The workingman of to-day is the father of the future.
The trouble with us is that the employer, unlike the owner of the
fine horses, has no interest in that workingman's future or in
his future family.
He employs and treats the workingman as the casual heartless
customer would treat that fine horse if it were rented by the day
at a livery stable.
There is much to be said, no doubt, on the side of harassed
employers, many of whom are fair-minded men, and many of whom
are put to unjust annoyance by some of the labor unions'
mistakes.
But, first of all, the employer must realize the RIGHTS and
the EQUALITY of his workmen. And as a patriotic citizen he must
realize that the welfare of the future is in the health and
vitality of parents to-day.
By limiting the amount of work which they do in one day our
mechanics enable themselves to preserve some of their vitality
for mental work, for educating talks with their children. THEY
GIVE TO THEIR CHILDREN THE VITALITY WHICH THE SWEATSHOP SLAVE CAN
NEVER GIVE.
What are our laws against sweatshops but laws acknowledging the
justice of regulating the amount of the day's work?
And why do we refuse to permit unions to do for themselves what
we do on a sentimental, philanthropic, haphazard basis, through
our "sweatshop laws," for the miserable, unorganized workers of
the slums?
TO THE MERCHANTS
PLEASE LISTEN PATIENTLY TO A DISCUSSION OF THE LABOR UNION FROM
YOUR POINT OF VIEW.
We invite the merchants to consider the question of unions and of
high wages from THEIR OWN point of view.
If we err in our statements or conclusions we shall be glad to
print replies and criticisms from responsible merchants over
their own signatures.
This we maintain: THAT IN PROMOTING THE WELFARE AND INCREASING
THE WAGES OF THE GREAT BODY OF WORKINGMEN, WE PROMOTE THE WELFARE
AND INCREASE THE PROSPERITY OF ALL LEGITIMATE MERCHANTS AND
BUSINESS MEN.
The unions make mistakes. The employers make mistakes. The
unions are often unreasonable. The employers are unreasonable
sometimes.
No doubt in America the workingman is more exacting and more
highly paid than anywhere else.
But in America, also, the merchant is more quickly and numerously
successful than anywhere else. ----
As a subject for our text to-day we shall take the street-car
lines--surface, underground or elevated--of any great American
city.
The success of every street-car system is made BY ALL THE
INHABITANTS OF THE CITY. Every woman who brings a baby into the
world in a great city adds so much value to the stock of that
city's street railroads. She increases the gross income of that
railroad by about three dollars and sixty-five cents a year with
each child to which she gives birth.
Therefore the street railroad should properly serve the public
that gives the road its value.
Next in importance to the traveling public come the human beings
that work on the street railroad--the conductors, motormen,
gatemen, gripmen, engineers, etc.
This newspaper fights constantly to improve within reason the pay
and the hours of work of the street railroad employes.
This we do for the sake of the employes themselves, and for no
other reason. We demand better pay for the men that they may
lead decent American lives, feeding and clothing their wives and
children, and educating their children properly. We demand short
hours for them, that they may live part of the twenty-four hours
WITH their families, knowing their own children and bringing a
little pleasure and companionship into the lives of their patient
wives.
We are proud of the fact that we have helped in a small way to
increase the prosperity and happiness of many tens of thousands
of honest families, that we have increased the OPPORTUNITIES of
many thousands of children.
We want the merchants to remember that, while we have thus
striven to protect those masses of the people whom we represent
and whose ADVOCATE we are, we have also advanced enormously,
although without premeditation, the fortune and quick success of
every capable and legitimate merchant.
Who owns the stock in the street railroads? A few individuals--a
Widener, an Elkins, a Yerkes, a Whitney, or some other energetic
private individual.
One street railroad system, let us say, employs ten thousand men.
They struggle to add one dollar per day to their pay. We help
them with moral support and publicity, and they succeed. TEN
THOUSAND FAMILIES have each ONE DOLLAR a day more to spend, or
ten thousand dollars a day in all.
What becomes of that ten thousand dollars added daily to the
living-money of ten thousand families?
EVERY DOLLAR OF IT GOES INTO THE HANDS OF THE MERCHANT, THE
LANDLORD, OR THE SAVINGS BANK.
If the men had not got that increase in wages, what would have
become of that ten thousand dollars daily, or $3,650,000 A YEAR?
Would it have gone to the merchants of the great cities? Would
it have gone to build up thousands of comfortable little homes in
all the suburbs of the great towns? Would it have enabled
thousands of American boys and girls to stay in school instead of
going in their infancy to the mills and factories?
No!
If that money were not distributed among the people in the shape
of good American wages for good American work, it would go to
build big race tracks, where thieves and gamblers are
manufactured. It would go to buying foolish bogus antiquities
that no man needs. It would go to building ridiculous and
uncalled-for palaces where human mushrooms without a sense of
humor imitate in their idleness the active types of the past.
----
When this newspaper adds to the payroll of a great corporation,
it adds to the happiness of a great many families; and therein
lie its pride and its excuse for being. And at the same time
this increase in the payroll of the Trust or the monopolizer of
public privileges means an increase in the income, the
prosperity, the legitimate reward of the enterprising merchant,
builder and general business man.
We do not lack criticism from well-meaning friends who conduct
great stores or other business enterprises. We appreciate all
criticisms and suggestions. We offer a suggestion in return:
Let the builder who dislikes unions GO TO CHINA and build his
apartment houses. He will find patient workmen at ten cents a
day. He will find laws that suppress the unions, and laws that
suppress the newspaper which takes the side of the poor.
He will find a non-union Utopia.
But he will not find tenants for his buildings, because in a
land where men don't get high wages they can't pay high rents,
and when the few Li Hung Changs have built their palaces the
building boom is over.
Let the great merchant who deplores unions start a DEPARTMENT
STORE IN CHINA.
He will never see a walking delegate; he will never be bothered
by the dark cloud of unionism.
He will find a perfect heaven in the way of low wages.