It is an honor to
the feelings of those who stand outside and witness this so-called
struggle now in progress between capital and labor, that they believe
the whole question can be settled by kindly treatment and reasonable
argument. There are some cases that will yield to such treatment, and
one's whole duty is not performed till all possible, reasonable, and
humanitarian methods are adopted. There has been an excuse for the
organization of labor, and it, to some small extent, still exists.
Time was that the surplus of unskilled labor was used on a mercantile
basis to reduce wages to such an extent that it was almost impossible
to rear a well nurtured, much less a well educated and well dressed
family, and, moreover, the hours of labor in some branches of business
were so long as to shorten the lives of operatives and make
self-improvement impossible. The natural progress of civilizing
influence did much to abate many of these evils, but the organization
of labor removed sores that had not and perhaps could not have been
reached in other ways. Having then an excuse for organization, and
supported by the success made in directions where public sympathy was
with them, is it to be wondered that they have gone too far in very
many cases, and that the leadership of such organization has in many
instances been captured by designing men, who control the masses to
accomplish selfish ends? Whatever may have been the method of
evolution, it is certain that the manufacturing operations of the
present day have to meet with elements entirely antagonistic to their
interests, and in very many ways antagonistic to the interests of the
workingman.
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