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“passed by on the other side,” and left in their squalor and misery. The workers, or the people of a nation who, knowing their rights, have the courage and the fortitude and the willingness to assert and defend them, are always the most respected among the peoples on the face of the earth.
For more than twenty-five years the miners in the anthracite coal regions were being degraded. Who gave them attention but the organized workers? When at last through the efforts of organized labor the miners were aroused from their lethargy, determined to strike, and did strike, despite the popular notion that they had lost all courage and would not strike, 170,000 of them gave notice to the world that if coal was to be mined, the men were entitled to at least a living wage as a condition precedent. Universal sympathy was aroused in their favor, and it resulted in a concession and a victory which all the world agrees made for the social and moral uplifting of the entire communities in which the miners lived.
Organized labor stands for:
1. Organization.
2. Conciliation.
3. Arbitration.
We know that without organization, conciliation and arbitration are a delusion and a snare.
The combination of the employers, the wealth possessors of America, has progressed at a very rapid rate. The workers have no fear because of these combinations. They are realizing that in order to protect and promote their interests today, and to vouchsafe their liberty and freedom for the future, it is essential for them to unite and federate.
Out of the two united forces there is a constantly growing tendency toward mutual agreements, lasting for a stated period during which industrial disturbances are avoided; representatives of both sides engage in adjusting the differences arising from the constant transition in machinery and methods of production; and they meet annually or biennially to again discuss conditions upon which industrial peace may be continued for a like period.
The workers are sometimes accused of unwillingness to make concessions. To this we answer that so far as it is possible, the workers ought not to concede; in fact, their conditions are such that they have exceedingly little to concede.
