Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1922-09-01
The Future of the
Workers

VUl NC1 >
The future of the workers will be
what they make it. No one but them
selves can decide what the future.
will be.
To a great extent that future will
be shaped or determind by the at
titude Of the organized wage earners
of the present day.
The ranks Of the organized wage
earners may be classified in three
groups: fighters, spectators and
quitters. Only the fighters count.
The distinction between the spec
tators and the cutters is that the
spectators are the great mass Of dues
paying members who do not take ac-
tive interest union affairs, while the
cutters are those faint hearted people |
who cannot stick and fight until the
battle is over and won.
What we need is to induce more of
the spectators to become fighters
which will stiffen the fainthearted so
there will be less cutters.
We mean that is what the workers
need for the protection of their own
future. AS one labor journal has
put it:
"No greater mistake can be made
by workingman than to quit fighting
for his own interests"
Every time an active member of or
ganized labor lays down on the job
the anti-union forces rush into the
gap thus formed and Immediately pro-
ceed to intrench themselves for future
attack
At the first favorable opportunity
that comes, crash go the wages and
the working conditions which it took
years to establish and then when it
is too, late the cutters give vent to
vain to walls Of despair.
If the suffering could be confined
to the cutters SO that they alone
would pay the penalty of their folly
their quitting could be viewed as good
riddance and the penalty as well de-
served punishment, but in the nature
of things the entire labor movement
must suffer just as it always suffered
because there are so many blind and
Indifferent workers who never raise
finger to help the good fight along but
are always and eternally clamoring
for being helped and having what
! others fought for handed them on a
platter.
1t is always few upon whom falls
the brunt of taking the initiative. 1t
is to these few that the rank and file
| of the labor movement owe nearly
everything they have thus far gained
The headway made has, of course,
also been due to the support and CO.
operation gwen by the rank and file
in the background but it is the active
members who have taken the lead and
formulated the plans that have netted
the gains of the past.
At no time in the history of the la
Dor movement has activity been more
necessary than at the present time.
To lay down now will not avert future
attacks on labor conditions but will
invite and hasten the day when addi-
tional wage cuts will be slapped on
without mercy.
From all parts of the world comes
abundant evidence that it is the quit
ters who get slashed the soonest, the
deepest and the most frequently, while
those who put up an active and in
telligent scrap for their wages and
working conditions are cut the least
and the seldomest even in times Of
depression such as we have been hav-
ing for the past year and half.
For this reason no union man can
afford to lay down on the job of his
union activity. HIS entire future is at
stake and his only hope lies in putting
up organized resistance to the efforts
being put forth to drag him and his
fellow workers down."-The Interna-
tional Steam Engineer.