470 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



reader ; it is not for him to impute improper motives in any case. He 

 may note only the facts which are familiar to all; others may make 

 such inferences as they will. A bill, containing a clause exempting labor 

 unions and agricultural combinations from prosecution under the Sher- 

 man law, as far as was possible under such legislation, was presented to 

 the President, not against his will, and was signed by him; the Secre- 

 tary of Labor is proud of his success in unionizing a Maryland coal 

 area that a strike might be declared in sympathy with a strike in Penn- 

 sylvania, more than 200 miles away; the United States Printing Office 

 is in the hands of a prominent labor leader. Wholly similar conditions 

 prevail in several of our great states. Congress and legislatures, at the 

 behest of labor unions, enact laws which are prejudicial to the public 

 interests and to the great industrial systems of the land. The whole 

 sympathy of authorities seems to be with the "under dog" of labor. 

 Interference with strikers and their sympathizers rarely begins until 

 destruction of life and property is well advanced. Even then the per- 

 son of strikers and their sympathizers is strangely sacred; the first vol- 

 leys of the soldiery must be directed upward, though the volleys from 

 the mob are direct; the person of the guardian of the law is unimpor- 

 tant, but if a rioter be killed, the officer who ordered the volley is in 

 very great danger of criminal process. Protection is given grudgingly 

 to wage-payers, who attempt to conduct their business in opposition to 

 the striking workmen who have abandoned their jobs; introduction of 

 men willing to work seems to be regarded as a crime. The strike of 

 express-wagon drivers in New York city, the recent trolley strike in 

 Indianapolis and that on the Boston Elevated road illustrate the condi- 

 tions which should bring a blush of shame to the cheek of every 

 patriotic American. 



Organized labor, as well said by Governor Brown, of Georgia, is " the 

 most wide-spread and exacting trust in America — levying a toll on all 

 the other elements of our citizenship." Alone of all the great combina- 

 tions, it can not gain by lowering the price of its wares: it strives to 

 secure a monopoly, that the rest of the community must purchase its 

 wares at an exorbitant price. 



These new tribunes of the people, fomenting discontent and class 

 hatred, are sowing seeds which, if permitted to develop, will bring about 

 the destruction of this republic. The time has passed for the comforting 

 reflection that our institutions are secure and that education will prove 

 the cure-all in this " melting-pot of the nations." There is no longer a 

 melting-pot, the elements are incompatible, they can not fuse together. 

 Thoughtful men must unite at once to secure equality of all men before 

 the law, in which alone security for our institutions can be found. 



