A Union Against Labor Unions

It is probably true that the present year to date has marked a decided loss to labor unions in the matter of public opinion. There is no evidence that these organizations have lost anything in membership for that has probably increased. But there has unquestionably been a decided loss to unions in public opinion due to the arbitrary, unjust, illegal and even criminal action of some of these organizations in their strike controversies throughout the country during the present season. 

These acts which have done much to bring discredit upon organized labor have started generally with the newer unions of unskilled laborers and have then by some means drawn other older and more conservative unions into the the controversy. In many instances the officers of the organizations have proven themselves wholly unsafe leaders and not disposed to take advice from older and safer leaders. In fact labor throughout the country during the present year seems not to have been led by the John Mitchells. 

Chicago has been a storm center in strike matters during the seasons. And so fierce, violent and criminal have been the acts growing out of these strikes that the absolute necessity of some sort of an organization to combat the unreasonable demands of the labor unions has forced itself upon the public and led to the organization of a "Public Union" designed especially to oppose the power of numbers against the power of numbers in the labor unions. Some of the purposed of this organization are stated to be:

It is designed to be a public movement, not to accomplish private ends except as such result legitimately follows its public purposes. Neither is it designed to be an openly belligerent or fighting organization, but to devote its energies:

1. To crystallize public opinion, already much aroused, into legitimate and orderly channels of resistance to labor unions and their lawless methods. 

2. By disseminating information more generally of the arbitrary, exasperating and criminal policy and acts of these unions and their members to extend and organize this opposition sentiment and mass it as effectively for the maintenance of law and order in this community as the unions are now able to subvert these main bulwarks of a civilized society. 

The chief objects, in other words, are: The creation of a healthy public sentiment respecting law and order, the weakening (destroying if you will) the more pestiferous of these societies in our midst, those founded on violence and menaces toward the majority of men they have acquired as members, maintained by like force, their purpose to compel employers to grant wage and other demands by threats and under duress, not by reason or in accord with judgement; the adequate protection of these working men and women, so often made the victims of these advisers of violence, for cause-that the victims wish to earn their daily bread by their labors.