Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1919-1980, 1922-09-04
Labor Day Thoughts

This is Labor Day. day which walking delegate has
influenced the politician to set aside holiday to
memorae the dignity of labor in the celebrate by
parades and oratons pcnc auto baseball and
other devses not calculated for dignity Just why labor
should have to have holiday than capital can be
answered better popaby by those who work the worker and
whose eloquence deuges the land today.
1t the custom of the union leader to ascrbe the advance
of labor serfdom to the shirt
astocracy labor unions and yet but small per-
cenage of labor is organized and those principally the
skilled workmen who have little sympathy with their
skilled brother workers the socalled capitalist Labors
advance is due principally to the advance of society and i'm
of living conditions generally and not solely to
the efforts of professional labor organizers.
glimpse of the conditions surrounding labor few
tures graphically presented in Mark Twans Con
neccut Yankee in King Arthurs Court" not the filmed
portrayal but the book There has been great improvement
in the condition Of labor since But all society has made
proportional advance in the period and is only in the
few decades that labor unon has asserted itself and
posed the regenerator Of society which will probably
regeneration long after the machinery of organized
labor has gone to the scrap heap
The first labor agtator perhaps would be better to call
him the first democrat and certainly the first socialist
John Ball. whose radical preachngs him the title of the
"mad priest of Kent" His popular ryhme
and span
Who was then the gentleman?'
found ready acceptance Mere England" helped bring
the first revolt the precursor of the srug
giles that created English liberty.
AS matter Of fact Adam delved Digging well as
the Adams share to hunt
to fish, and to fight ADAM and by Adam primitive
man. the expoter and Eve the developer To the Ewes
the beginning of agriculture manufacture and art
Woman the first propertystolen at first and then bar
tered for 1t not until maraudng took to enslavng
his captive males instead of bucheng them that
elevated to the dignity of work And until recent
times the work reserved for the conquered and ensaved
people by their lords and masters the conquerers.
To back John Ball and listen to his fourteenth century
impassoned plea as given in Green's history:
Good people things will well England long asI
goods there be yens and gentle
they it? Why they hold
i'll
be not that they make gain for them by toll what they
pride? n and
They houses
labor the the is of and
OF our toll that these men hold their state"
1t is six centuries since the priest of Kent breathed his
fierce protest against human inequality and social injustice
1t exists today it did then though not in the degree
All attempts to remedy have futile because of the in
grained sefshness of humanity Every experiment begun
aruism christened in bloodshed has but developed
of masters to replace the old in the exploitation of the
people, Nevertheless the has been real and the i'm
gradual and there time in the worlds
history when the toer had better wages better living and
better opportunity than he has today
How far labor has since the days of and
cake revealed by the fact that labor organizations
grown powerful attempt dictate the national
administration and the recognized leader of unionsm
goes record defyng the United States government
Sooner later pride eadeth to fall and that is where
organized labor is riding to this labor day
DDnnDCcCWC rnNuCNTInN SO far been