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Show THE SYMPATHETIC STRIKE. "Modern Methods" explains the delay in getting get-ting out its last edition. It was because the operators op-erators of the lynotypes, in sympathy with the regular printers in Detroit, joined their strike. The other day, Senator Lodge, speaking of the tendency toward government ownership of great utilities, predicted that when that time comes we shall have the spectacle of a government aristocracy, aris-tocracy, and the people tied to the chariot wheels of this government power. We do not care to discuss that matter today, but to say to union men, when that time comes, they will have no more chance to strike, and every time they interfere , their power to cripple and to dominate the busi- ness of other men, by the act they are hastening the day when they can no more strike than post- office'employes can strike now. "Modern Meth- ods" is set up by linotypes. Its owners had no ! trouble with the men who set the magazine for 'J the publishers. But outside compositors, in other offices, were on a strike, and to help them, the fl men running the machines, regardless of the in- terests of those who paid them for their labor,' regardless of the injustice which they were work- ing upon the men from whom they received their bread, joined in the strike to help those with whom they had. none but a sympathetic interest. That kind of business is what is hastening the day when 51 per cent of the voters in the country will i say: "We will have an end of this business; we will put the work of the country in hands which will merely establish arbitrary laws under which workingmen may work, and they will have their 'M choice to accept those rules or starve." Labor organizations should consider this mat- j ter seriously. If they insist on making men and scompanies who are not offenders, against whom ll they have no complaint, sufferers for the differ- j ences of the unions with other men and com- i panies, if upon them vicarious atonement is to-be '-, exacted, the 51 per cent of the voters will think "; one way before they are aware of the change. I'l For when unions combine and insist upon. , . :H compelling men and corporations to submit to "fl what they, individually, would never for a moment submit to, then they are wounding American pride and the American sense of justice in a way which causes men to dream of compelling justice if not on executing revenges. Labor unions should be most careiul in the election of their officers ; then jH they should be careful to attend all their meetings and to weigh thoughtfully every proposition to jH make new demands or to strike, for whenever iM several hundred men get together, in the crowd are some blatherskites and some who would rather see a hundred men thrown out of employ- lil mcnt than to do honest work themselves, and this j class are prone to come to the surface and if pos-sible pos-sible to obtain offices in the unior-u. 'B And more and more laboring men should be reflecting about the possibility of a legal way iH through which to settle differences between- em-ploycs em-ploycs and employers. The difference between barbarism and civilization is that the first is ruled jH by the law of might, the other by enlightened jH laws. It is time for labor unions to consider what laws would be just between them and the men who direct the world's work. j JH |