EDITOR'S TABLE. 



623 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



TEE RECENT STRIKES. 



THE eight-hour epidemic has at 

 length subsided, and the working- 

 men, having failed to accomplish their 

 object, have generally returned to their 

 Jabors under the old arrangements. The 

 infection spread through all the leading 

 industrial crafts : carpenters, bricklay- 

 ers, cabinet-makers, upholsterers, car- 

 riage-makers, iron and metal workers, 

 piano-makers, plumbers, sugar-refiners, 

 gas-makers, car-drivers one after an- 

 other were drawn into the movement. 

 Laborers have had a trial of strength 

 with capitalists, turning out some 

 80,000 strong, with much agitation and 

 the best organization that could be ral- 

 lied; yet the movement collapsed in 

 less than three months from its out- 

 break. The details of the struggle it is 

 unnecessary here to specify, as they 

 have been extensively published by the 

 newspaper press, but its leading re- 

 sults may be summed up as follows : 1. 

 The loss of a couple of million of dol- 

 lars to the mechanics concerned; 2, 

 The consequent privation and suffering 

 of many families; 3. The demoraliza- 

 tion of the unemployed through idle- 

 ness and exposure to vicious influences ; 

 4. Extensive loss to capitalists and the 

 public through the closure of manufac- 

 tories, non-production, and business de- 

 rangement ; 5. An aggravation of hos- 

 tile feeling between the employed and 

 employers ; 6. An organization of em- 

 ployers to resist future efforts of the 

 same kind ; 7 and lastly ; the disclosure 

 of the alarming prevalence of danger- 

 ous and destructive ideas among cer- 

 tain portions of the laboring-classes. 



Of this last count it may be re- 

 marked that in the inflammatory ha- 

 rangues at public meetings it was con- 



stantly proclaimed that capitalists are 

 the deadly enemies of the working- 

 classes ; that capital, of right, belongs 

 to the producers who have created it; 

 and the doctrine was avowed by some 

 that, if the strikers could not get their 

 own, the torch should prevent their 

 robbers from enjoying it. Much of this 

 intemperate talk should, no doubt, be 

 credited to the excitement of the time, 

 but it shows both the danger of such 

 excitements and the sort of ideas that 

 are simmering in the minds of many 

 working-people. 



As a partial compensation for all 

 these mischiefs, it is hoped that some- 

 thing valuable has been learned from 

 this experien ce. If it teaches laboring- 

 men that this is not the way to pro- 

 mote their real interests, much will 

 have been gained. The pathway to 

 success is ever through failure, and to 

 have tried a policy and proved its in- 

 sufficiency is often the necessary pre- 

 liminary to another and a better policy. 

 That the relations of labor to capital 

 are unsatisfactory, need not be denied ; 

 that the laboring - classes are often 

 scantily and unjustly paid, and do not 

 receive an equitable share of the profits 

 resulting from the cooperation of oper- 

 ative and capitalist, is undoubtedly true. 

 And the inequitable working of the 

 present system is, in many cases, very 

 hard to bear. There are evils to be 

 overcome, and wrongs to be righted, 

 but the great problem to be solved, in 

 securing the remedy, is far from easy, 

 and its solution is to be sought in quite 

 another direction from that which has 

 been lately taken. Laborers have a 

 right to demand an advance of wages, 

 to refuse to work if they do not get it, 

 and to combine for the attainment of 

 their end, but they have no right to re- 



