| Show SUCH A FRIEND OF LABOR The Tribune continues to refer to the members of the Miners uni6n as incendiaries incen-diaries and murderers at heart In support of its indiscriminate denunciation denun-ciation i quotes an Idaho paper which evidently feels the same way about it Now The Herald would like to see every man connected with the explosion at Wardnor punished to the limit of the law The criminals deserve i the protection i pro-tection 0 society requires i and the welfare of the Miners union demands I it No one suffers from such calamities more than do the miners themselves and they are not the fools some wiseacres wise-acres try to mae them out Every lawless act in the course of a strike injures the cause of labor more than it hurts the property sacrificed I is to the interest of labor unions Cer whereto where-to preserve the peace in order to protect tect their organization from the malicious ma-licious assaults of agents and champions I cham-pions of trusts and corporations Therefore i is absurd to hold every member of the Western Federation of Miners responsible for the crime committed com-mitted at Wardner and to accuse every delegate who attended the miners convention con-vention of being an accessory to the crime and a murderer at heart as the local Republican organ has done repeatedly re-peatedly I is froth and folly for the Tribune to declare that whoever resents its wholesale charges of criminality against the Miners union is defending crime We have yet to hear of any one claiming claim-ing that the culprits ought to go un > pimished or even be dealt with ienient ly Butthe trouble with our neighbor is that when a member of a labor organization or-ganization is mixed up in any lawlessness lawless-ness the whole organization is treated a a bad of criminals when a member of a churc E breaks the law the whole church is denounced as n nursery of crime when a citizen is guilty of a breach of contract the whole community commun-ity is assailed as a nest of pledge breakers I is a radical an extremist When it gets angry at a man i curses his whole family I is governed by hate and passion rather than by tolerance toler-ance und reason Doubtless i holds President Gompers of the National Federation of Labor equally guilty of the Wardner crimes I his speech in this city lat summer Mr Gompers said that the strikers at the Sullivan and Bunker Hill mines were nonunion men He declared his 1 2 I 0 k honest belief that no member of the I Miners union was guilty of the dastardly das-tardly act by which property and life I were destroyed 1 Not long since Mr Gompers had occasion I oc-casion to refer to the Wardner trouble t in the east and he expressed the same opinion saying that he had Investigated I Investi-gated the matter in the interest of organized or-ganized labor Is he an aider and I abettor of criminals Doesnt he care I I how many decent men are killed in j j northern Idaho Doesnt he care how I much property is destroyed Is this I the inference we must draw from our neighbors remarks When President Gompers lectured in this citya few weeks ago he was introduced by Arthur E Graham president of the Salt Lake Federation of Labor On the platform with him were John Hanhauser George X Whitaker A Bernstein F De Wein n G Sleater George Taylor William Pickering James B Quinn Gus Shae fer H E Rawlings S W n Brown Charles Bishoff William Ness Hugh McGean J R Tretheway F L Gardner I Gard-ner and Charles Hoffman Are these men to be included in the Tribunes sweeping charge as having encouraged murderers and incendiaries to go on with their work I avails the Republican organ nothing noth-ing to point to its past record on silver tariff expansion war or labor No one can travel in this age with his back to the front forever pointing and looking at his achievements or sentiments of I long ago The people want to know Where do you stand and whither are you bound The day of has bens has gone it seems forever and it is nothing to the credit of a libeler of labor unions today to show that it recognized ognized their worth in days gone by any more than it is to the credit of one of Hannas political aides > to say that he advocated the free coinage of silver for forty easI 1 |
