The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1919-11-27
ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE
CLOSED SHOP.

The steel strike, the coal strike, the
longshoremen's and printers strikes in
New York, the policemen's strike in
Boston, the carpenters strike in Sc
attic, and numerous other strikes in
various parts of the country, all called
since the close of the war and during
a period in which every patriotic citi-
zen should have felt impelled % use
his influence toward restoring normal
and orderly conditions, have gone a
long way toward discrediting leaders
OF organized labor and it is doubtful
If they will ever he restored to public
confidence. 1t is no excuse for them
TO place the blame for calling strikes
upon the red radicals whose real pur-
pose was an attack upon the govern
ment. This is of course true, and this
very fact should have nerved the re-
sponsible leaders OF organized labor to
hight the seditious influences n ex-
pose their reasonable designs. But
they did not choose to follow that
course; rather. they approved the ac-
ton of the radicals and thus arrayed
organized labor against the govern
ment itself. In such a contest there
can be only one result. The power of
the government is supreme, and any
organization or class that opposes it
or rebels against its authority must
and will be crushed, rendered impo-
tent, and it's responsible agents made
to pay he penalty for their crimes
against the state.
For many years the people of this
country have displayed a spirit of as
tonishing indulgence toward organic
ed labor in its enforcement of the
principle of what is commonly called
the closed shop" meaning that union
men will not work on the same lob
with ~non-union men; that they will
strike, resort TO the boycott and even
violence to enforce this demand. 1t is
true that there has long been more or
less resistance to this un-American
Attifndn nf fha pnipnu b,,t .,t.
employers have submitted to it until
the unions have come to regard it al
most as an inherent right. But the
great war has drawn attention to and
swept away many conditions of wrong
and injustice to which the people have
long submitted, and from present in
the CLOSED shop will be
caught in the maelstrom of readjust-
ment that will eventually recognize ]
and protect every citizen in his rights h
Certainly the right to labor, absolutely 4
free from dictation from n union or !
~ Ne"ih@"etoh, ~ oue VI tneSe =
rights. The right to organize for mu- (
protection can never be question S
ed, but no man who chooses to re- f
outside the organization should e
denied the right to earn his living /
any terms satisfactory to himself v
md his employer. That this right has c
been denied under the closed shop" +
has long been permitted. but t
he unions themselves have caused an a
weakening of the public conscience on c
his question through their arrogant n
demands and their apparent determin- b
tic to force the government itself G.
nto submission to them. The ex- Il
remes to which they have gone has d
aused a widespread reaction in pub ii
lc sentiment which is rapidly crys- OF
aling in a demand that the unions p
hall respect the i~nalienable right of lit
very American citizen to life, liberty re
the pursuit of happiness which OF
ncludes the right to sell his labor on bC
ny terms satisfactory to himself and Ju
is employer and to remain free from IA
in the exercise of this eV
.ght. Speedy recognition of this right tn
i'll go a long way toward restoring nc
Ibor unions to public confidence, and m
~eleyating them to a higher plane in
ian they have heretofore occupied. tn
tn
ENAToR BoRAH'S CONSISTENT A