justice, for fair wages, reasonable
hours of labor and decent working
conditions; it hopes to see the dawn
ing of the day when those who do
the worlds drudgery will get some
thing more for it than a miserable
existence and the assurance that all
labor is honorable and that it is
great privilege to be able to toll; it
INDUCES the hope that it will not al
ways be necessary for human beings,
willing to earn their bread through
honest toll, to trudge in idleness
through the streets of our great
cities, cold, hungry and miserable,
like vagabond dogs; it believes that
things should be so altered as to
make it possible for those who bring
into being the worlds necessities,
comforts and luxuries, to live, in a
world of abundance, in frugal COM
fort. And in striving to bring about
these things it invites the active CO.
operation of every justice-loving man
and woman. But it INDUCES in no
iridescent dreams as to the Nation
or the State or the municipality or
benevolently inclined individuals or
groups of individuals bringing such
changes to the workers gratis.
The labor movement fully realizes
that the lot of the worker, both pres
ent and future, rests in his own
hands and that he must work out his
destiny himself, and very largely
without outside aid. 1t also appre-
ciates that the task before him is a
colossal one and the obstacles to be
encountered are numerous and try
ing, but the organized labor move
ment has not, because of these facts,
been so disheartened as to desire to
surrender to governmental authority
the right to fix the conditions under
which men will labor, or to exercise
stringent regulations over their man.
ner of life. The worker knows that
when he surrenders one right to the
State he will be called upon there
after to give up others, and it is his
love of liberty, independence and JUS
tice that leads the intelligent worker
to insiest that he be given the very
largest degree of independence of ac-
ton consistent with the welfare of
society as a whole.
The faddists who are at the pres
ent time advocating all sorts of COM
pulsion for the workers, such as COM
pulsory arbitration, compulsory sick
ness insurance, compulsory military
training, etc, as a general rule,
know that they are not to be caught
up in the clutches of the laws they
so vigorously advocate. 1t is easy
to stand off to one side and see the
other fellow suffer without feeling
any of his pain. The fatigue of the
man with his back bent over a wall
laying brick has no effect on the fell
low who is standing in the shade
looking on. So with the advocates
of compulsion, they are not to feel
the lash of dompulsion, and can,
therefore, serenely view it's approach,
but the man upon whose back the
blows will fall regards it seriously.
Whether those who advocate all
sorts of legislation for the workers,
without their approval, appreciate it
or not, the toilers are capable of de-
termining for themselves just what
is good for them, and resent being
treated upon any other basis. There
has been in the past, and is at pres
ent, too much of this sort of outside
interference. The labor movement
has no copyright on labor legislation,
and can, therefore, only protest
against it, but the protest must be
made effective.
| The organized workers must fight
to maintain their liberty of action
or they will surely forfeit it, slowly
at first, but more rapidly after the
movement is once under way. "Eter-
nal vigilance is the price of liberty"
was not said in jest, and if labor's
hopes are to be realized then vigil
lance must be practiced.