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.
