Newspapers / The Harbinger (Raleigh, N.C.) / Oct. 11, 1902, edition 1 / Page 1
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ARBINGER ' ORGANIZATION. EDUCATION. ELEVATION. , Vol. 7. Raleigh, N. C. Saturday, October 11. 1902. Mo. 40 LOOK PLEASANT. We cannot,' of course, all be handsome, And it's bard for us all to be good. We are sure now and then to be lonely, And we don't always do as we should. To be patient is not always easy, To be cheerful is much harder still. But at least we can always be pleasant, J.I we make up our minds that we will. And it pays every time to be kindly, Although you feel worried and blue ; If you smile at the world and look cheerful, The world will soon smile back at you. So try to brace up and look pleasant, No matter how low you are down, ' Good humor is always contagious, But you banish your friends when you frown. WARFARE. In his speech before the 30,000 union men on Labor Day in San Fran cisco, Father Yorke said : "What does it mean in San Francis co that we have a tolerable condition of affairs ? It means the old story that we are now enjoying the peace that comes to us, and that can come to us only through a fight. . You may win bloodless victories, but every bloodless victory is a flower that springs from a eld of blood. If the carmen's strike was arbitrated in a week, if it was marked by nothing that might call a blush of shame to any cheek, it was possible because a year ago the City Front Federation and the teamsters, in daring to avail themselves of their rights, stood together, shoulder to .shoulder, and fought a good fight against misrepresentation and against calumny, and against newspapers that lied, against" millions that conspired, and against a civic government that -was false to its oath of office. "It is a saying, in the history of the church, 'Sanguis martyram semen ec clesiae,' that is to say, that the blood of martyrs was the seed of the church. What is true in one moral movement is true in another, and the labor move ment is as truly a moral movement as the church movement, and the presage of all future victories and the guaran tee of all the trials to come is that in days gone by men were not wanting in this city all over this land to do all and stand all for the cause of labor, neither shall they be wanting in the years to come. "You understand, dear friends, bet ter than I can tell you that old Ara bian patriot, thousands and thousands of years ago, who said that the life of man was a warfare, had pretty well sized up the situation. Old Job had troubles of his own) and though he was able to bear them patiently, he was able to talk about them in pretty good manner, and, therefore, when he said that the life of man was a warfare, I think we, we with our experience, will be able to agree with him. And above aL? things, the relation of class and class in a community, the relation of man and man I won't be unkind enough to say the relation of husban.d and wife but. the general relation of class and class in a community such as ours, is really and truly a warfare." "There is no mistaking the nature of our struggle. All life's a struggle for 1 the poor and the rich the former for a living, the latter to keep them from making it. J'' "In national warfare when the soldier deserts his company he is summarily shot if captured, the just desert of a traitor. The warfare for a rip-ht to exist individually, if you cannot col lectively. Only in this way can you (unless you put a ticket' in the field) secure substantial reforms. Show your strength and cease to be the sneer and laughing stock of the politicians and the people." THE MINERS' STRIKE. We clip the following editorial from the Charlotte Observer of last Sunday : The failure of the President of the United States to bring the striking miners and mine operators together in a conciliatory way at the conference between representatives of both in his presence does not bode well for the future of the public. The Observer cannot but think that the miners are asking too much if by their demand for the recognition of their union they mean that no non-union man shall be allowed to work ; if they merely desire that the operators shall negotiate with them as an organized body, that de mand might be conceded. Labor is in duty bound to organize, when capital itself is so strongly organized. Of the two parties who faced the President Friday in the conference, it remains to be said that President Mitchell, of the Miners' Union, showed the finer spirit. He was more willing to make concessions. While he did insist on recognition of the union as a sine qua non, in the later proceedings of the conference, it must not be forgotten that his first proposition was this, in answer to the President's strong ap peal for concessions in the interest of the public good : "Mr. President: I am much impress ed with what you say. I am much impressed with the gravity of the situ ation. We feel that we are not respon sible for this terrible state of affairs. We are willing to meet the gentlemen representing the coal operators to try to adjust our differences among our selves. If we cannot adjust them that way, Mr. President, we are wil ling that you shall name a tribunal who shall determine the issues that have resulted in the strike and if the gentlemen representing the operators will accept the award or decision 01 such a tribunal, the miners will wil lingly accept it, even if it is against their claims." The operators refused this proposi tion to arbitrate everything in dispute. In so doing it strikes us that they failed to reach that high plane of un selfish patriotism upon which the Presi dent invited them to stand. The fact that Mr. Roosevelt is to appeal to the miners to return to work, and leave the settlement of the strike to legisla tion seems to indicate that he has more hope of concessions from the la borer than from the employer in this acute and distressing clash of interest. ECHOES FROM THE LABOR PRESS. By standing together, workingmen can get the earth. What more could they ask ? The man who employs scab labor may be depended upon to do a scab job and disregard all contracts. The person wno receives a reason able wage should recognize the obliga tion of a reasonable service in return, Capitalism interprets "Render unto Csesar the things which are Caeesar's" as follows : "Render unto seizer every thing he seizes." For paper, flower fori decoration for the fair, call on Mrs. J. A. Bragassa, S. Salisbury St, next Academy Music. CONFERENCE FAILS. President Roosevelt, with a great desire to benefit the public and the thousands of suffering miners in the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania,' on Friday had a meeting arranged be tween the coal operators and President John Mitchell of the miners' union. It was a most auspicious occasion wherewith to settle the great strike, and President Mitchell arose to the occasion and offered to submit the en tire matter to a board of arbitration, or to the President himself. The offer was indignantly refused, and on the other hand the operators heaped upon the head of Mitchell abuse for his organization which they declared were ' a band of anarchistic murderers. The conference, which was one of the most j notable in the history bf the nation, shows that labor cannot always expect fair dealings from its employers. The operators present at the meeting Fri day afternoon would not recognize the union though they were willing enough to denounce it. : The manly attitude of President Mitchell, who offered to let a board of arbitration settle the strike, will, and has made many thousands of friends all over the country for the unions and for unionism. Unionism stands for law and order, and the false and mali cious charge made that they were rep resented the class of law breakers, and that they were anarchists is foolish and absurd, and sounds like the wan derings and maudlin statements of some whisky-bessotted brain. The attitude of operators in the conference was anything but manly. On the other hand it was filled with suggestions of childishness and any thing but manhood. The fact is that the President must have felt a keen disgust at the attitude of the men who represented the so-called aristocracy and wealth of the country. In one breath the disgusting speci mens of manhood declare thev will not recognize President Mitchell and in the next they want to otop the crimes being committed at this time in Pennsylvania. They are about as inconsistent as human beings can be. They will disgust any man that has a spark of manhood about him. One of the cardinal virtues is to recognize defeat when it happens. The opera tors recognize that they are defeated, yet they have not the sense to see it, or having sense, have not the manhood to acknowledge it. The things for these disgusting oper ators to do is to get in line and to ac knowledge that they are defeated. Holding out longer will make them all the poorer, and the miners as for that matter, too. The public now sympathizes with the strikers, and from now until the end of the strike the miners will receive substantial aid from all sections of . the country, and from all classes and condition of peo pleSavannah (Ga.) Labor Herald A WORD TO KICKERS. We often hear members of a local union say when speaking of some offi cial, "Oh, he is no good, and so long as he holds that position I will not at tend a meeting." Now, my brother, come let us reason together. That brother, in order to hold the position, had to receive a majority of all the votes cast in order to be elected, conse quently he must have been the choice of a majority of the local union ; and since when did you consider you had the right to question the will of the majority? It is a principle as old as the government of the United States that the majority must rule and the minority must abide by their decision ; and when you criticise the acts of a majority of the local union you show by criticism that you are lacking in true trades union principles, and have not the interest of the organization at heart. But methinks I hear you say that you were not present at the meet ing when the objectionable official was elected. If true, so much the worse for you, for it shows a lack of interest upon your part. It is every member's duty to attend the meetings of the local union regularly, and aid by his pres ence, as well as by his vote, in the gen eral business that comes before it ; and especially so at the meeting when offi cers are to be elected who are to guide and direct the workings of the local union, and who, in order to be success ful, must and will receive the support of every "true" trades unionist in the organization. Whenever I hear a mem ber making statements derogatory to any officer of a local union, I always believe that it is either from some per sonal spite or that he is being used by his employer to ruin the influence of the officer in question in order to de-: stroy the organization. Now, brothers, think this over carefully, and then take a withdrawal card from the Knockers' Club and place it with the Boosters' Club, and I assure you it will pay you much larger dividends in the future, besides adding to the strength of the organization. Butchers' Journal. LABOR AND CAPITAL. The relative efficiency of capital and labor in the production of wealth is difficult to determine, and probably no two economists would agree if they attempted to state it in precise terms. It is commonly held that capital and labor are equally iudispensable, that they are interdependent and that either is helpless without the other. Un der existing conditions that may be true in some degree, but it is conceiv able that labor should produce wealth without capital, while" it is uncon ceivable that capital should produce anything without labor. Capital is the unconsumed profluct of labor, stored to enable labor to live while engaged in producing more wealth. Primitive man had no capital until he produced it by labor. When he went to the shore to dig clams for his breakfast, he represented labor with out capital, yet he produced wealth, and if he dug with his hands clams enough to last him a few days while buildiug a hut of reeds he stored the the product of labor and converted it into capital. Yet that capital, a bushe of clams, left to itself, could not build the hut of reeds nor dig more clams. It was the "wage fund" of that man's economic system, but if it spoiled he would still be able to produce more wealth by labor alone. In the more complicated system of civilization cap ital is only the unconsumed store oi ciams aug oy laoor, and it can pro duce nothing by itself. There was no wage fund until labor created capital. Labor is not helpless alone, but capital is inert and dead without labor. All the gold in the world cannot make a blade of grass grow. How labor creates value is shown strikingly in iron manufactures. Labor takes a bit of iron ore from the earth, imparting to it a value of 75 cents, for example. Turned into bar iron by more expenditure of labor, the bit of ore becomes worth $5. Made into horseshoes it is worth $10, but if made into needles it is worth $6,800. Put more labor into the iron, convert it in to hair springs for watches, and its value jnmps to $400,000. The figures given are from one of Carroll D. Wright's official reports of the labor bureau, and they are used by the Railway Engineering Magazine to illustrate the creation of value by labor alone. Nevertheless, capital increases the productive efficiency of labor by providing tools and subsistence while the iron is being converted into useful articles, and solution of the problem of just sharing of wealth depends upon true determination of the function of capital in the process of production. Philadelphia North American. HANDS ACROSS THE SEA. William C. Steadman, president of the British trades union congress, in session in London, sent to the Chica go News a greeting to American labor, in which he said, among other things : We know full well that the constant flaunting in our faces of the superior ity of American workingmen, which lias become so common of late, neither emanates from the men themselves nor has their approval. We recognize their magnificent capacity, and yet we have faith in the ability of English abor to hold its own with any in the world. This playing of the toilers of one country against the toilers of an other is part of the capitalistic game, which we understand how to take at its proper value. We do not recognize competition between workingmen any where in the world. Competition is the monopoly of capital. Our congress meets amid conditions more vital to the cause of organized abor than any that have confronted us since British trades unionism has been legalized. We have to make a most earnest protest against the new iniquitous system of "judge-made law" which within the last year struck so deadly a blow against the inalienable right to conduct peaceful strikes and peaceful picketing by making the officers and the funds of trades unions liable for damages for which they are in no sense responsible. We depre cate the strike, but it is too powerful a weapon lightly to be given up. We intend also to emphasize the necessity for increased and more direct representation of labor in parliament. The present Conservative and Liberal party system has deluded us too long with idle hopes. We have come to realize that not until organized labor speaks in the national legislature through laboring men can- trades un ionism dream of obtaining even half the measure of recognition to which it aspires and to which it is entitled. Finally we shall protest strenuously against the growth of trusts and their malign influence. They not as yet, it is true, display wide proportions in Great Britain, but the Americanization of British capital will inevitably be followed by the Americanization of British labor and against the consum mation we intend sleeplessly to guard. . . .. 1
The Harbinger (Raleigh, N.C.)
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Oct. 11, 1902, edition 1
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