Newspaper Page Text
*1 hope,” sald the captain, address.
Mg the passengers on a small coaster,
“that we all twenty-five will have a
pleasant trip.” The soup then ap
peared, “I trust, too, that we-er
twenty-four will reach port bene
fited by the voyage, and, as I look
upon you-er-twenty-two smiling faces
lam sure this group of-er-seventeen
Tt won't cost you a penny to reach
out a helping hand to a great army of
honest, hard-working and deserving
men and women,
Just your moral support will losure
work, a living, and comforts which
are now either partly or wholly de
nied them, |
How so?
“ Come on, let’s have a look.
You've often been importuned and
many have been commanded by ad
vertisement or otherwise to “‘refuse
to buy anything unless it bears the
union label.”
Looks harmless on its face, doesn't
it?
It really is a “demand” that you
boycott the products made by over 80
per cent. of our American working
men and women, who decline to pay
fees to, and obey the dictates of the
union leaders.
- It demands that you ask the mer
chant for articles with the “union
label,” thus to impress him with its
importance.
It seeks to tell you what to buy and
what to refuse. The demands are
sometimes most insolent, with a
*“holier than thou” impudence.
It demands that you take away the
living of this 80 per cent. of American
workingmen and women.
Is that clear?
Why should a small body of work
men ask you to help starve the larger
body?
There must be some reason for the
*“‘union label” scheme.
Run over in your mind and remem
ber how they carry on their work.
During a discussion about working
or striking in the coal regions, about
25,000 men preferred to work, they
had wives and babies to feed. The
union men said openly in their con
vention that if the employers didn’t
discharge these men they (the union
men) would kill them.
So they dynamited about a dozen
homes, maimed and crippled women
and children and brutally assaulted
scores of these independent workers.
The big boys of the union men were
taught to pound the school children
of the independent men. How would
you like to have your little girl short
ly grown from the toddling baby who
used to sit on your lap and love “Dad
dy’" pounded by some big bullies on
her way home from the school where
she had gone to try and please Daddy
by learning to read?
The little bruised face and body
would first need tender care while you
ponder the inscription writ deep in
your heart, by that Master and Guide
to all human compass.on, *lnasmuch
as ye have done it unto one of the
least of these My brethren ye have
done it unto Me.” Then perhaps you
would drop to your knees and pray
Almighty God for strength in your
right arm to strike one wanly and
powerful blow for baby's sake, even if
you went to death for it
Elelpless children were brought
Bome, with faces black or bleeding
from the blows and kicks of these
fiends, teaching independent Ameri
cans that they inust stop work when
teld and pay ftees to the leaders of
*labor.” Thousands o 1 men, women
and children have been treated thus.
From somewlicie, Oh, Father of us
all, we try to believe that You look
with pitying eyos @pon these brutal
blows, cuts and .c.rs on the many
human bodies il 1n your likeness
and image.
" They are boatitally and wonder
fully made, <! Ihe dweliing place
of a Divine Sou! . ,
I 8 it Your v =i that they be erushed
by iron shod !i-~ls, cut by knives or
torn asunder v bullets and dyna-l
mite?
May we venture to th.nk that a
long sufferingz 1+ o nee s extended in
the hope that (1 uen and Women,ot’
America may -~omie« day wake to a
realization of i awtul cruelties per-!
petrated by tlii spirit of oppression
and that they will some time learn*
the lesson that' the “sacred gift of hu
man freedom and liberty”™ was given
by God and must be defended even to
‘death itself :
. Our forefathers were used by the
Infinite God to establish our freedom
{n 1776, and our fathers gave freely
‘of their blood and treasure to estab
lish the freedom ot the black Now
again it seems we are called upon to
protect our brothers ' and ourselves
from that old time spirit of tyranny
which comes up from time to time to
force people to obey tyrannous rules
‘and bend the knee of the slave.
willbe s bagor fhily, Wil i o
pu-er-thirteen I see at the table join
me in drinking a health to our com
ing trip? We seven, that Is, three—
well, you and I, my dear sir—here,
steward, clear away these dishes,'—
A Bad Man,
Thomas Nelson Page was talking
in the smoking room of the Amerika
Pass the Word
In Wellston, Ohlo, thirty Amer
fcans sought employment in a factory.
They were seeking to earn food for
thelr families. They were bombarded
by rocks and pounded with clubs In
the hands of union men.
One of the injured, John Branni
han, was taken to the ecity hospital
with a broken jaw, crushed skull ag_d
Qther cuts and bruises. He was the
father of two children, and was
thought to be dying. perhaps he did.
I don't know, but | sometimes wonder
what the children said to Mother
when “Papy” didn’t come home, and
how they and the little woman got
any food, and how they could place
their wrongs before their own Amer
ican fellows.
Mayhap sometime some kind per
son will equip a home where the or
phans and widows of the victims of
the Labor Trust may be cared for and
fed.
It would take a big home. It has
been said there were 31 ‘Americans,
many of them tathers, killed in one
strike, (the teamsters in Chicago)
and over 5000 maimed, many for life.
That’s only one “lesson” of these
bullies. There are literally thousands
of cases wherein your fellow Amer
ican has been assaulted, maimed or
killed by these men. The same work
is going on day by day. Suppose you
make a practice of picking out each
day from the papers, accounts of bru
tality to American workingmen who
prefer to work free from the impu
dence and tyranny of self constituted
leaders (?) than to be always subject
to their beck and call, pay them fees
and be told by them when and where
to work, and for whom. You will
discover the same general conditions
underlying all these daily attacks.
in every case the workingman pre
fers to be free. He has that right,
He then tries to go to work. He and
his family sorely need the money for
food or he wouldn’t run the risk of
his life. Many such a man has wiped
the tears away and quieted the fears
of a loving wife, left with a kiss on
her 'ips, set his manly jaw and
walked into a shower of stones and
bullets to win food for the loved
mother and babies.
A good many have been brought
home on stretchers with blood oozing
from nose and ears, some cold, while
some gradually recover, and carry for
life the grim marks of the *“union
label.”
They are your fellows, my friends,
and yet you supinely read the ac
counts and say “too bad.”
Have you grown so calloused that
you care nothing for the sufferings of
these men who need food and these
belpless ones who rely on the life and
strength of hiustand and father?
Let us hope that soon you may be
moved by a just God to rice in your
might and by voice and pen, by vote
and right arm you will do a man’s
part in protecting yourselves and
your brothers from this onslaught on
American citizens. This cruel war
fare is carried on not always to raise
wages, but to establish urion con
trol, kick out the independent men
and establish the “label.”
Unfortunately the “Labor move
ment” which started many years ago
honestly enough, has fallen under
control of a lot of tyrannical, vicious
“men of violent tendencies.”
There are too many to attempt to
name. You can recall them. They
include men who have planned the
murders of miners, teamsters, press
men and carpenters, shoemakers and
independent workmen of all kinds.
Many of them have escaped hanging
by an outraged public only because
juries became terror stricken .and
dared not convict them.
Some have been punished slightly
and some, including the principal offi
cers of this nefarious crew are now
under sentence to imprisonment but
have appealed their cases.
Right here some apologist rises to
protest against “speaking thus of
laboring men.” Bless your dear
heart, it isn’'t the honest and real
workman who does these things, it is
the excitable ones and the toughs and
thugs who don’t workexceptwith their
mouths, but have secured control of
too many unions. I don’'t even at
tempt -to specify the criminal acts
these persons have assisted or winked
at in their plan for destroying free
workingmen and forcing men to stay
in “the union” and hence under their
control. The newspapers for the past
} 7 years contain almost daily accounts
of the criminal, lawless and tyranni-
about the old-fashioned bad men ot
the West.
- “They are extinct now,” said Mr,
Page, “and Tam sorry. They were,
you know, so picturesque, I remem.
ber & western trip—"'
. He laughed heartily,
“We were all seated in the bar
room of Tin Can or Dead Cur—some
such town, I was the only tenderfoot
cal acts agalnst American citizens and
haven't told half the tale. Right here
it becomes necessary to say for the
ten thousandth time that there are
.scores ‘of honest, law-abiding union
‘ men who deplore and are in no way
responsible for the long infamous rec
ord of the “Labor Trust” under its
’pr,esent management, but they don't
seem to stop it.
’ The men who manage, who pull the
1 strings and guide the policy have
'made the record and it stands, as
'made by them.
3 Examine, if you please, the record
of a string of members of the Amer
ican Federation of Labor and you will
view a list of crimes against Amer
‘icans, stupendous beyond belief. They
defy the laws, sneer at the courts,
incite mobs and are avowed enemies
of the peaceable citizens of all classes.
This band wields an iron bar over
their subjects and drives them to
idleness whenever they want to call a
strike or exact extra pocket money
for themselves.
' Men don’t want to be thrown out
of work and lose their livelihood, but
what can they do when the slugging
and murdering committee stands al
ways ready to “do them” if they try
to work.
The poor women and helpless chil
dren suffer and no one dares present
their case to the public. They must
suffer in silence for they have no way
to right their wrongs, while the no
toriety-seeking leaders carry out their
work.
These men cannot thus force op
pression on the weak and innocent or
use them'to bring newspaper notice to
themselves and money to their pock
ets unless they can “hold them in
line.”
Therefore, with the craft of the fox
and venom of the serpent they devise
the “union label” and tell the public
to buy only articles carrying that
label.
Smooth scheme isn’t it?
They extract a fee from every
union man, and in order to get these
monthly fees, they must hold the
workers in’ “the union” and force
:nanufacturers to kick out all inde
pendent men.
Can anyone devise a more com
plete and tyrannical trust?
If allowed full sway, no independ
ent man could keep working in a free
factory, for the goods wouldn’t sell,
no matter how perfectlythey be made.
Then, when the factory has been
forced to close and the employes get
hungry enough from lack of wages
the workers must supplicate the
union leaders to be ‘‘allowed” to pay
their fines (for not becoming mem
bers before) and pay their monthly
fees to thé purse-fat managers of the
Labor Trust. Thereupon (under or
ders) -before the factory be allowed
to start they must force the owners
of the husiness to put on the ‘“‘union
label” or strike, picket the works,
and turn themselves into sluggers and
criminals towards the independent
workers who might still refuse to
bend the knee and bow the head.
In the meantime babies and moth
ers go hungry and shoeless, but who
cares. The scheming leaders are
trained to talk of the ‘“‘uplifting of la
bor’” and shed tears when they speak
of the “brotherhood of man,” mean
ing the brotherhood of the “Skinny
Maddens,” ‘‘Sheas,” ‘“Gompers,” et
al., always excluding the medium or
high-grade independent workers.
Perhaps you have noticed lately
that the makers of the finest hats,
shoes and other articles have stoppea
putting on the union label. Natural
ly the Labor Trust managers have or
dered their dupes to strike, lie idle,
scrap, fight, slug and destroy proper
ty to force the makers to again put
on “the label.” But for some reason
the buying public has been arousea
to the insults and oppression behind
it, and in thousands of cases have re
fused to buy any article carrying,
what some one named the “tag of ser
vitude and oppression.” ~
The bound and gagged union slave
ig fined from $5.00 to $25.00 if he
buys any article not bearing the
“union label,” Nevertheless, he,
time and again, risks the penalty and
buys “free” goods simply in order to
help the fellow workingman who is
brave enough to work where he
pleases without asking permission on
bended knees from the bulldozing
leaders who seek by every known
method of oppression and hate to
govern him, ,
present. Every man about me bris
tled with guns and knives like an en~
raged porcupine, If I refused to
drink, I was given to understand I
would be turned into a human pin
cushion or worse,
“Well, as I sipped a friendly glass
of something resembling wood alco
hol, a very bad man, indeed, rode on
a prancing mustang right into the
If these poor wageworkers will
thus brave fine and slugging to help
out other men who seek to live a free
life under our laws and constitution
cannot you, reader, help a little?
Will you reach out a hand to help
an independent workman earn food
for his wife and babies? Or will you
from apathy and carelessness allow
him to be thrown out of work ana
the helpless suffer uyntil they pros
trate themselves before this stupen
dous and tyrannical aggregation of
leeches upon'honest American labor?
The successor of Henry Ward
Beecher in Plymouth Church, Brook
lyn, says:
“Union labor hatred for labor
burns like a flame, eats like nitric
acid, is malignant beyond all descrip
tion. But the other day, a woman
representing a certain union visited
many families in Plymouth Church
asking them to boycott a certain in
stitution. * * * Alas, this union
woman’s hatred for non-union women
burned in her like the fires of hell.”
She was pitilessly, relentlessly and
tirelessly pursuing the non-union
women and men to destroy the mar
ket for goods, to ruin their factory
and to starve them out.
In the French Revolution only 2
per cent. of the French people be
lieved in violence. The 98 per cent.
disclaimed violence and yet the 98
per cent. allowed the 2 per cent. to
fill the streets of Paris with festering
corpses, tQ clog the Seine with dead
bodies, to shut up every factory in
Paris, until the laboring classes
starved by the score.
The small per cent. element in the
Labor Trust which hates and seeks
to destroy the large per cent. of inde
pendent Americans sends out letters
declaring “free’” industries unfair and
tries to boycott their products. If
they could bind every one it would
bring suffering upon hundreds of
thousands, immeasurable ruin upon
the country, and land it absolutely
under control of the men now at
tempting to dictate the daily acts of
our people and extract from each a
monthly fee.
There are babies, children, women
and honest, hard-working and skill
ful fathers who rely upon the protec
tion of their fellows, when they seek
to sell their labor where they choose,
when they choose, anrd for a sum they
believe it to be worth,
Every citizen having the rights,
privileges and protection of a citizen
has also the responsibility of a citizen.
The Labor Trust leaders may
suavely ‘*‘request” (or order those
they can) to buy only ‘““union label”
articles, and you can of course obey If
you are under orders.
Depend upon it, the creatures of
the Labor Trust will, upon reading
this, visit stores and threaten dire re
sults unless all the things bear ‘the
label.”
They go so far as to have their
women pretend to buy things, order
yards of silk or cloth torn off and va
rious articles wrapped up and then
discover “no label,” and refuse them.
That’s been done hundreds of times
and is but one of the petty acts of
hatred and tyranny. ! :
Let no one who reads this article
understand that he or she is asked to
boycott any product whether it bears
a ‘“‘union label” or not. One has a
constitutional right to examine the
article and see whether its makers are
Labor Trust contributors and slaves
or are free and independent Ameri
cans.
I have tried to tell you something
about thvse who are oppressed, vili
fied, hated, and when opportunity of
fers are attacked because they prefer
to retain their ownindependent Amer
ican manhood. These men are in the
vast majority and include the most
skillful artisans in the known world.
They have wives and babes dependent
on them. d
These men arefrequently oppressed
and have no way to make ‘their
wrongs known. They are worthy of
defense. That’s the reason for the
expenditure of a few thousands of dol
lars to send this message to the
American people. = Remember, I
didn’t"say my ‘“excuse” for sending
it. The cause needs no “‘excuse.”
C. W. POST,
, Battle Creek, Mich.
N. B.
Some ‘“‘parlor socialist’” who knows
nothing of the Russian Czarism of the
great Labor Trust will ask right
here: “Don’t you believe in the right
T R : wfim&n‘em AL 'W
ur; om. He drew up and haa a
drink. Then, spying me, he sald:
“‘Whar ye from, stranger?’
““ ‘Richmond,’ said I. ~
“ ‘Not good old Richmond, Va.?' he
exclaimed.
“ ‘Yes,' said I; ‘do you know it?’
“ ‘Know it?’ he shouted. ‘Know
it? Best jail I ever was in.’ "—Wash~
ington Star,
of certaln workmen to ‘organize?’ ™
Oh, yes, brother, when real workmen
manage wisely and peacefullly, but.l
would .challenge the right of even a
church organization when its affairs
had been seized by a motley crew of
heartless, vicious men who stopped
industries, incited mobs to attack citi
zens and destroy property in order to
establish thelr control of communi
ties and affairs, and subject every one
to their orders and exact the fees.
When you see wora 5f this kind being
done call on or write the prosecuting
officers of your district and demand
procedure under the Sherman anti
trust law, and prosecution for con
spiracy and restraint of trade. We
have the law, but the politicians and
many of our officers even while draw
ing pay from the people are afraid to
enforce it in protection of our eciti-
Zzens, and now the big Labor Trust is
moving heaven and earth to repeal
the law so their nefarious work may
be more safely carried on.
But You. Why don't you strike
out and demand defense for your fel
lows?
Put your prosecuting officers to the
test and insist that they do their
sworn duty, and protest to your Con
gressmen and legislators against the
vepeal of the Sherman Anti-Trust law.
Its repeal is being pushed by the La
bor Trust and some big capital trusts
in order to give each more power to
oppress. Do your duty and protest.
In this great American Repyblic
every one must be jealous of the right
of individual liberty and always and
ever resent the attempts made t ain
power for personal aggrandizemfent.
Only "the poor fool allows hi% lib
erty to be wrested from him.
Some one asks “how about youry
own workmen?”
I didn’t intend to speak of my own
affairs, but so long as the question is
almost sure to be asked I don’'t mind
telling you.
The Postum workers are about a
thousand strong, men and women,
and don’t belong to labor unions. The
Labor Trust has, time without num
bers, sent “organizers” with money
to give ‘“‘smokers,” etc., and had their
“orators” declaim the “brotherhood
of man” business, and cry salty tears
describing the fearful conditions of
the ‘“slaves of capital” and all that.
But the “confidence game’” never
worked, for the decent and high
grade Postum workers receive 10 per
cent. over the regular wage scale.
They are the highest paid, richest and
best grade of working people in the
State of Michigan and I believe in the
United States. They mostly own
their own homes, and good ones.
Their wages come 52 weeks in a year
and are never stopped on the order of
some paid agent of the .Labor Trust.
They have savings accounts in the
banks, houses of their own and steady
work at high wages.
They like their daily oecupation in
the works (come and ask them) and
are not slaves, and yet the Labor
Trust leaders have done their best to
ruin the sale of their products and
force them into idleness and poverty.
It would cost the Wworkingmen of
Battle Creek (our people and about
3000 others) from SIOOO.OO so
$2000.00 a month in fees to send out '
to the leaders of the Labor Trust, if
they would allow themselves to be
come ‘“‘organized’” and join the Trust.
Not for them, they keep the money,
school the children and live ‘free.”
That’s some comfort for white people.
Once in a while one of the little
books ‘““The Road to Wellville,” we
put in the pkgs. of Postum, Grape-.
Nuts and Post Toasties, is sent bacik
to us with a sticker pasted across it
saying ‘‘Returned because it don’t
bear ‘the union label.” ;
Then we join hands and sing a
hymn of praise for the discovering by *
some one that our souls are not
seared with the guilt of ‘being con- -
spirators to help bind the chains of
slavery upon fellow Amerjcans by
placing added power in the hands of
the largest, most oppressive and
harmful trust the world has ever seen.
When you seek to buy something
look for the “union label” and speak
your sentiments. That’s an opportu
nity to reach out a helping hand to
the countless men and women in all
kinds of industry who brave bricks,
stones and bullets, to maintain their
American manhood and freedom by
making the finest goods in America
and which do not bear the seal of in
dnsfi.‘lal slavery, the “Union Label.”
