are not the means by which these wrongs may be set right. The appeal to
strikes is an appeal from reason to error, from justice to injustice,
from order to disorder, from law to riot, from morality to immorality,
from virtue to sin, from innocence to murder. The strike is a foe to
the infant at the mother's breast; it is an enemy to the happiness
of home; it is the howling wolf at the door of the humble cottage;
it is hostile to personal liberty; it is an enemy to religion, it is
the embodiment of riot and murder striding through the land stamping
out the life of the nation, crushing out the manhood of the citizens,
setting a premium upon crime and outlawing virtue and honesty. I wish I
had the power to represent it in its true light. A mass of grumbling,
dissatisfied men who will not work, by desperation and lawlessness
deterring others from honest toil. Business is paralyzed and millions
of dollars sunk. But this is small compared to the suffering and
misery and want in the homes of these frantic men. Could we but lift
the curtain which hides their dark homes, a picture would be presented
which would cause the blood to chill and sicken the soul. These men
hang around the saloons and stifle the cries for bread from their homes
by liquor and beer--a morsel of cheese or a cracker answering for food.
But what about the wretched wife and starving child?
But they do not stop there. The torch, pistol, the knife, the bomb and
infernal machines are brought in to play their deadly parts. Then the
fire fiend with his angry tongue laps up wealth and happy homes, the
knife and the pistol start streams of human gore down the gutters of
the streets, and the hellish bomb brings massive edifices cracking,
crumbling to the earth.
The fiend having sated himself in gore and ruin, surveys the field of
desolation. What has been gained? Nothing. If permitted he returns to
work with a weakened constitution, less respect of his family, kept
under the watch of the law, without the confidence of his employer
and with the curse of his own conscience. You ask: "If strikes are
not the remedy, what is the remedy?" Have a clear understanding with
your employer. Try to enter into his interests and feelings. Tell him
plainly that you can not afford to work for him at present rates.
If he can not or does not raise your wages, give him notice that you
will quit at a certain time, and then do not interfere with the person
engaged in your place. All parties will feel better, and your employer
may soon be able to grant your request and recall you. You certainly
have no right to interfere with others who are willing to work for him.
The colored laborer can neither afford to strike nor encourage strikes.
He has felt the baneful effects of them. He has time and time again
seen white labor organizations resort to this method of getting colored
men out of employment. If it is right against the employer for higher
wages, it is right against a fellow-workman on account of race or
color. But it is not right at all. This is a country of law and order,
and the negro's salvation lies in his willing obedience to law--fairly
and impartially administered.