If they could be maintained, society
would be at the mercy of an irresponsible and even secret tribunal.
The strike is illogical. Take the recent experience in this country. We
have had a long season of depression, in which many earned very little
and labor sought employment in vain. In the latter part of winter the
prospect brightened, business revived, orders for goods poured in to all
the factories in the country, and everybody believed that we were on the
eve of a very prosperous season. This was the time taken to order
strikes, and they were enforced in perhaps a majority of cases against
the wishes of those who obeyed the order, and who complained of no
immediate grievance. What men chiefly wanted was the opportunity to work.
The result has been to throw us all back into the condition of stagnation
and depression. Many people are ruined, an immense amount of capital
which ventured into enterprises is lost, but of course the greatest
sufferers are the workingmen themselves.
The methods of violence suggested by the communists and anarchists are
not remedial. Real difficulties exist, but these do not reach them. The
fact is that people in any relations incur mutual obligations, and the
world cannot go on without a recognition of duties as well as rights.
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