| Show THE STRIKES has the country gone strike crazy there is unrest in all the big labor organizations and strikes are being declared in all parts of the country there Is so much danger in these strikes that no little alarm is felt as to the future of business it the strike fever continues there will be an up setting of prosperity and a let up in industrial affairs that will throw hundreds ox thousand of workmen out of employment and more completely frustrate the plans of the unionists than anything that could occur during prosperous times there are two big strikes now on natch have been ill advised the boilermakers are out because of a grievance against a foreman in the railroad shops at los angeles and the western union operators have left choir keys following the discharge of an employed in the western union office in los angeles those grievances are not sufficient on which to base a strike which indirectly involves the welfare of millions of people had it been shown that the action of the foreman in the boiler shops at los angeles was but part of a concerted move on the part of the railroad to place objectionable tio nonunion non union task masters over the employed emp loyes or had it been shown that the offensive acts complained of by the telegraphers at los angeles were intended to be employed elsewhere and were designed to discredit the union generally then jn either case a strike might have been fully justified but if these little local storms are everywhere to be developed into destructive whirlwinds whirl winds entire country what assurances su have the american people of a tranquil moment free from the dis organizing power of strikes this is not a judgment passed upon the rights of labor unions and does not enter into the larger problem as to how fairly as a whole the telegraph operators or the boilermakers boller makers are treated by their employers but is a protest against what these strikes on their face appear to stand tor namely the right of any one union employed in the united states because of a real or fancied grievance to start a strike involving hundreds of thousands of people throughout the length aej breadth of the united states these local differences in which no cardinal principle of unionism is at stake should not be allowed to be magnified into a national affair an offensive foreman in ono shop or a busybody busy body woman operator in los angeles Is not a serious menace to the in the first instance or the telegraphers in the second the unions having national scope should stand on broader issues and resort to extreme action only when some vital principle of unionism Is at stake |
