Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1886 — LABOR AND LABORERS. [ARTICLE]

LABOR AND LABORERS.

News and Notes of Interest to Both the Employers and fee Employed. Workingmen Drifting Into Politics— The Industrial World and the Labor Market. There is a very strong drift among the?workingmen toward political action. This feeling is stronger in the Western Statesthan in the East. Experience, however,shows that they would prefer to throw ten. votes to the politicians they denounce than one vote to one of their own number. In Texas politics is the absorbing question among workingmen. In several cities of Kansas political tickets have been put upby wage-workers. District Assembly No. 65, Knights of Labor, at Albany, became so large that a division wsrs necessary. The colored waiters of Chicago have organized an There are 55 local assemblies in Cincinnati,, and the order is expanding. Local Assembly No. 7103 is doing good missionary work in Colorado. There are 9,000 members in good standing in District Assembly No. 3of Pittsburgh. The Bricklavers’ International Union has 107 local assembliesand 16,000 members. The Singer Sewing Machine Company of New York is en<:lea\ oring to make terms with its striking salesmen. The National Bakers’ Union has forty branches and a membership of 18,000. The printers of New York will turn out 5,000 men for the coming parade. The Empire Foundry Company of Troy has advanced piece work ten per cent.' (lay work, fifty cents; pattern-filers, twentyfive cents, and the men in the iron mill have struck for forty cents a dr v advance. Trouble is again threatened iu'the Hocking Y alley coal mines. Strikes are alsothreatened in Indiana and Illinois mines. Wages have been reduced to a starvation basis in the lowa mines. The Southern Manufacturers’ Association has organized an association on the Slater plan; their pay-rolls foot up $1,000,000. Thirty car-loads of textile machinery recently arrived at Gibson, Miss. A new clothing factory is going up at Henderson, Ky. Southern textile manufacturers are putting in huge Corliss engines, electric lights, new looms and special machinery. One firm atNewberne, N. C., has purchased 4,000 spindles and 120 looms at Biddeford, Me., to be up and running by Nov. 1. Southern textile competition has driven New York dry goods dealers to get special ireight rates. Southern manufacturers are preparing to increase the competition by doubling their capacity in order to reduce the cost per yard, and to that end are contracting for machinery in the North. A sheeting-mill in Waterville, Me., made 5>4,000 profit on 1,000 hands in oue year, or S4O per hand, equal to 80 cents per week. Several Maine mills are obliged to run dav and night. The Massachusetts paper-makers report business brisk. One maker at North AdamSjhas just put in four new 800-pound beaters. The total production of paper and pulp of all kinds in the United States last year was 8,380,880 pounds, against 7,867,830 pounds in 1884, 6,949,800 pounds in 1883, and 5,315,400 pounds in 1882. Last year’s wood-pulp production was 960,600 pounds; wood-pulp board, 65,000 pounds; straw board, 881,050 pounds; manila, 953,250 pounds; collar paper, 4,500 pounds; chemical fiber, 549,000 pounds; book and news paper, 2,132,900 pounds. Massachusetts took the lead iu book and news, making 398,200 pounds; New York was second, with 319,150 pounds; Pennsylvania third, with 290,900 pounds. Pennsylvania’s total product of paper and mate rial was 727,400 pounds, or about 8 per cent, of the total output. New York’s output was 1.694,350 pounds. Only two States do not make paper—Dakota and Louisiana. Missouri made 9,000 pounds of straw wrappiug. The foriy-two Brockton, Mass., shoe manufacturers have refused to discharge non-union lasters, and slaud by one of their number who was ordered to do so. The largest shoe factory in England recently burned down; throwing out 1,200 hands.

Employers Should Remember that Workingmen Are Human. •From the Altoona Tribune.] If the teachings of the Caipenter of Nazareth were earned into practical effect by all who profess to be His followers, there would be a great deal less strife in the world, as well as less wretchedness and poverty. Then employers, at least all employers who profess to be Christians, would look upon their workmen not as machines but as human beings, and would take into constant consideration their temporal as well as their intellectual and spiritual needs. Carrying into practical effect the golden rule announced from the Mount, they -would be kind, generous and just, and would surely win the confidence and the love of their men. For nothing is surer than that the men who deserve the affection of others will invariably secure it. We know some employers who have a high place in the affections of those who serve them, and deservedly so, for they are worthy. There are others who are hated by those who are under them. As a rule it is because of their mean and tyrannical ways. A little more of the golden rule brought into practical operation in their relations to others would speedily work a marvelous change. But this rule is not a one-sided affair. It is as good for the servant as for the master, for the employe as for the employer. If it is the duty of capital to do unto others as it would have others do unto it, it is no less the duty of labor to do the same thing. If labor is entitled to living wages it must render honest service in return. If it is not a machine to be mercilessly w orked, neither is capital a strong box to be mercilessly robbed. The duties of the workingman toward his employer cannot be shirked. Obligations are mutual. This labor must understand and practice. If the Christian capitalist will not oppress or rob his brother, neither will the Christian laborer exert himself to drive capital into a corner that it may be compelled to stand and deliver. On the contrary, the Christian laborer will demand only that which is just, and will render honest, faithful, and cheerful service. He realizes that his employer has rights also, and he endeavors to deal justly with those rights-