The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1919-02-01
THE AMERICAN WAY.

II general strike succeeds in
Argentine, Peru or Finland, we have
workingmen in America who ask
why the same methods cannot sue
coed here. A general strike is an
industrial revolution. In countries
where workingmen have not the
right to control their governments
by the ballot "a general strike may
be justifiable They have no other
weapon to use but the strike.
Would a general strike be war
ranted in the United States, in
country which gives to every man,
and soon it will be every woman,
the full right of suffrage? Any sort
of revolution in the United States,
industrial or political, would be an
indictment against our ability to rule
ourselves. 1t is strange how many
pcople we have here who have got
ten into the habit of talking about
starting the fire works"
We have set up in America insti-
buttons born of freedom, the result
Of great human sacrifice, and
through which every man is given
an opportunity to work out his des-
tiny. If the manner in which these
institutions are conducted is not to
our liking, we have it within our
power to change them, that is if we
can induce sufficient number of
people to agree with us, and who
will work and vote with us in the
proper way.
If the courts misuse their power,
which they have sometimes done; if
governors or state boards delegate
to private interests certain func-
tions of government to be used
against labor, as has often, hap
pened, or if the police power is
wrongfully used to "protect" prop
erty at the expense of the rights of
persons, as has frequently been the
case, an orderly way has been pro-
vided by our laws to correct these
wrongs.
Elections are not very far apart
here. In most states they are held
every two years, and on such occa-
sions workingmen are given an OPP
portunity to vote for men and meas
ures of their own liking. They have
absolute freedom in the matter, and
they usually get just what they vote
for. If workingmen were as care
f>ll about voting for men as they
are In voting for measures they
would see to it that men were elect
ed to office who would enforce the
laws without fear or favor, and who
would jealousy guard and defend
the rights of all men and women
without respect to their social con-
dition.
If capitalists bring down the iron
heel on laborers through the mis-
use or abuse of the law, as they did
recently in Arizona when law-abid-
Ing workingmen and sympathetic
merchants were unlawfully driven
out of Bisbee, it does not justify
1aborers in resorting to the same
tactics. Two bad deeds cannot make
one good deed. The Bolsheviki are
proceeding on this theory in Russia.
They are attempting to rule as the
Car ruled, except that they hope
e Ito make the people the benefciaries
rather than the upper classes. They
. are merely substituting one sort of
! absolutism for another sort. They
have resorted to the law of force,
: the law of the tooth and the fang.
1T can't last. It strikes back, and
in all probability it WILL hurt harder
coming than it did going.
4 Every time a. corporation wrong
Inlly uses the law to crush labor it
4 gives force and effect to the Boil
shevist theory in America, which is
.stypified here in the teachings of the
III. W. w. That theory is to use the
B tactics Of the oppressors to destroy
them.
When force or violence is resorted
to in a democratic country to achieve
an end it but serves to discredit de-
mocracy.t 1t indicates that those who
employ it have no faith In our law
and our government, Or they. are