PUCK, May 18th, 1887.
Mr. Henry George no doubt found his account in catering to the unruly and turbulent in 1887, but it is doubtful if Father McGlynn, the Roman Catholic Priest who got such a bad attack of the George doctrine that he earned for himself several years of suspension from his priestly functions, made as much out of it as his more astute colleague. But between them they made a great deal of noise, and Puck did what he could to counteract their influence. With this cartoon on May 18th, 1887, appeared the following editorial advice to the laboring man:
“Don’t be a laboring man—that is, labor, but as an employer rather than as an employee. You have got to serve your apprenticeship to poverty—so has everybody else, except the comparatively few who inherit large fortunes. But be diligent in your apprenticeship, and it will be mastership in the end. Work with this one idea in view—that some day you will have earned and saved enough to go into business for yourself. Then you can employ some other poor man, who would else go hungry; and you can treat him well and give him a chance to make money in his turn. That is the way of the world. It is not a bad way, if you take it bravely and cheerfully. If you refuse to take it in the right spirit, if you sulk and whine and call upon labor organizations to protect you, and cry for special legislation to right wrongs which you can’t even define—why, you will find it a pretty hard way. It is hard on shirks, idlers, skulkers, and men who do half-hearted work. But it is a way that is as old as the rising of the sun; a way that will be the same when the last sun sets on this world, and all the McGlynns and Georges and Anti-Poverty Clubs in creation will not change it. It is the good old way of duty, and it existed before Labor Leagues were thought of.”
BETWEEN SLAVERY AND STARVATION.
PUCK, October 26th, 1887.
To realize the terrible truth of this picture, it is necessary to remember that trades-union tyranny cuts both ways. At a little earlier date Puck explained the situation thus:
“We read in the papers that such and such a body of working-men has struck for higher wages, by command of such and such a union. Popular sympathy is at once aroused in behalf of the underpaid laborer and the benevolent union that has taken charge of his interests. But the public does not know that the union which orders that the workman’s pay shall be so high also orders that it shall be no higher. When the union says to the employer: ‘You shall pay this man two dollars a day,’ it likewise says to the man: ‘You shall not receive more than two dollars a day. If you take ten cents more of your employer, every man in the place must receive a proportionate increase in his wages, or you must give the ten cents back. If you do not obey us, we will fine you. If you will not pay the fine, we will turn you out of the union. We will not let you work in any office where there are union men. If you get work in a non-union shop, we will boycott you, we will boycott your fellow working-men, we will boycott your employers, we will boycott every man who sells you food or gives you lodging.’”
