JUST an expression may contain the key that will unlock the whole principle that actuates a widespread movement. Discussing the street-car strike prospects in San Francisco, the president of the Carmen's Union said: "We would allow OUR MEN to work under the present schedule for two or three weeks."
Such straws show how men who join such leagues give away their liberties to a few leaders whom they are obliged to support. The idea of a man's dictating to another man's hired assistants how long they shall work, or under what conditions they shall work, or whether they shall work at all! Then the idea that men of sufficient intelligence to become expert workmen in any respectable calling should acknowledge themselves incapable of making their own bargains! Is it not enough that the hired laborer should be under the dictation of the employer who pays him, without contributing to the support of another "boss" to dictate to him when and when not to work?
Surely this can not long be reckoned as a free country, when the producing classes are willing to give away their liberties in such wholesale manner. When men are willing to pay for the burden of a double dictation concerning their labors, they certainly have lost the keener sense of liberty. It is no wonder that human slavery is on the increase, and that so many of the victims seem willing to have it so.
But, "who art thou that judgest another man's servant?" The Word of God says, "To his own master he standeth or falleth." Again we are told that "no man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other."
This great truth is fully illustrated in the principle of labor unionism; and the strange part of it is that the laborer is obligated always to "love," or at least to obey, the dictator who has no interest in his employment, and to "despise" the master who pays him for his service. It is decidedly strange to see otherwise intelligent men taking orders from the one whom they pay, and assuming to dictate terms to the employer who pays them. But the world is full of strange anomalies in these last days. G.