The sun., 1919-10-01
why Labor Unions With Their Ex'
cesslve Demands Are Going
Down to Defeat.

why Labor Unions with Their Ex-
cessive Demands Are Going
Down to Defeat.
whether the steel strike, the Bos-
ton police strike, or similar strikes
have set back the cause Of organized
labor five years, as Secretary Red
YIELD says, or fifty years. or forever,
is mathematical speculation. But 1t Is
not speculation. it is hard, cold fact,
that the progress Of labor unions
at the cost of the rest of the people
has run into a stone wall.
Moreover, 1t is more likely that the
failure OF the Boston police strike was
effect, not cause. Similarly, the steel
strikers will losc because the tide al
ready had turned against them. Not
the fagrant desertion Of their duty
by the Boston police and not the un-
reasonable demands Of the steel str1k-
ers, but the horse sense Of the Amer
lean people has settled this question OF
whether the interests and desires of
special capital organization or special
labor organizations or special any
other organization shall be superior
70 the rights, the comforts and the
necessaries Of the whole nation.
Once upon q time-in the days
when labor unions were few in num-
bers and their membership was linn
ited-the public good naturedly took
It for granted that IL a strongly or
ganized, we'll directed, carefully con-
trolled body Of wage earners could
get a railroad or group of railroads,
a mill OF a group of mills-a whole
industry to accept under compulsion
a wage scale fixed by the union lead
ers whether it was fair or unfair,
whether It was supportable or insup-
portable-there was a time, we cay,
when the public good naturedly took
the result as q mere victory over the
employers, or as mere inroad upon
capitals returns, without anybody
else suffering or being otherwise af-
fected or interested.
But coal strikes came along and the
American people found the heavy bill
for it tackled up on their own coal
bins. Milk strikes came along and
the American people found the cost
stamped on the baby's milk bottles.
Railroad strikes came along and the
American people found the financial
damages by the hundreds Of millions
Of dollars staring them in the face
right on their own tables every time
they sat down to eat a meal. Then
the American people knew the grim
truth.
Long before this national awaken
tng the great national majority-or-
ganized wage earners, unorganized
wage earners and all-had resolved
that the public should not be preyed
upon by natural monopolies or unnat-
ural monopolies, the so-called trusts.
organized to bleed everybody else
When that great majority awakened
to what was happening to It at the
hands Of the unions 1t found It no
more agreeable to be devoured by a
minority of organized labor than to
be preyed upon by a minority of or
ganized capital.
The tide turned when it became
clear to the American people that
multiplying wages in this, that and
the other organized rank, with multi
plying prices everywhere, was strip
ping them not merely of the comforts
they formerly had enjoyed, but of the
very necessaries that sustained them.
And so It is that such labor unions
are not merely losing public support,
as Mr.. REDFrEID says; they have lost
Il. So It is that this public support
has not been merely withdrawn from
these union extremists; it is now
turned against them.
That is why the Boston police
strike failed-the public was already
done with giving Its support to war
against the public itself. That is why
the steel strike viii fail. That is
why, If, in spite of the handwriting
on the wall. the leaders of the coal
miners walk out as they threaten to
do. the coal strike will fail. 1t is
why. across the seas where the pub
lie has been made the victim just as
IL has here of these incorporate and
unappeasable raids upon the public's
pocketbook. the British railway strike
will fail.
To the English speaking peoples on
both sides OF the Atlantic there can be
no liberation Of the principle, much
less thePractice, that democracy shall