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Show B LABOR UNION TROUBLES. B The conviction of Sam Parks turns attention B to labor unions and their relations to the public. B Organized with none but high thoughts behind B them, In many places they have become a terror B and. reproach. We suspect the cause Is a naturaL- B one. When an organization is pronosed, the best B and, noisiest talkers naturally gravitate to the B front. The great mass of members are quiet, un- B suspecting, honest men who are content to "He B merely silent members, willing to pay their month- B ly dues and to trust the officers to conduct the B business. The dues in the aggregate amount to a B great amount and the handling of it a great lux- B ury. The officers, entirely without experience in B tllG management of important business, really B undertake the creation of a government. They B are obeyed by the rank and file and it is not long B until they assume that in as much as all progress B is due to labor, it Is the direct province of the B unions to dictate how and on what terms labor B shall be performed; their sense of justice becomes B obscure and they want to extend their govern- B ment and take in the practical handling of the E business of their employers. Then there comes B a natural clashing and It being easy to convince B the ordinary manual labor worker that the rich B man cares nothing for his rights; strikes, ill-feel- B mE and often violence follow. This is what a B leader like Ed Boyce likes. It keeps him "on top," K he draws his regular salary. When real danger is H threatened, he finds it convenient to necessarily H absent himself in order to keep other branches of the union in line, and this has been kept up in K some places until, at some points in Colorado, H they have become an apprehension and terror. We suspect that Sam Parks is an exact type of k the man who first proposed the walking delegate j to the labor unions a good talker, an original grafter and entirely ready to plunder friend and H foe alike. B The members of Labor "Unions in the United States number three millions. These are all K strong, active men, an army which, if trained, would be more terrible in power, than any that H as yet has oyer shaken this old world. Its mem-H mem-H bers should realize that to wield sucli an army, B which with those dependent upon it, make up one- K sixth of all the people of this nation, requires the ablest -brains, the most steadfast courage, the broadest-minded men possible to be obtained. As all these members depend upon their labor for a livelihood, their directors should be men profound enough to comprehend the exact relations which should be maintained between labor and capital and should work to cause these relations to be realized. It will have to come to this or so much capital will be withdrawn from productive industries indus-tries that the unions themselves will perish as does a man or an animal when placed within a chamber and the air is exhausted. |
