Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-06-02

mel Of professional strike-breakers is
/ such as to render Iudicrous and even
/ grotesque the assertion that they are
at all afflicted BY conscientious
/ scruples. II they have c0nsciences at
all the article Is 50 minute as to be
invisible 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 10 refuse
J, to work under certain conditions. why
does not the presumption hold good
that the majority is right there As
elsewhere?
The time Is rapidly arriying-in the
older trade unions has already ar
rived-when the fact that workman
is non-unionist Is prima facie evi-
dence that he is also an incompetent.
Non-union labor is usually over
worked and underpaid labor. The
very instinct of self-preseryation,
therefore, justifies the union work.
man in condemning the strike-break-
er.
The strike-breaker occupies in the
industrial world a position precisely
analogous to that of the renegade
and traitor. He represents type of
man universally condemned in any
other sphere of human activity. He
sells himself for less than the 30
pieces of silver, but too often lacks
| the grace which caused Iscariot TO go
and hang himself. He commits the
objectionable sin of betraying his
| fellows. He purioins that to which
he has no claim and is the one stumb-
| ling block in the path of the onward
advance of the wage-earner. The at
tempt to make him respectable re-
fleets discredit upon those engaged
in it.
For all practical purposes in civil
lied lands we may hold that the test
of the Golden Rule furnishes a suffi-
GENTLY accurate measurement of the
morality of any present-day code of
action. II the code does not meet the
test, it is not moral, no matter if it
is legal.
How does the act of the strike
breaker square with the sublime in
junction, do unto others as We would
have them do unto your" By what
tortuous logic can it be asserted that
the man who, from selfish personal in
terest, seeks to profit by the industrial
difficulties of his fellowmen, is acting
in accordance with the Golden Rule
| There are sometimes, but rarely,
extenuating circumstances under
which the strike-breaker acts. He
may be driven by want--but this sell
dom happens, for, at least when labor
is organized, those who are in real
need are provided with the necessi-
ties of life from the union funds. He
may, sometimes, be actuated by a
| feeling of friendship for an employer.
But the strike-breaker, pure and SIM
pie, the non-union man who embraces
the opportunity of taking jobs which
his fellow-craftsmen have forsaken
on principle, is actuated by no such
motive, but by unadulterated selfish
ness.
He sets up his desire for Individual
advancement as of more power and
influence in determining his course of
action than the welfare of his kind.
He permits himself to be used as a
club to strike down the aspirations of
labor. He contributes the one great
impeachment to the success of the prin-
ciple of collective bargaining, upon
which the trade-union movement is
based. He probably inspired the say
ing of philosopher, "The more see
of men the better like dogs" He is
an industrial thief, social renegade,
a moral leper, and as such merits, and
fortunately often receives, the penal
ty of being set aside in practical iso-
lation from honorable men.
The attempt to clothe the strike
breaker with the attributes of hero
ism and morality would be immensely
ludicrous were it not so serious in its
possible results. With our leading
university turned into a foundry for
the casting of brass medals to decor
ate his courage, what wonder if the
strike-breaker initiates his chest and
pats his own shoulder.
| 1t will be said that mans right to
his opinion must not be curtailed in
a free country, and that consequently
the non-union man must be safe
guarded in his non-union belief.
Granted. But opinion is one thing,
action is another.
1t is conceivable that besides the
moral pervert there are the mentally
incapable, and that there are those
among wage-earners whose intellects
are so feebly that they are unable to
read the lesson of the efficiency of or
ganization, writ large on the page of
industrial history. Toward these in
tellectually defective people, toler-
ance is proper.
i But the theory of our democratic
institutions, which is that men should
have liberty of opinion, nevertheless
puts constraint upon the Transforming
of these opinion into deeds when these
deeds are esteemed inimical to the
public good
i The analogy holds good in the labor
world. The trade union says, You
may believe what you like, but when
the general interests of labor are at
stake, we deny your moral right to
act with the opponents of labor"
i In the larger sphere of the state,
the non-conformist is obliged to sub
nit to the judgment of the majority.
He may be of the opinion that the
:. state has no right to enforce specific
regulations as to the public health;
he may object to being taxed for the
support of schools; he may protest
against paying for the maintenance
! of armies and navies--but his protest
must be confined to words. If he re-
fuses to comply with the demand of
the board of health or of the tax col
lector, he is made to pay the penalty.
"The right to work Is inalienable,' =
champions of the non-unionists ex-
claim, and the chorus is taken up by
SNUG Philistinism all along the line.
Dilettante social reformers, college
professors, jealous editors, manufac-
turers' associations, and strike-break-
Iers everywhere echo the sweet re-
srNNI 4.