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The leaders not infrequently know little of the English language and less of American institutions. They have been led, in their native land, to regard the law and its officers as their enemies, and they look at them in the same way here. It is believed, however, that a large majority of the Unions regard them with respect, and it is certain that such is the prevailing feeling of non-union men.
The big manufacturers could afford to pay union wages, yet they were fighting tooth and nail, and I certainly could not afford to pay high wages. If I had to, I should have to get out of business. Officially mine had become a union shop, yet my men continued to work on non-union terms.
Before ending this very inadequate discussion of the line of advance towards a constructive organization of labor, one more aspect thereof must be briefly considered. Under the proposed plan the fate of the non-union laborer, of the industrial dependent, would hang chiefly on the extent to which the thorough-going organization of labor was carried.
He becomes insensible to the unselfish impulse which may prompt a sympathetic strike in behalf of the workers in a non-union shop, because he allows his mind to dwell exclusively on the disorder which has become associated with the strike. He is completely side-tracked by the ugly phases of a great moral movement.
Among them are hours of labour, holidays, the amount of day wages, the price to be paid for piece-work, the proportion of apprentices to skilled artizans, the facilities to be allowed to Trade Union officials for interviews with members, the refusal of Unionists to work with non-Union men, and the pressure exerted by employees to induce workmen to join private benefit societies.
"I wonder if he belongs to the hermit's union and carries a union card," suggested Jennie Stone soberly. "I don't think we should patronize non-union hermits." "Goody!" cried Cora, clapping her hands. "Let's ask him." Ruth said nothing. She rather wished she might get out of the trip to Reef Island without offending anybody. But that seemed impossible.
They instituted and set in motion the powerful machinery of the strike, as it was called, making it effective by binding their members, under severe penalties, to stop work when they were ordered to do so by their leaders. They also practiced the severest measures of intimidation upon non-union men, to prevent them from getting employment.
But time flies, and space contracts: the words and the deeds of Amboyne, are they not written in the Amboyniana? One foggy night, the house of a non-Union fender-grinder was blown up with gunpowder, and not the workman only the mildest and most inoffensive man I ever talked with but certain harmless women and innocent children, who had done nothing to offend the Union, were all but destroyed.
He's a robber baron by nature, now, and he wouldn't have any scruple in levying tribute on us here in our one-spanner, if his castle was in good repair and his crossbowmen were not on a strike. But they would be on a strike, probably, and then he would lock them out, and employ none but non-union crossbowmen."
I must have patience." Beaton was saying to Dryfoos, "Pity your Pinkertons couldn't have given them a few shots before they left." "No, that wasn't necessary," said Dryfoos. "I succeeded in breaking up the union. I entered into an agreement with other parties not to employ any man who would not swear that he was non-union. If they had attempted violence, of course they could have been shot.
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