are not the means by which these wrongs may be set right. The appeal to strikes is an appeal from reason to error, from justice to injustice, from order to disorder, from law to riot, from morality to immorality, from virtue to sin, from innocence to murder. The strike is a foe to the infant at the mother's breast; it is an enemy to the happiness of home; it is the howling wolf at the door of the humble cottage; it is hostile to personal liberty; it is an enemy to religion, it is the embodiment of riot and murder striding through the land stamping out the life of the nation, crushing out the manhood of the citizens, setting a premium upon crime and outlawing virtue and honesty. I wish I had the power to represent it in its true light. A mass of grumbling, dissatisfied men who will not work, by desperation and lawlessness deterring others from honest toil. Business is paralyzed and millions of dollars sunk. But this is small compared to the suffering and misery and want in the homes of these frantic men. Could we but lift the curtain which hides their dark homes, a picture would be presented which would cause the blood to chill and sicken the soul. These men hang around the saloons and stifle the cries for bread from their homes by liquor and beer—a morsel of cheese or a cracker answering for food. But what about the wretched wife and starving child?
But they do not stop there. The torch, pistol, the knife, the bomb and infernal machines are brought in to play their deadly parts. Then the fire fiend with his angry tongue laps up wealth and happy homes, the knife and the pistol start streams of human gore down the gutters of the streets, and the hellish bomb brings massive edifices cracking, crumbling to the earth.
The fiend having sated himself in gore and ruin, surveys the field of desolation. What has been gained? Nothing. If permitted he returns to work with a weakened constitution, less respect of his family, kept under the watch of the law, without the confidence of his employer and with the curse of his own conscience. You ask: "If strikes are not the remedy, what is the remedy?" Have a clear understanding with your employer. Try to enter into his interests and feelings. Tell him plainly that you can not afford to work for him at present rates. If he can not or does not raise your wages, give him notice that you will quit at a certain time, and then do not interfere with the person engaged in your place. All parties will feel better, and your employer may soon be able to grant your request and recall you. You certainly have no right to interfere with others who are willing to work for him.
The colored laborer can neither afford to strike nor encourage strikes. He has felt the baneful effects of them. He has time and time again seen white labor organizations resort to this method of getting colored men out of employment. If it is right against the employer for higher wages, it is right against a fellow-workman on account of race or color. But it is not right at all. This is a country of law and order, and the negro's salvation lies in his willing obedience to law—fairly and impartially administered.
VIII. Labor Organizations.
I do not deny labor the right of organization for the advancement of its interests. This is legitimate and highly proper so long as the general interests of society are protected. There is, perhaps, no country upon the globe which extends greater liberties and protection to labor than the United States of America. In Alabama and many other states of the union, the mechanic's lien enables him to compel the employer to fulfill his obligations, but the employer has no remedy against the mechanic except in rare cases where bonds have been given by the contractor.
The cause of the laboring man has kept pace with the march of civilization and progress, until the order of government has been reversed and the laboring classes have become the rulers. However, they are threatened with great danger growing out of the slavery entailed by labor organizations. Few of them are for the real advancement of the interests of labor, but mere machines for the personal aggrandizement of the politicians who stand behind the scenes. The laborer, in attempting to avoid the imaginary Scylla of capital, may dash his life out against the terrible Charybdis of demagogy. Our laws all favor the laborer, and I make this assertion regardless of statements of those who see gain in keeping labor in a state of excitement. In Egypt, many hundreds of years ago, the poorer class could not be anything else. They were not permitted, under heavy penalties, to change their occupations or locations. A hod carrier was doomed to that work during his natural life. Other countries more recently oppressed labor just as severely. I mention this in illustration of the depths from which labor has come. To-day the laborer may not only change his location but may change his occupation, and ply a dozen if he choose to do so. An organization which has for its object the moral and intellectual advancement of its members, as well as their financial welfare, is not objectionable and should be encouraged. But where prejudice is aroused against other forms of labor (as capital, banking, etc., etc.) they are lawless, dangerous, and should be shunned by every good laboring man. No organization outside of a benevolent institution should be secret, and I doubt the propriety of all secret societies. Secrecy is too often the cloak for evil and scheming. The dark clouds of secrecy have ever been the means of over-awing or misleading the lower classes. Permit me to introduce here the following extract from an address bearing upon this subject. It is so excellent that I will be pardoned for clipping at length and endorsing it in toto:
"The twenty-fourth annual Grand International Convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers was held in Chicago on the 19th October, with delegates present from all parts of the Union. The Grand Chief Engineer, P. M. Arthur, with his usual rare good sense, said in the course of his annual address: We are enemies only to wrong in its various devices and garbs, and can assuredly say that political schemes and aspirations have no place nor part in our association. A mighty army of men, representing 365 divisions, has gathered about a nucleus of 12 men who, 24 years ago, assembled in the city of Detroit and started an organization destined to be more than they knew or dreamed. To-day we number 25,000 men, and while our numbers are great, we would not have you consider only the quantity, but the quality as well. To be a Brotherhood man, four things are requisite, namely: Sobriety, truth, justice, and morality. This is our motto, and upon this precept have we based our practice. Taking all things into consideration, our relations, both to ourselves and with various railroads, employing Brotherhood men, are amicable. When we consider the dissatisfaction which is everywhere manifest about us, our few troubles pale in insignificance. There have been times and incidents when the 'strike' was the only court of appeals for the workingman, and the evil lay in the abuse of them and not in the use of them. The methods used to bring about a successful termination of strikes, the abuse of property and even of persons, have brought the very name into disrepute, while the troubles of the laboring man are receiving mere cant, and sympathy for him is dying out. More and more clearly defined is the line becoming which divides the honest man, satisfied with a just remuneration which he has truly earned, until by his own effort he can rise to a higher position in life, and the loud-voiced 'bomb thrower,' who scarcely able to speak the English language, seeks to win his own comfortable living from those who have worked for it, presuming upon the imagination and arousing false hopes in the hearts of those who are still more ignorant than himself. Among sensible men the day for all this is past. Let 'mercy season justice, and justice be tempered with moderation.' A wise arbitration looks to a long result rather than to immediate satisfaction, and accomplishes more than intimidation ever can hope to do.
"'It is not my intention,' said Mr. Arthur, 'to impose upon this convention any dogma upon the drink question; but I cannot refrain in honesty to my own convictions from deploring the sad havoc that intemperance is making in the ranks of our fellow men. So great is this evil that no man or woman who is striving to improve his fellows can help taking it into account. It is, indeed, an important factor for evil in our midst. Not only from the physical and moral standpoint is it working mischief, but from the standpoint of labor. The man who has so little self-control that he cannot resist the temptation to degrade himself is always in danger of bringing disgrace upon his brethren. He has lost his self-respect and, to some extent, his independence, thus making an easier victim to the greed of a selfish employer. I would therefore urge upon you the necessity of abstaining from everything that will in the slightest degree impair your usefulness as citizens or your efficiency as locomotive engineers.'"