THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



17 



cause of the good appearance ot the uieii. 

 They Avere well dressed, orderly aud in- 

 telligent looking. And they wei-e sober. 



I know that the impression exists ip. 

 the niinds of good many that labor unions 

 are composed largely of red-faced nii-ii 

 ■who sit about saloons and guzzle licer 

 and talk anarchy. But a man holding 

 such views would have been disabused 

 by viewing that parade. They were soljor. 

 serious faced men. showing the marks of 

 heavy toil. They didn't look to me to be 

 a menace to anything, unless it would bo 

 a lot of corn beef and caboage or some- 

 thing of that kind. They are badly Ic.-id 

 at times and are often sold out and be- 

 trayed, but they are men who mean well. 

 I've made a study of human nature as 

 expressed in the personal appearance of 

 men, and you can't fool me on a square 

 man, and the men in the parade were 

 square men. 



The harm that is done by unionism isn't 

 the work of these men. It's the work of 

 the grafters. There is an amount of 

 scheming on the part of rogues to fool 

 these honest, simple-minded people, and 

 use their honest attempts to better tlieir 

 condition to furnish the motive power 

 to turn various private grindstones tliat 

 would surprise you. Dishonest walking 

 delegates get their confidence and sell 

 them out; political parties move heaven 

 ■and earth to get their support for unholy 

 measures; all the thugs in town take ad- 

 vantage of a strike being on to revel in 

 lawlessness and get a whack at their old 

 enemies, the police, and have it charged 

 to union labor; and politicians lie to tbeni 

 and mislead them. Yet through it ail 

 these people are making progress. And if 

 any way could be devised whereby the 

 grafters could be brushed aside and the 

 laboring people who celel>rated Labor Day 

 could treat directly with that other great 

 body of laboring men, their employers, 

 face to face and man to man, tluy ^voiild 

 make progress a good deal faster. 



It isn't the matter of wages that makes 

 the employers bitter against the union. 

 A man doesn't, of course, want to pay 

 any more wages than is necessary, but 

 when ho is prospering and making money, 

 as he is to-day, the employer isn't going 

 to make any great fuss about a few cenls 

 in the day's wages, if he is certain tliat 

 the .iilvance goes to his men and not to 

 the grafters. And he resents having an 

 impudent, beery bum come sneakini^ 

 about his premises telling him how he 

 shall run his business. If he was a do- 

 cent man whom the employer could re- 

 spect, who would conduct himself in a 

 decent manner and wasn't, in so many 

 cases, so palpably a grafter of the cheap 

 and most offensive nature, the employer 

 would not greatly ob.ioct to treating with 

 him as a representative of his men. 



As before stated, if tlie element of 

 graft could be eliminated and the hard- 

 working employer could treat with bis 



hardworking employes, there would be but 



little trouble. 



* * * 



liut you can't get rid of tlio grafters. 

 Xot now, at least. For the whole indas- 

 rrial, commercial, political and social sys- 

 tem of the country is rotten with gi-aft. 

 There was never anything like it in the 

 history of the world. The wonderful de- 

 velopment of this country aud the attend- 

 ant prosperity has brought them upon us 

 like a tiock of hungry buzzards. 



.\t the top is the great corporation 

 which goes to Congress and buys tariff 

 legislation which gives it license to levy 

 a tax on all the people. You know that 

 is done and so do I. We cannot hold any 

 party responsil>le. for it was done in the 

 AVilson bill and in the JIcKinley bill 

 and in every tariff bill before Con- 

 gress in recent years. I don't mean 

 that the congressmen get the money. 

 They no more get it than the members of 

 the labor unions get the bribes given to 

 the officials of the unions. The money 

 paid for tariff schedules goes into the 

 treasur.v of the party in power as a con- 

 tribution to campaign exijenses. Where it 

 goes from there you don't know and I 

 don't know. 



Understand, I am making no criticism 

 of the policy of extending tariff protec- 

 tion to infant industries that need pro- 

 tection. But you know and I know and 

 every intelligent man who has given the 

 matter any thought knows that the tariff 

 schedules, as they are on the statute 

 books to-day, are not arranged for that 

 purpose. They are arranged to promote 

 graft. 



Then we have the tnist organizers who 

 organize for graft, the great corporations 

 which corrupt state and municipal gov- 

 ernments, and so on down to the con- 

 tractor who takes a contract to supply a 

 public almshouse and by means of graft 

 fills it with rotten goods. Grafters all. 



Then we have our political grafters, 

 ranging from such a man as the boss of 

 Pennsylvania down to the ward heeler 

 who draws his pay from the city and 

 earns it by doing dirty work for tlie 

 grafter who got him the jog. Graflers 

 all. 



^^'o do not need to be told what a grip 

 the iiolitical grafters have on the nation. 

 We know that several of the states, and 

 among them some of the richest and most 

 enlightened, are absolutely entrapped, 

 bound hand and foot for the grafters to 

 plunder. And nearly all our large cities 

 are in the same fix. Talk about the men- 

 ace of organized laborl 

 » « * 



And wo have all become so used to it 

 that unless some one punches us up and 

 reminds us of it we scarcely notice it. 

 And many of us have to be a party to it 

 and can't help ourselves. If a man starts 

 in business in any large city and wants 

 a railway switch run into his yard, 



for iu.stance, one of the first things he 

 learns probably is that he win have to 

 make a donation to the grafters. 



It isn't the railroad, mind you. The 

 railroad stands- ready to lay the switch 

 to get the business. Rut you must have 

 a permit from the city, and the men whose 

 business it is to grant the permit won't 

 do it until they are paid; not lawfully 

 paid, mind you, but bribed. Of cour.se, it's 

 a contemptible, low down business, but 

 what are you going to do? Why, you are 

 going to cuss a little, probably, but you 

 are going to "give up." 



In fact, there isn't anything else for 

 you to do. If you ask your neighbor how 

 he got his switch he will tell you he got 

 it by -'giving up" to the grafters. And 

 will toll you there isn't any other way to 

 get it. It isn't any use to make a noise 

 and expose the attempt that is being made 

 to hold you up, for everybody knows the 

 situation. And if you want the switch 

 you'll have to pay the grafters their rake- 

 off. 



.ind you will find that there are a num- 

 ber of other things that you will need to 

 pay for. You will find that the laws of the 

 "municipality are very strict — so strict 

 that they will hamper you in the conduct 

 of your business; but you will soon learn 

 why they are so. You will find, prob- 

 ably, that the laws which hamper you 

 were first proposed by some well meaning 

 crank and that the grafters joined in and 

 helped the crank get the law enacted, 

 claiming great credit therefor. And you 

 will learn, without much ti'ouble, that you 

 will be permitted to violate these laws 

 for and in consideration of certain bribes 

 l)aid to the grafters whose business it is 

 to enforce them; aud the first thing you 

 know you are drifting along in the high 

 tide of graft, handing this man a piece of 

 money and that man a piece of money, 

 and tliinking little of it. 



« 4: « 



But what's the use, you say, of going 

 over all this ground? You know all about 

 it and so do all of us. and deprecate it 

 and wouldn't be a party to it if we could 

 liolp it, but what's the use? 



But this was all occasioned by that old 

 gentleman stating that the labor unions 

 are a menace to the countiT, And as I 

 looked at those honest, hardworking men 

 tranuiing sturdily through the streets I 

 couldn't believe it. And I don't believe It. 

 I've got confidence in the man who earns 

 his bread in the sweat of his face. 



It is the grafters that are the menace 

 to this country. They have seized on 

 nearly everything, and in one way and 

 another get a scalp out of everything go- 

 ing. The danger there is in labor union- 

 ism comes not from the men who compose 

 the unions, but from the grafters who are 

 fencing the unions away from their em- 

 ployers and demanding a rake-off from 

 both sides. 



And don't you, Mr. Business Man, sneer 



