“THE ARMAGEDDON OF CAPITAL AND LABOR.”
If the Steel Trust finally decides to fight—and it looks now as if that would be its decision—it will be compelled to fight the whole power of organized labor, and the struggle will be great enough seriously to demoralize the business of the country. President Gompers has stated that the whole American Federation of Labor will stand by the Amalgamated Association, and there is no doubt that every labor union in the country will recognize as a trumpet call to battle the first overt act by the great trust. The men in the trust can hardly be supposed to underrate the seriousness of the situation; they have a billion dollars of capital on which to pay interest and dividends, but beyond that they have vast railroad, steamship, and banking interests which would be affected disastrously by a prolonged strike; in short, they have more to lose by such a contest than ever any set of men had before in a labor strike. What, then, must be the importance which they attach to the principle of independence of labor-union control, for which they are fighting? They must believe that this principle represents millions on millions to them in future years; for if they did not, they would not stand for it in the face of inevitable heavy losses just at the time when the Steel Trust, which is the most wholesale experiment in industrial combination yet tried, is getting into working order. On the other hand, the labor unions, also, face the certainty of vast loss and suffering; for if the great contest takes place, several hundred thousand men will cease to earn wages for an indefinite period of time, and they and their families will suffer. The worst of it will be that the loss and suffering will fall largely upon classes of persons who have had nothing to say, one way or the other, in regard to bringing on the strike, since the shutting down of the iron and steel mills will hit all manner of industries, and the contest will be not merely one of endurance to the two sides immediately opposed, but to all classes, in which those who have nothing at stake may happen to suffer most. The London newspaper which referred to the impending contest as the Armageddon of capital and labor in America, gave it an appropriate name; for there was never such a contest before, and may be the consequences will be such as to render a similar one impossible in future. —Oakland Enquirer.