The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1922-09-02
STR|KEbREAKER is ENEMY OF HIS
KIND and TRAITOR TO HIS CLASS
Occupies in World Of Industry Position Precisely Analogous
TO That Of Renegade and Base Betrayer.

Has a workman the moral right to
work how, when and where he
pleases," even to becoming a strike
breaker?
That right to individual freedom
Of action in the greatest number of
ways is perhaps the most precious
product of civilization. In the degree
that this freedom is assured and in
dividual initiative permitted, social
progress is stimulated. In brief. the
entire advance of the masses from
serfdom and feudal bondage to the
sovereign citizenship of our own time
has been through the increase of
the liberty of the individual in mat
tiers political, religious and economic.
It must not be assumed that trade
unionists seek to curtail the absolute
legal rights of men to work how,
when and where they please. What
soever unduly coercive measures ir-
responsible and injudicious men have
sometimes resOrted to in times of in
dustrial trouble, trade-unions are
prepared to grant and respect the
legality Of the acts Of nom unionists
u breaking that commandment in
the labor decalogue which says:
"Thou shalt not steal-thy neighbour;
job"
The contention of the trade-union-
list himself is, that he has the legal
right to sell his labor how, when and
where he pleases, for this carries
with It the legal right to refuse to
sell his labor excepting under condi-
lions approved of by him. Thus, if it
should be assumed that the individ-
ual workman has, legally, no choice
In the disposition of his labor, an in
voluntary servitude would be estab-
ltshed, which would effectively debar
the union man from refusing to
work with unfair men.
A man may do many harmful and
unjust things and still be within the
law. The Shylock who forecloses a
mortgage or evicts a widow and or
phans from their little home is with
in the law. The merchant who bank
rupts a smaller competitor by UNDER
selling him, is within the law. The
trust which freezes out the smaller
<
nate who controls the oil market and
raises the prices of the poor mans
light. is within the law. Hundreds of
instances are familiar to u.s. all of
which conclusively prove that legal
ity and justice are by no means
synonymous terms. Hence, it is ap-
parent that an individual wage earn
err may be acting legally, and yet be
pursuing a policy which is seriously
harmful to the interests of other
workmen.
To say that the pon-unionist has
the moral right to work how, when,
or where he pleases is, Of course, the
same thing as saying that he has the
moral right, if he pleases, entirely
apart from extenuating circum-
stances, to become a strikebreaker,
an active agent working against his
fellow-craftsman, a traitor to his
class and kind.
If there be those so abnormally
constituted as to feel they serve con-
science best by serving their fellow
men least, then the trade-unionist
can only absOlve them from respon-
sibility and leave them free to put
on the halo constructed for them by
that most eminent parsonage who
has designated the scab as the best
type of modern hero.
But it will hardly be asserted, even
by the opposition, that men are seri-
ously lacerated in conscience by re-
training from taking the jobs of men
on strike. The motive which leads
them to do this may come from need
from desire for promotion, from mo-
tlVes of revenge, but scarcely from
consclentiousness. The very person.
mel OF professional strikebreakers is
such as to render ludicrous and even
grotesque the assertion that they are
at all afflicted by conscientious scru-
pies. If they have consciences at all
the article is so minute as to be in
visible to the average eye.
If there be a sound principle in
democracy, in government by major
ity, If a majority of a craft decide
that it is for their interest to refuse
to work under certain conditions.