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J. J. Hill, Pessimist

J. J. Hill, Pessimist image
Parent Issue
Day
13
Month
February
Year
1903
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

James J. Hill, the great railroad magnate and head of the Northern Securities company, is said to be very pessimistic over the industrial outlook of the United States. He looks upon labor unions as the great menace to the industrial progress of the nation. He says: "As labor unions killed industrial England, so are they destined to bring about a grave financial reverse in the United States and the country is swiftly approaching that crisis."

There undoubtedly are some dark clouds on our industrial horizon, but there are probably more people who see danger in the organizations like the one Mr. Hill heads than in labor unions. There are undoubtedly serious evils in labor unions, but are there not more dangerous ones in the great trust organizations? The trusts have the means and the power to accomplish their selfish and unlawful ends in larger degree than do any labor organizations. And who can deny their success in the practice of their extortions? Those things of which the country complains in labor unions exist in the great trusts in an even more dangerous form. If it be not right for labor unions to restrict apprentices in any trade, is it any less wrong for trusts to restrict competition in any line? If it be unjust for labor unions to prevent non-union men from working, is it any less unjust for trust concerns to crush individuals engaged in the same line of business that the trust is, but outside of trust control? Members of labor unions sometimes destroy property. They sometimes become lawbreakers. But is not this equally true of the trusts? And whereas the labor unions themselves do not sanction nor approve these lawless acts of members of the unions, the trusts through the best legal talent obtainable study and plan to violate both the constitution and the laws of the state. Both the constitution and the laws of Pennsylvania provide that there shall be no such trust organization as the anthracite coal combine and yet it exists and operates from day to day in open violation of constitution and law. Nor is this fact unknown to the officers of the law and the people generally. Still the mote in the eye of labor unions is bigger to J. J. Hill than the beam in the eye of the trusts.

Where much is given much is required. Therefore, if a change for the better in industrial conditions is desired, ought not those concessions to that end to begin with the trusts? Let them show a little more of the humanitarian spirit, a little less of selfishness and greed, a disposition to be satisfied with the same percentage of profits on their business that the private business man and the laborer have to get along with. Let them surrender the unjust profits they gather from the pockets of all consumers through the iniquitous protection laws enacted to protect infant industries until they were able to stand alone. But thus far the trusts have shown no such disposition. They insist upon their pound of flesh regardless of the effect upon the nation at large. While they persist in such a course, why should they expect less favored labor to manifest that spirit of fairness and justice which the trusts refuse to make any part of their code of ethics?