It is not only in discussions of the "labor situation" that we hear this eternal babble of "principles." It is never out of ear, and in politics is especially clamant. Every success in an election is yawped of as "a triumph of Republican (or Democratic) principles." But neither in politics nor in the quarrels of laborers and their employers have principles a place as "factors in the problem." Their use is to supply to both combatants a vocabulary of accusation and appeal. All the fierce talk of an antagonist's violation of those eternal principles upon which organized society is founded--and the rest of it--what is it but the cry of the dog with the chewed ear? The dog that is chewing foregoes the advantage of song.
Human contests engaging any number of contestants are not struggles of principles but struggles of interests; and this is no less true of those decided by the ballot than of those in which the franker bullet gives judgment. Nor, but from considerations of prudence and expediency, will either party hesitate to transgress the limits of the law and outrage the sense of right. At Homestead and Wardner the laborers committed robbery, pillage and murder, as striking workmen invariably do when they dare, and as cowardly newspapers and scoundrel politicians encourage them in doing. But what would you have? They conceive it to be to their interest to do these things. If capitalists conceive it to be to theirs they too would do them. They do not do them for their interest lies in the supremacy of the law--under which they can suffer loss but do not suffer hunger.
"But they do murder," say the labor unions; "they bring in gangs of armed mercenaries who shoot down honest workmen striving for their rights." This is the baldest nonsense, as they know very well who utter it. The Pinkerton men are mere mercenaries and have no right place in our system, but there have been no instances of their attacking men not engaged in some unlawful prank. In the fight at Homestead the workmen were actually intrenched on premises belonging to the other side, where they had not the ghost of a legal right to be. American working men are not fools; they know well enough when they are rogues. But confession is not among the military virtues, and the question. Is roguery expedient? is not so simple that it can be determined by asking the first preacher you meet.
