University of Wisconsin Superior - Gitche Gumee Yearbook (Superior, WI)

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of the right to work for whom he will nnd for what he will, or the denial of the right of an employer to hire any man for what he is willing to accept. These arc the actions of labor unions that are forcing them upon our attention. We can not stand idly by and say, These are not of mine, they do not concern me.” Every citizen who cares for the welfare of his country ought to be concerned, and every citizen who wishes to live in lawful peace with an unburned roof over his head and with life sustaining food on his table, must be concerned. If the conditions of war which have existed in Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania, and other states, on account of labor troubles, were spread throughout every state in the Union, living in this country would not only be unsafe but intolerable. These, then, arc the conditions that confront us today as a result of the disregard of the 'rights and liberties of man as given him by the law. Such is the problem presented by a system which has tried to establish class lines. Any institution which tries to establish caste in this country is attempting to check the current of our industrial progress. But No!” says the labor agitator, we will arise and by sheer force of numbers control the government in the interest of the proletariat 1” What does this mean? Class rule! The end of equality 1 The end of justice! The worst of all despotism, the despotism of an unrestrained and irresponsible majority. The beginning of rule by class greed and class hatred. The destruction of property rights and the end of social order. History can tell us what will follow. The rule of the strong hand. After the Revolution—Napoleon. The time will come when the relations between employers and the employed will be better, more humane, more Christian, than they are today. The coming of that time will not be hastened by legislation nor by whimsical administrative spasms. It is only through the great public that we can hope to obtain the solution. No institution can withstand the just condemnation of mankind. A wave of reform which has recently spread through the political world is most encouraging. Let us extend this reform to the industrial world. When the new spirit has changed the heart of the wage-earner; when workingmen resort to argument instead of clubs; when they learn to know the law and respect it—then will our prosperity increase; then will the rights of man under the law be respected; then will our wage-earners get their rightful share of the privileges and the opportunities of American life. G Il'C HE GUM EE PACE TWENTY-THREE

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No one denies the right of laborers to combine; nor will we find any one who will question their right to take advantage of legal opportunities to get larger and larger shares of the products which they help to make. All will concede that it is GITCHE wise sometimes for employers to consult with their working men. The result of such GUM EE discussion has often been a restraint of trade, but a halt called in prosperous times by a demand of laborers for higher wages, is in obedience to a law of nature—no human law can prevent it. But aggressive limitations upon industrial liberty, beyond those imposed by the law for the purpose of protecting of that liberty, is nothing short of industrial lawlessness and industrial tyranny. Labor unions have attempted to exercise powers of government which belong to the state alone. The union professes to believe that a state of war exists between the employer and the employed, and acting on this, they insist that strikers have the right to break the ordinary laws which prevail in time of peace and to resort to the boycott, the picket, the blacklist, and other forms of violence, in order that they may injure the business of their enemies and prevent the non-union man from working. There is no better illustration of the nature of this lawlessness than the acts performed in the great anthracite coal strike of 1902 and 1903. The Coal Strike Commission adjudged as follows: “Its history is stained with a record of riot and bloodshed. Men who chose to be employed or who remained at work were assailed and threatened and they and their families terrorized and intimidated.” Here w’as war against society and the state, for the union broke the peace and order of the commonwcalh. To those who recognize the sanctity of that fundamental law which restrains savage liberty and establishes ordered liberty, it is evident that the duty not only of employers, but of all good citizens, is to resist such lawless pretensions and refuse to yield to demands, either for higher wages or for shorter hours, when they arc made by rioters and lawbreakers. In the anthracite strike, as in nearly every strike, it is true that the labor union insisted upon the right to exercise control over the property of the employer. The employer is responsible both to society and to the individual, under the law, for the management and use of his property—yet union leaders or delegates demand control, although they have no responsibility for the management of the business; although they insist on operating outside the law, having in nearly every ease no interest in the property beyond the earning of wages in its service. They encroach upon the liberty of the employer by designating the men whom he shall employ—determining the rate of wages he shall pay, regardless of the fact, as has happened often, that the earnings of the business may not warrant such wages. The boycott, the picket, and other forms of violence are resorted to for the purpose of compelling accession to these demands. But you say, “These are the excessive demands and the extravagant actions of only some of the unions.” True, indeed, these efforts to limit industrial liberty are the excesses of unions, but do they not grow out of a claim of right that is universal among the unions and their undiscriminating defenders? Do they not arise from the claim that the wage-earner may demand what is clearly a question of free contract between the employer and his employees? It is often just for laborers to demand shorter hours; it is often just for them to demand higher pay; there isr nothing against a request for a sliding scale of wages; but the law of man and the law of morality forbid any man, whether he be laborer or capitalist, to enforce his demands by violence—by oppression of his fellow beings—by a denial to any man PAGE TW'ENTY-TWO

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GIT CHE GUM EE MILWA. X KEE THE DESTINY OF OUR REPUBLIC HENRY N. DELCUM VERY age in the history of civilization is marked by great nations, every great nation by great achievements; but loyal Americans arc happy in believing that no nation has ever had a greater mission, a greater manifest destiny, than our own. The Pilgrim Fathers gave up their homes and friends to seek their fortunes in a new world, firmly believing that this was the Land of Promise. As they embarked with Bibles in their hands, they raised their voices in prayer to God, and repeated his promise unto Abraham: “Get thee out from thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation; and in thee shall all the families on earth be blessed.” Three hundred years have passed since the landing of the Pilgrims, and today we behold the fulfillment of that promise. Here in the heart of a continent has been built a nation so prosperous and powerful that millions arc annually attracted to its shores; a land so rich in resources and so bountiful in harvest that it is termed the granary of the world; a land teeming with the industries and enterprises of ninety millions of intelligent human beings. Such is the home of our republic. Born out of the revolt of free spirits against arbitrary authority, consciously founded on the principles of justice and liberty—on the inalienable rights of man— our nation is without precedent in history. Its birth is the most significant world-event of modern times; for from this event dates the institution of free government— “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Never has a nation been founded on higher principles than those embodied by our forefathers in the declaration that “all men arc created equal, and arc endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these arc life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men.” Here we have the fundamental basis of our whole structure of government. On it rests all our social and economic progress, our very national existence. The liberation of the Colonics from British subjection was but the initial step toward the formation of a union. The grave task of welding into one, thirteen isolated and independent states, representing as many different ideals and economic interests, seemed so stupendous, so impossible, that even Jefferson despaired of its accomplishment. But through the same self-sacrificing spirit of loyalty to a common cause which had characterized the struggle for independence, a consolidation into one compact whole was finally achieved under a constitution that Gladstone pronounced “the greatest political instrument ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.” A stable foundation once laid, there followed that era of remarkable growth and development—the era of territorial expansion—a time PAGE TWENTY-FOUR