Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1908 — REPUBLICAN PARTY AND LABOR [ARTICLE]

REPUBLICAN PARTY AND LABOR

An Equality of Opportunities Secured for Wage Earners.

William H. Taft’s Speech of Acceptance Gives Party Record in Behalf of Labor.

(William H. Taft In his speech of acceptance.)

We come now to the question of labor. One important phase of the policies of the present administration has been an anxiety to secure for the wageearner an equality of opportunity and such positive statutory protection as shall place him on a level in dealing with his employer. The Republican party has passed an employers’ liability act for interstate railroads, and has established an eight hour law for government employes and on government construction. The essence of the reform effected by the former, Is the abolition of the fellow-ser-vant rule and the introduction of the comparative negligence theory 'by which an employe injured in the service of his employer does not lose all his right to recover becauseof slight negligence on his part. Then there is the act providing for compensation for injury to government employes,, together with the various statutes requiring safety appliances upon Interstate commerce railroads for the protection of their employes and limiting the hours of their employment

These are all Instances of the desire of the Republican party to do Justice to the wage-earners. Doubtless a more comprehensive

measure for compensation of government employes will be adopted in the future; the principle in such cases has been recognized and in the necessarily somewhat slow course of legislation will be more fully embodied In definite statutes.

The interests of the employer and the employe never differ except when It comes to a division of the Joint profit of labor and capital Into dividends and wages. This must be a constant source of periodical discussion between the employer and the employe, as Indeed are the other terms of the employment.

To give to employes their proper position in such a controversy, to enable them to maintain themselves against employers having great capital, they may well unite, because in union theje is strength, and without it, each individual laborer and employe would be helpless. The promotion of the industrial peace through the instrumentality of the trade agreement is often one of the results of such union when intelligently conducted.

There is a large body of laborers, however, skilled and unskilled, who are not organized Into unions. Their rights before the law are exactly the same as those of the union men, and are to be protected with the same care and watchfulness.

In order to induce their employer into a compliance with their request for changed terms of employment, workmen have the right to strike in a body.

They have a right to use such persuasion as they may, provided it does not reach the point of duress, to lead their reluctant co-laborers to join them in their union against their employer, and they have a right, if they choose, to accumulate funds to support those engaged tn a strike, to delegate to officers the power to direct the action of the union, and to withdraw themselves and their associates from dealings with or giving custom to those with whom they are in controversy.