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Show r- -' "1 C' n ft - ,m r ' .ii -Uu, iuL.j noal Loui .Mj : if t . ' ' in a symposium on the open shop, the Philadelphia Evening Poet publishes letters from John i:itchll and Owen WIeter. The latter contains sensational charges, showing the Imperious action of the Standard Oil company in dictating legislation. Over the head of "The Land of the Free" Owen "Wlster writes: . One morning our Senate was to consider a certain important-bUL This bill was displeasing to J, D. Rockefeller reason enough for Mr. Rockefeller that it. should not be passed; and he thought it would be reason enough for the Senate. Sen-ate. He sent a telegram (which the Senators found upon their desks)' saying, "Do not pass the bill," and signed with his bame. The Senate passed the bUL "Another morning our Government was requested by the Printers' union to stop employing & man called Miller. Why? Mr; Miller 'was satisfactory to the Government; why discharge him? Because Mr. Millet was displeasing to the Printers' union; he was s. scab. Well, the Government continued to employ Mr. Miller. '"Pray stop a moment and think of these things; compare the two cases. In each the Government Is minding Its business; in each the business displeases somebody, and this somebody thinks his own Indlviuual displeasure reason enough to stop the- Government This somebody In each case is a trust Stand-ard Stand-ard Oil and Printers' union union and trust being two words for one thing, an organisation for the sake of power. Both trusts are so swelled by power that they count themselves more Important than 70,000,000 of people, bigger than the United States; thatsls the plain English of it In their purpose and their expectation) expec-tation) to swing a Government for their private ends there's not a hair's breadth difference between them. "Do you think King George's tea was emptied Into Boston harbor for the sole benefit of Standard Oil and Printers' union? Do you think the Declaration of Independence applied only to them, and left the rest of us out? "We are fond of singing a song that has a line in it: "-The land of the free and the borne of the brave.' "We are fond of singing this song, of rising up to sing it because It means home to us, country to us, our native land, our hope, our Ideal, our belief; the land of the free. How true Is this song Just now? "I have no King George to tax my tea without my representation; but I do have an oil trust, a beet trust, a tobacco trust and so forth. I have no German Emperor to say that I shall serve in the army; but I do bAv.e the walking delegate dele-gate who says I shall not paint my own fence except in the way that he pleases, that I can't shoe my own horse except in the way that he pleases, that I can't shingle my roof, plaster my wall, solder my pump, and, worse than all, that I can't even work without his permission, can't hire myself to any railroad, mill or mine; It 1 dare to he'll have me starved out my bead, broken, my body torn with dynamite. That is his threat and he makes it good in every State in the Union. Is there much land of the free about that? Is that much better than being be-ing hanged for. treason by King George? . "What, then, is the matter with the land of the free? "Of course, organisation is not only inevitable. It is good good for the Rockefellers Rocke-fellers and for all the rest of us too, whether we hold a pick or a pen. But here comes the old story, old as Europe, old as despotism, old as mankind: No man can stand an overdose of power. It poisons his heart, it swells his head, he becomes be-comes a tyrant His name may be Rockefeller or labor union; they're all twins after swallowing an overdose of power, all enemies of liberty, all destroyers of your rights and my rights. We are dealing with Rockefellers; their threat to our freedom is lessening; with wisdom and folly mingled we shall teach them their place, and keep them in it. - "But we have not yet dealt with labor unions. So far we have merely hailed them as the antidotes of the Rockefellers., which' they are not We saw their wholesome influence, their undoubted Justice, their necessity. But We spoiled them. We coddled them with wrong sympathy, we blindly upheld them, we gave them our sentimental countenance, we took their side without inquiry, until un-til they imagine themselves above criticism, sacred characters, privileged pets. Just as Rockefeller did; and so we find them one morning ordering the Government Govern-ment to discharge Miller the scab at Washington, while at Cripple Creek they dynamited thirteen miners because they were scabs. "To such things has unionism come. Swollen with its overdose of power, it and the Standard Oil are twins; twins in tyranny, twins in their need to be called to order by the American people. "Let us clearlysunderstand the significance of the scab. Ho is the man who needs our backing now. He stands for liberty. The right to live, the right to work, every right that we have all Inherited in the land of the free. As the patriots pa-triots stood s gainst George and his stamp act in 177 , so in 1901 does the scab stand against unionism and dynamite. He Is the human symbol of protest against tyranny." e John Mitchell, president of the United Mine-Workers of America, gives the labor leaders' view as follows: "In order to understand the attitude of labor organisations toward the open shop it is essential that a clear comprehension be bad of the fundamental principle prin-ciple of trade unionism. "A trade union, in Its usual form, is an association of working men who have agreed among themselves not to bargain individually with the employers, but to agree to the terms of a collective contract between the employer' and the union. " . , "Trade unionism has grown out of the recognition of the fact that under normal conditions the individual, unorganized workman cannot bargain advantageously advan-tageously with the employer for the sale of his labor, and the fundamental reason rea-son for the existence of the trade union is that by It and through it working-men are enabled to deal collectively with their employers. Since, through the lack-of money in reserve, he must sell his labor Immediately, since he Is Ignorant of the market and has no skill in bargaining, since that which he sells is a part of his very life and soul and being, and since he has only his own labor to sell, while 1 the employer engages hundreds or even thousands of men and can easily do without the services of a single Individual, the worklngman. If bargaining on his own account and for himself alone, is at an enormous disadvantage, and will inevitably secure less than Is Justly duehim. The individual contract between be-tween employers and men means that the condition of the poorest and lowest-X-ald man In the industry is that which the best man must accept Therefore, from f-rst to last always and everywhere trade unionism stands unalterably opposed to this Individual contract. There can be no concession or yielding upon up-on this point. No momentary advantage, however great, no Increase In wage?, no reduction In hours, no Improvement in conditions will permanently compensate compen-sate the worklngman for even a temporary surrender in any part of this fundamental funda-mental principle. e "The difficulties in the way of maintaining the Joint contract in an establishment estab-lishment in which union and non-union men are employed are easily apparent, since it is practically impossible for these two classes to dwell together In amity in the same shop. And this is not necessarily a matter of personal 'animosity, 'ani-mosity, for men who are on different sides of a question are oftentimes friends; but a shop with union and non-union men is like a house divided against Itself. There is a constant attempt to organize it entirely, an unceasing struggle to abolish organization altogether. The great danger to the union lies In the fact that ordinarily a non-unionist who Is not willing to pay dues Is still less wlllinr to abide by the union scale If It seems to his advantage to undercut It While accepting union wages when work Is plenty he will immediately disregard the scale when work becomes more difficult to obtain. The non-union man thus receives re-ceives all the benefits of the existence of a anion, and at the same time the assurance as-surance of his position is rendered doubly sure at the expense of the union which protects him. Restrained only by the fact of the general superiority, of the wor of the union men, the employer is prone to discharge them whenever there is a necessity to reduce his force, and to engage non-union men when need for more workmen arises. The result of a number of non-union men cutting wages is analogous to the existence in a community of healthy people of a man afflicted with a contagious disease. Many of the weaker-kneed union men, seeing their opportunities for employment disappearing through the action of tolerated nonunion non-union men, will also, either openly or 3ecretly, accept reductions In wages, si that eventually, the" whole scale Is broken down and the Industry disorganized. "If the trade union did not insist upon enforcing common rules providing for equal pay for equal work and definite conditions of safety and health for all workers In the trade, the result would be that all pretense of a Joint bargain would disappear and the employers would be free constantly to make individual contracts with the workmen. v see "Unionists In general feel that as the non-unlonlst obtains the advantage of all the sacrifices made by members of the unio he should share in these sacrifices. sacri-fices. The belief is that he who reaps should sow. It is peculiarly galling to a trade-union man to find that the men who worked while, he was striking, ard possibly starving, are the first to gain by sacrifices which he, and not they, have made. Nevertheless, to these men who have not struck, who have not paid dues, who have borne no share of the expense either of organisation or of struggle, the union opens wide its doors. At the eleventh hour they are permitted per-mitted to enter, usually upon the same terms as others. All that la demanded Is that in the future the cost and burden of trade-union management and action shall be fairly shared by these men. "There would be some Justification for the attitude of the advocates of the open shop If the unions monopolized Industry; but as long as they continue to admit to membership any person working at the trade and admit him upon the terms upon which those already in were admitted-there can be no ""Employers are constantly seeking to extend and enlarge the responsibility of the unions, and to meet this responsibility it is incumbent upon the labor organizations or-ganizations to exercise Jurisdiction over all men employed in the. same shop, over all those working at a given trade or calling; otherwise tha union will be powerless to enforce any. contract it may make regulating wages, hours and conditions of employnwnt in that shop or Industry.) . t |