The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1919-10-14
SHALL LIBERTY
PERISH IN AMERICA

nation by the most despotic, unrea-
sonable oligarchy the world has ever
known? This is the problem which
our country now has to meet.
The question is not the right of
labor to organize, nor the right to
strike, nor the right to demand high
wages; but it is, shall men who do
not belong to union labor be forced
by the bludgeon, and the murderer's
deadly missiles, to sell their indie
pendence and their liberty and their
very souls for the privilege of work
ing under a union label?
Shall law and order rule or shall
a mob defy Congress and the coun-
try?
We boast that this is a free coun-
try, where every man can worship
God according to the dictates of his
own conscience "a country where
every man has equality before the
law. But our Boosting is in vain when
without punishment radical unionism
undertakes to murder men who re-
fuse to be shackled by its chains,
when preachers are warned that they
must in some way be in sympathy
with and preach to the union men,
as though union men were in some
way different in the sight of God
from other men, and as though they
could be saved in some other way
han that appointed by God for all
men.
Whatever good labor unions have
wrought, and when rightly directed
there is a wide field for their work,
they have sown hatred where peace
should exist, they have lessened
mems moral stamina and manhood
ny lessening their efficiency and
their regard for the sacredness of
work as the only possible way of hu-
man advancement.
Labor unions have taught men to
be dishonest by teaching them to
lower their standards and their out
put of work. They have argued from
false standpoint. If labor unions
had been so handled as to make eff
fciency their standard, and their
membership a proof of honor and
integrity of work, they would have
exerted a world wide influence for
upbuilding character. They would
have placed premium upon charac-
err and product, whereas now they
oenalize them. Then they would have
developed a morale among their
members which would have drawn all
honest hearted laborers into their
membership, or at least into a high
appreciation of their influence for
good. Now they have made millions
realize their power for evel, whereas
they should be a mighty power for
good. Now men know that their mem
bers are permitted, if not encourage
ed, to riot and bloodshed and muir
der to keep other men from work
ing; now we know that rank radical
ism in the livery of labor is seeking
to serve the devil by destroying our
government.
In their failure to lead in the right
way the unions have tremendously
injured their own people and crealed
false class sense which has made
many union men believe that they
are somewhat different from and en-
titled to more rights than the farm
er, the preacher, the teacher, the free
labor man, the clerk, or any or all of
the great middle class comprising
the large bulk of our population, who
are neither capitalists nor union la
Dor men. They have made their men,
bers hate, and at times murder their
fellow-workmen, merely because they
were free men and not union men.
In this hatred, so assiduously taught,
they have gone directly contrary to
all the the teachings of God and of
all human axnarianoa