The labor world. [volume], November 07, 1896, Image 13

About The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
Work To Do.
The Labor World heretofore
has called attention to ihe im­
portance of extending the work
of organization to unclassified
workingmen. Whatever the
future may have in store,
whether it be good times .or
bad, such organizations are es­
pecially important at this time.
The stability of our unions de­
pend upon union education.
Real good times are not the
best for organization work be­
cause the benefits and necess­
ity of unions are less apparent.
When bad times come the
greatest danger to unionism
comes from the pressure of the
unemployed, and the inability
of the unions to furnish work
for all their members prevents
many from fully appreciating
their benefits. Union men have
learned the lesson that it is
more profitable to work two
days a week for $2 per day than
four days per week at $1. Unor­
ganized men can see the benefits
but they do not appreciate the
method or the means by which
the result is reached.
It is the province and duty of
unionism to teach this truth
and to so utilize it through the
shorter work day agitation that
the unemployed may be by a
division of the opportunities of
labor enlisted with us in the
contest for fair conditions, liv­
ing wages and equality of op­
portunity.
Now that the campaign is
over, and political excitement
is abating the time is ripe for
such work. The eight hour
day will never come from legis­
lation, at least not while the
Minnesota Iron company's dol­
lars have an equal vote with
free born American citizens,
and we might just as well put
in our time bringing what in­
fluence we can to bear upon
local conditions with the object
in view of obtaining a practi­
cally universal eight hour day
through our own efforts.
THE LABOR WORLD
Organized labor isn't a party
to the culmination of the con­
spiracy. Ninety per cent of its
membership stood by the prin­
ciples of their organizations
and voted against the gold
standard. Had all labor been
organized the election returns
would have told a different
tale.
The Duty of Organized Labor.
Free coinage of silver had the
almost unanimous support of or­
ganized labor, because the mem­
bers of the unions had discover­
ed that wages depended upon
the demand for labor, and that
the volume of money, for use in
business transactions, was the
most important element in that
demand.
The defeat of free silver, at the
polls has been due, more than to
anything else, to the ignorance,
misinformation and subserviency
of the unorganized workingmen.
Coercion was practically power­
less as against those men who
were members of unions that
control their own trade condi­
tions, or, who, through union
education, were sufficiently
grounded in the faith they
professed, to know that the dire­
ful results by the goldites assert­
ed as certain to follow free coin­
age, were not only illogical and
unnatural, but impossible. But
the men, not so backed up, were
not only led, in order to retain
their situations, to vote for a
policy which is destructive of
their own interests, but in innum­
erable instances, on account of
faulty economic and industrial
knowledge, they were mislead as
to facts, principles and issues,
until they become mere pawns
and puppets of employers, who,
through self-interest or economic
ignorance, were the pliant tools
of plutocracy.
The results of the election em­
phasize the necessity of a broad­
er policy on the part of labor or­
ganizations, of greater emphasis
being laid on economic education,
not partisan but scientific, and
a more thorough baptism of the
whole labor movement with the
spirit of patriotism and human
brotherhood.
Political economy and human
brotherhood—in their truest
sense, one scientific and the other
religious—are two kindred ideas
as inseparable as man's soul and
body.
That religion, that ignores
economic justice, is as powerless
for the accomplishment of results
as the phantom, that, unseen to
mortal eyes, haunts the charnel
house and, that economic sys­
tem, which ignores human
brotherhood, as putrid as the
unburied corpse from which the
spirit long since has taken its
flight.
Our organizations are not
places for partisan discussions
of that all are agreed. But we sub­
mit that the science of political
economy is not partisan,nor is the
doctrine of mutual interdepend­
ence and human brotherhood
sectarian. The world without
either of them cannot get
along. And as the churches
have forgotten human brother­
hood, and statecraft ignores
political economy, organized
labor must take them up
and not only teach them but
bring about their practical real­
ization, else monopoly and ani­
malism ruin both man's physical
and spiritual estate.
The populists in Duluth,
with the exception of less than
a half a dozen, staid loyally by
W. J. Bryan and the silver
cause. The fourth precinct of
the fifth ward, which two years
ago was the only one in the
city carried for Owen, this
jrear is the banner silver pre­
cinct of the city the vote on
congressman standing 343 to
82, or more than 4 to 1* for
Towne. For president the vote
was 306 to 121, or nearly 3 to 1,
for Bryan.
No change in the money sys­
tem will bring relief unless it
carries with it the abolition of
private property.
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