Strikes and the Power of Capital
The industrial condition is practically unchanged. The great strike of the steel-workers waits. But little is said on either side. It is the rule to talk confidence to the last. The strikers hope to win till they lose, and so do the companies. Ultimately capital will win, because it can wait, unless revolution sweeps it away. Stocks are going down, and the men who control the money will buy for a song, increasing their wealth by future advance in prices when the storm is over. The great trust has taken no decisive measures at this writing, and President Shaffer of the steel-workers threatens, in connection with President Gompers of the Federated Trades, to paralyze all industries for the principle of unionism, if necessary. Mr. Shaffer, as reported, renounces Republicanism. In New York 50,000 garment-workers are on strike for better pay, shorter hours, and better ventilated rooms. There is no question but that there is cause for grievance. Only the judgment of God will reveal the crimes of the proprietors of sweatshops. In San Francisco there are 1,000 teamsters off, and 800, it is said, will soon follow. The draymen who employ the teamsters have been asking the teamsters to haul goods for houses that are non-union, and the teamsters refuse and are told to quit. Business is seriously affected. These things bode anything but times of prosperity, except to the great corporations and the few who profit through them. Yet men will not see that all these things are inevitable results of the departure from right principles. They will not see that all is set before us in God’s Word, from the beginning to the end. And yet it is.