TO THE MERCHANTS PLEASE LISTEN PATIENTLY TO A DISCUSSION OF THE LABOR UNION FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW.
We invite the merchants to consider the question of unions and of high wages from THEIR OWN point of view.
If we err in our statements or conclusions we shall be glad to print replies and criticisms from responsible merchants over their own signatures.
This we maintain: THAT IN PROMOTING THE WELFARE AND INCREASING
THE WAGES OF THE GREAT BODY OF WORKINGMEN, WE PROMOTE THE WELFARE
AND INCREASE THE PROSPERITY OF ALL LEGITIMATE MERCHANTS AND
BUSINESS MEN.
The unions make mistakes. The employers make mistakes. The unions are often unreasonable. The employers are unreasonable sometimes.
No doubt in America the workingman is more exacting and more highly paid than anywhere else.
But in America, also, the merchant is more quickly and numerously successful than anywhere else. ——
As a subject for our text to-day we shall take the street-car lines—surface, underground or elevated—of any great American city.
The success of every street-car system is made BY ALL THE INHABITANTS OF THE CITY. Every woman who brings a baby into the world in a great city adds so much value to the stock of that city's street railroads. She increases the gross income of that railroad by about three dollars and sixty-five cents a year with each child to which she gives birth.
Therefore the street railroad should properly serve the public that gives the road its value.