"FREEDOM OF LABOR MUST BE UPHELD."
By Goldwin Smith
(Prof. Goldwin Smith, in San Francisco "Examiner" of Dec. 21, 1902.) The lawfulness of unions and strikes is now admitted on all hands. Capital is spontaneously combined; and, without counter combination, labor would have little chance of justice. On the other hand, the community has its rights. Freedom of labor must be upheld. Every man must be at liberty to take the work which another man declines, that there may be no monopoly of employment. There must be no arbitrary restriction upon the workman's use of his capacities or upon the extent of production. All this is commonplace. At the same time, strikes and lockouts are barbarous and wasteful modes of settling a difference between employer and employed. They not only cause great loss, but poison the heart of industrial society.