IVERSITY

H 3960.

VOL. III.

VOLUME THREE.

With this issue Volume Three of our MAGAZINE commences. It will be continued in the same form as in the past, which has evidently met with favor. We shall continue to do our level best to make the MAGAZINE attractive and what the District intended it should be-an educator, and a medium through which the views of our readers could be exchanged.

Commencing with this issue a new feature will be added in the form of a Legal Department, in which will be given decisions of Courts and other legal information on cases bearing on the relations of employer and employe. We have made arrangements with R. D. Fisher, of Indianapolis, Indiana, who is connected with the Supreme Court of that State, to furnish this each month.

No. 1.

Readers desiring special or technical information bearing on their special trades will have to look for that in the periodicals devoted to such special trades. It is our desire to bring out some subject each month that will tend to create a desire for and cause men to seek further information where it can be found more in detail, and thus make them more intelligent as workmen and better citizens. If we are able to accomplish anything in that direction we shall feel that the MAGAZINE has done something to make the world better.

We hope to be able to see our way clear to add other features in the near future.

It is not expected that the MAGAZINE can devote much space to any special interest or trade, but must be confined to matters of general interest to workingmen, yet it is the desire to call out ideas from men in every occupation and trade employed on railroad or mining interests and give a means through which they may be conveyed to others, and to create a desire among the readers to get information on social science, and to excel as workingmen in their industrial pursuits.

The MAGAZINE is published in the interest of employer and employe, therefore, whatever we publish that tells the truth regarding anything or the acts of anyone that has or is proving an injury to either is not out of place, though it leads to the conviction and punishment of an offender, and no guilty man should escape.

There have been many matters pertaining to the management of corporations which have generally been considered as none of the business of the workingmen who are associated with such, and that they are going too far and are to presumptive when they make any criticism of them; among which have been the official acts of supervising persons, methods of doing work, shop economy, etc.

We take a different view of this, and believe that it is to the interest of men engaged at any work

to see that proper results come from their labor, and that where wrongs cannot be otherwise righted they should be exposed to the view and condemnation of public opinion. That men who spend half their time in a smoky, grimy shop, or exposed to the dangers of train service, have a right to say something of how they shall be treated, and how their labor shall be lightened and made less dangerous; at least to complain against the reckless waste of their labor by mismanagement when the same is unjustly charged to their inefficiency.

ON THE MOVEMENTS OF ORGAN

IZED LABOR.

"Labor organizations are all right if they are run right," is an expression that is often heard and comes generally from those who feel that in their relation to them they have not been rightly conducted, but it often comes from that class of philanthrophic persons who are always ready to give advice or criticise, but nothing more.

Organized labor has forced itself into general public attention in the past few years as never before, and its critics have been active. The good acts have been passed with little or no notice, while their mistakes have been condemned without exception, and without giving them credit for having intended right.

Some have represented it as a thorn in the body politic that should be removed at once, others as a necessary evil that must be kept in check, while some have held a conservative view through fear of losing political prestage, and they have satisfied themselves by lauding such of them as have shown a docile nature, or no tendency to assimulate ideas that tend toward a change in the present order of things, much as a kindly slave owner would have regarded the acts of his slaves in anything that did not endanger his power over

them.

Its operations have been classed as a warfare against society, as the rule of the dangerous classes.

With all this opposition it has continued to extend, and its influence has reached to the Executive Chambers of the Nation. Instead of leading a warfare on society it is embracing society itself. The result of its educationary work is changing the complexion of society, and so long as the causes which have made it necessary to organize exist, it will continue in one form or another.

The so-called bad acts of labor organizations have been many, but they have been mistakes rather than intentional errors, for they have been chief and immediate sufferers. Mistakes, because created for mutual benefit they naturally would not knowingly do that which would be a direct injury to themselves, or indirectly through its effect on the general public.

Many of their so-called bad acts which have proven an injury to them have, however, been forced on through a combination of circumstances over which they, as an organization, had no control, and which was established, by those who make the greatest complaint against them, before they came into existence. They are often purposely forced into taking action that will bring them into disrepute and thus injure their influence. Their enemies have been guilty of the most disreputable acts against them to accomplish this, and the natural human instinct for revenge or retaliation is as common in organizations as it is in individuals.

Labor organizations have been condemned mostly for strikes and boycotts instituted by them, but they have never taken this action without some cause nor without some sacrifice, no matter how foolish they may have appeared to others, or how foolish they may adjudge themselves afterwards.

It matters not how well they may

try to guard against hasty action or endeavor to hold a conservative position, they will be forced out of it at times. Even that great and much admired conservative organization, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, was forced to order a strike in the New York Elevated railway trouble last year, and they did right, even if they did lose, for they could have done no different and been justified.

It was a long chain of abuses that caused the American colonies to revolt against Great Britain, and not because they had any love for the excitement of strife or the consequences that went with it. If they had failed history would have given a very different version of the affair. Such is true of the acts of labor organizations.

Humanity does not band together as labor has just for the pleasure of it, neither do such bodies of men sail under false colors. If their objects and principles are right they are right and their acts should. not condemn them, at least not until the immediate causes for such acts have been brought to the light.

It is impossible for labor organizations to avoid trouble at all times, as it was for a certain young man whose mother had taught him manly qualities and an abhorrence of strife or quarrels with others, but who, in setting out from home, met those who had been taught different, and he received a slap here and kick there, still he did not retaliate or attempt to defend himself. But the abuses grew greater and he into an object of contempt. Then he was forced to change his tactics and defend himself with blow for blow, and he found it had a salutary effect.

Labor organizations with an antistrike clause in their constitution are never respected because those they meet in opposition believe in offensive and defensive measures. It is useless for an organization to be good in the way their opponents

would like to see them, when the very fact that such is the case is taken advantage of to make an attack on them, when a misrepresentation of them will be given credit and their defense will not be listened to, and they are kicked at on every side, and a person who is known to be a member is regarded with open expressions of suspicion. There is not an organization of laboring men in the country but what object to certain characters becoming members, and they expel them when found inside, but what does such avail in putting a premium on good characters when an expelled member will be received with open arms by the opponents of organization-the employing class and their parasites-and will be given a seat of honor (?) by them and sympathized with as martyrs.

What encouragement is there in attempting to build up a reputation for honesty of purpose and honorable dealing when those with whom they deal make no attempt to meet such even half way, and think nothing of breaking an agreement made with an organization in good faith. True continuance in well doing will be rewarded, but why should they be blamed if they retaliate at times. It is at least a natural sequence.

If those who say they are all right if they are run right would assist them by at least showing them that they will do right themselves by dealing with them honorably, and by at least giving them credit for having right intentions, there would be less to charge against them.

Let enemies do what they may, they cannot stop men combining while the present conditions exist, and employers of labor will find that their employes, acting as a unit, will construe the golden rule much the same as they do. “Do unto others as ye would that they do unto you," or "Do unto others as they do unto you."