Don’t Mourn, Organize!
-Joe Hill
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 26, 1908
National Elections Pass into History; Hardships Continue for Toilers
From the Charleston Labor Argus of December 24, 1908:
Trade Union Are Toilers Only Hope
—–Only Protection and Safety for the Working
Masses is Organized Labor
-Politicians Are But Tools of the Trusts.
—–
Now that another national contest has, passed into history and the working people can take a sober view of the economic situation, the Cleveland Citizen calls attention to the fact that the labor problem was not solved on Nov. 3, 1908.
While the unsuccessful politicians are now in the dumps and the victors are celebrating their acquaintance of the spoils of office, the workingmen are confronted by exactly the the same conditions that they were to face the day before election.
The problem of unemployment for some and overwork for others, the evils for cheap women and child labor, the introduction of labor-displacing machinery, the threats of wage reductions, the attacks of union smashing open shoppers and similiar questions are here today just as they were here last week, and they must and considered for the reason that they cannot lie dodged.
Since there is no likelihood that the victorious politicians will establish the millennium week after next or next year or the year following, what are the working people going to do for their own betterment? Sit on their haunches and suck their thumbs. Go into a trance and give up the few advantages that they still possess?
We believe not. Down in their hearts the workingmen and women know that their only protection and safety lies in organizing-in combining the toilers into trade unions for offensive and defensive purposes.
No sane person will attempt to dispute the fact that, as a rule, the organized worker is better situated than the unorganized. We have but to look about us and compare conditions under which unionists and non-unionists work in order to become convinced that the organized toilers have all the best of the arrangement.
Then why should the unorganized workers, who are helpless victims of an unjust system, hesitate to join the union and assist in the unselfish and altruistic movement to improve the lot of the whole working class?
Is it moral cowardice? Is it narrow selfishness? Is it the penny wise and pound foolish notion that someone is coining along to hand them something on a silver platter for nothing?
Whatever the reason may be it is a poor one when all the conditions are taken into consideration. The lord helps those who help themselves and nowadays to be successful in any business, in the held of labor or capital, one must organize and the groups or mass must move as a unit.
Every intelligent workingman knows that the carpenters, painters, printers, bricklayers and many other trades have had exceptionally good success in providing for their material wants because they had the wisdom and bravery to unite their efforts. What the organized working people have done can be repeated by the unorganized if they will only make an attempt to help themselves by uniting.
We trust that all those workers who have not lost hope, but who are thoroughly alive, sincere and honest with themselves, will join hands without further delay and aid their organized fellow workers to meet the many economic issues that present themselves.
Workers of all countries, unite! You have nothing to loose but your chains and a world to gain.
———-
[Photograph added.]
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SOURCE & IMAGES
The Labor Argus
(Charleston, West Virginia)
-Dec 24, 1908
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85059855/1908-12-24/ed-1/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85059855/1908-12-24/ed-1/seq-4/
See also:
About The Labor Argus. (Charleston, W. Va.) 1906-1915
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85059855/
Tag: The Labor Argus
https://weneverforget.org/tag/the-labor-argus/
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We Will Sing One Song – Six Feet In the Pine
Lyrics by Joe Hill
We will sing one song of the meek and humble slave
The horn-handed son of the toil
He’s toiling hard from the cradle to the grave
But his master reaps the profits from his toil
Then we’ll sing one song of the greedy master class
They’re vagrants in broadcloth, indeed
They live by robbing the ever-toiling mass
Human blood they spill to satisfy their greed
CHORUS
Organize! Oh, toilers, come organize your might
Then we’ll sing one song
Of the workers’ commonwealth
Full of beauty, full of love and health
We will sing one song of the politician sly
He’s talking of changing the laws
Election day all the drinks and smokes he’ll buy
While he’s living from the sweat of your brow
Then we’ll sing one song of the girl below the line
She’s scorned and despised everywhere
While in their mansions the “keepers” wine and dine
From the profits that immoral traffic bear
We will sing one song of the preacher, fat and sleek
He tells you of homes in the sky
He says, “Be generous, be lowly, and be meek
If you don’t you’ll sure get roasted when you die”
Then we’ll sing one song of the poor and ragged tramp
He carries his home on his back
Too old to work, he’s not wanted ‘round the camp
So he wanders without aim along the track
We will sing one song of the children in the mills
They’re taken from playgrounds and schools
In tender years made to go the pace that kills
In the sweatshops, ‘mong the looms and the spools
Then we’ll sing one song of the One Big Union Grand
The hope of the toiler and slave
It’s coming fast; it is sweeping sea and land
To the terror of the grafter and the knave