César Chávez Day, 2015

March 31, 2015

features a portrait of Cesar against a background of empty grape fields. It was painted by illustrator Robert Rodriguez from a 1976 photo,

Postage stamp honoring Cesar Chavez in 2003. “The stamp features a portrait of Cesar against a background of empty grape fields. It was painted by illustrator Robert Rodriguez from a 1976 photo,” according to the Cesar Chavez Foundation.

President Obama declared March 31, 2015, César Chávez Day, as he did in 2014.  Here’s the press release version of the proclamation.

For Immediate Release                                                         March 30, 2015

Presidential Proclamation — Cesar Chavez Day, 2015

CÉSAR CHÁVEZ DAY, 2015

– – – – – – –

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION

For more than two centuries, the arc of our Nation’s progress has been shaped by ordinary people who have dedicated their lives to the extraordinary work of building a more perfect Union.  It is a story of achievement and constant striving that has found expression in places where America’s destiny has been decided — in Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall, and in the golden fields of California where an American hero discovered his mighty voice.  Today, we honor César Chávez and his lifetime of work to make our country more free, more fair, and more just, and we reaffirm the timeless belief he embodied:  those who love their country can change it.

A son of migrant workers and a child of the Great Depression, César Chávez believed every job has dignity and every person should have the chance to reach beyond his or her circumstances and realize a brighter future.  When no one seemed to care about the farm workers who labored without basic protections and for meager pay to help feed the world, César Chávez awakened our Nation to their deplorable conditions and abject poverty — injustices he knew firsthand.  He organized, protested, fasted, and alongside Dolores Huerta, founded the United Farm Workers.  Slowly, he grew a small movement to a 10,000-person march and eventually a 17-million-strong boycott of table grapes, rallying a generation around “La Causa” and forcing growers to agree to some of the first farm worker contracts in history.  Guided by a fierce commitment to nonviolence in support of a righteous cause, he never lost faith in the power of opportunity for all.

As a Nation, we know the struggle to live up to the principles of our founding does not end with any one victory or defeat.  After César Chávez fought for higher wages, he pushed for fresh drinking water, workers’ compensation, pension plans, and protection from pesticides.  He strove every day for the America he knew was possible.  Today, we must take up his work and carry forward this great unfinished task.

When immigrants labor in the shadows, they often earn unfair wages and their families and our economy suffer — that is one reason why we have to fix our broken immigration system and why I keep calling on the Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform.  We need to continue to defend the collective bargaining rights countless individuals have fought so hard for and ensure our economy rewards hard work with a fair living wage, paid leave, and equal pay for equal work.

César Chávez knew that when you lift up one person, it enriches a community; it bolsters our economy, strengthens our Nation, and gives meaning to the creed that out of many, we are one.  As we celebrate his life, we are reminded of our obligations to one another and the extraordinary opportunity we are each given to work toward justice, equal opportunity, and a better future for every one of our sisters and brothers.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2015, as César Chávez Day.  I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate service, community, and education programs to honor César Chávez’s enduring legacy.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand fifteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-ninth.

[signed] BARACK OBAMA

No call for a flying of flags, but you may certainly fly your Old Glory, if you wish.

More: 

3 Comments | Agriculture, Civil Rights, Heroes, History, Labor and unions | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Fly your flag for Labor Day 2014

September 1, 2014

Remember to fly your flag today for Labor Day, to honor all laborers, and especially those in the union movement to whom we owe gratitude for the concepts and reality of safe work places, good pay, benefits (including health benefits), and vacations.

Members of the Silver Platers and Metal Polishers Union carry a large flag in Rochester’s (New York) 1918 Labor Day Parade. A poster depicting Uncle Sam can be seen to the rear of the marchers. Albert R. Stone Photo Collection, Monroe County Library System

Members of the Silver Platers and Metal Polishers Union carry a large flag in Rochester’s (New York) 1918 Labor Day Parade. A poster depicting Uncle Sam can be seen to the rear of the marchers. Photograph by Albert R. Stone, Albert R. Stone Photo Collection, Monroe County Library System

2014 notes the 100th anniversary of the Ludlow, Colorado Massacre.  Labor Day should give us all pause to consider those who lost their lives campaigning for good wages, for decent working hours, for good and safe working conditions, and for the right of workers to negotiate collectively the companies who employ them for these things.

Have a good Labor Day.  Celebrate with family and coworkers.  Kick off the 2014 elections.

And remember.

Monument in Haymarket Square, Chicago, noting the 1886 Haymarket Riot and the workers who died or were murdered later.

Monument in Haymarket Square, Chicago, noting the 1886 Haymarket Riot and the workers who died or were murdered later. Photo by TRiver on flickr, Creative Commons license, via AtlasObscura.

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2 Comments | Citizenship, Civil Rights, Collective Bargaining, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, Labor and unions | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Want to wave the flag while your kids go back to school? Buy union-made

August 24, 2014

Union-Made School Supplies Checklist, from the Twitter feed of AAFSCME

Union-Made School Supplies Checklist, from the Twitter feed of AFSCME

You may have to shop a little harder; my experience, from the classroom, is that these products generally work better than non-union-made, and cheap import substitutes.  Over the course of a year in class — or a year in a kid’s backpack — quality can save you a lot of money.

Having difficulty reading the board?  Check out a similar list from Mike Hall at AFL-CIO Now:

photo by Avolore/Twitter creative Commons

Back to School photo by Avolore/Twitter Creative Commons

International Paper Co.; Mead Lined Paper; Roaring Springs Wirebound Notebooks (including these sub-brands: Environotes, Imagine, Genesis, Enviroshades, Emoticon, Lifenotes and Maxim); Roaring Spring Environotes Index cards; and Roaring Spring Legal Pads (including these sub-brands: Boardroom, Enviroshades, WIDE, Enviropads and Envirogold).

Notebooks and Binders:

Acco/Mead; Day-Timer Organizers; Roaring Spring Pocket Folders; Roaring Spring Composition Books.

Pens:

Sharp; Sheaffer; and Parker.

Student and Teacher Supplies:  

Martin Weber Art Supplies; Roaring Spring Art Supplies; Scotch Tape; Master Lock; Kleenex and Puff Tissues; and Claus Scissors.

Shops Staffed by Union Employees:

Office Max; Safeway; Giant; Albertson’s; Supervalu; Ralph’s; and Vons. 

Back to School Clothes:

All USA Clothing; Ben Davis; Hugo Boss; Oshkosh B’Gosh; Russell Athletic; Union Line; and Windjammer.

Lunchbox items:

Jif peanut butter; Oroweat bread; Farmer John lunch meat; Mott’s apple sauce; Wheat Thins; Slim Jim; Minute Maid juice; and  V8-Splash.

Go, students: Make America and your parents proud.

Leave a Comment » | Economics, Education, Labor and unions | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Dramatic, graphic difference between Labor and Capital

March 28, 2014

How do Labor and Capital differ?  They differ in two key ways:  First, in the burden they carry; and second, in the way they carry that burden.

Illustrations from a book I would definitely like:  Monash University Publishing, Drawing the Line, Chapter 6. ‘All the World Over’ The Transnational World of Australian Radical and Labour Cartoonists:

Figure 6.5: Anon, ‘The Difference between Labor and Capital’, Life, c. 1887. Courtesy Huntingdon Library, California. From Monash University Publishing, Drawing the Line, Chapter 6. ‘All the World Over’ The Transnational World of Australian Radical and Labour Cartoonists

Figure 6.5: Anon, ‘The Difference between Labor and Capital’, Life, c. 1887. Courtesy Huntingdon Library, California. From Monash University Publishing, Drawing the Line, Chapter 6. ‘All the World Over’ The Transnational World of Australian Radical and Labour Cartoonists

 

This view of Capital and Labor was not unique to the anonymous source; from the same year:

Figure 6.4: Phil May, ‘Poverty and Wealth; It all depends on the position of the bundle’, Bulletin, c. 1887. Courtesy State Library of New South Wales.

Figure 6.4: Phil May, ‘Poverty and Wealth; It all depends on the position of the bundle’, Bulletin, c. 1887. Courtesy State Library of New South Wales.

Capitalists appear to have all eaten well, well enough in the eye of the public that a fat man with a vest was quick, cartoonist shorthand for “capitalist.”  If it did not apply in every case — see John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and the younger Cornelius Vanderbilt, for example — it applied often enough that “the fat guy” was instantly recognized as the capitalist, the factory owner, the boss.

Click over to that Monash University site; there are a score of great cartoons in that one chapter.

27 Comments | Art, Capitalism, Cartoons, Economics, Labor and unions | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Insta-Millard: Unemployment benefits boost would cost $6 billion — hella bargain

December 31, 2013

Throw a device to keep people afloat in the economy, and life?

Throw a device to keep people afloat in the economy, and life?

Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the bill proposed to extend long-term unemployment compensation for another three months.  Bottom line, CBO says it will increase deficits by about $6.4 billion.

S. 1845, The Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act

S. 1845 would extend the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program for three months—through March 31, 2014. The EUC program allows qualified states to provide up to 47 additional weeks of federally funded unemployment compensation to people who have exhausted their regular unemployment benefits.

Heckuva bargain.  Let’s do it.  Call your Member of the House of Representatives, tell her or him to pass this law.

Payments to people who need money tend to put them to work, boost the economy, and make later aid unnecessary.  But who listens to economists or historians any more?

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11 Comments | Economics, Legislation | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Union Maid: Folk story about a brave American woman

September 2, 2013

Description at the YouTube site:

From Pete Seeger’s 90th Birthday Concert (Clearwater Concert), Madison Square Garden, 5/3/09. Featuring Billy Bragg, Mike & Ruthy Merenda, Dar Williams, New York City Labor Chorus.

 

Tip of the old scrub brush to Pat Carrithers.

1 Comment | Folk Music, Labor and unions, Music, Pete Seeger | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

2-minute history of labor video

September 2, 2013

From the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, a two-minute history of labor.

Yes, it’s a pro-labor film — but unbiased, and it covers national standards for social studies.

More:

Union leader Albert Shanker marching with teachers. Undated photo via PBS NewsHour

Union leader Albert Shanker marching with teachers. Undated photo via PBS NewsHour

1 Comment | Collective Bargaining, Economics, History, Labor and unions | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Time to raise the minimum wage

June 21, 2013

Illustration for Bloomberg News by Rand Renfrow: $15 Minimum Wage

Illustration for Bloomberg News by Rand Renfrow: $15 Minimum Wage

Robert Reich put it succinctly at his Facebook site [links added here]:

Nick Hanauer, one of the nation’s most successful businessmen, proposed yesterday that the minimum wage be raised to $15 an hour. But wouldn’t that cause employers not to hire workers who were “worth” less, and thereby lead to higher unemployment? No, says Hanauer. By putting more money into the hands of more people, it would stimulate more buying — which would generate more jobs than any jobs that might be lost. Hanauer understands that the basic reason the economy is still limping along is workers are consumers, and workers continue to get shafted, which means consumers lack the purchasing power to get the economy off the ground. A minimum wage of $15 an hour, combined with basic worker standards such as paid sick leave and a minimum of 3 weeks paid vacation per year, should all be in a national campaign for better jobs and a better economy in the 2014 election.

That’s the case, in brief.

Last March Reich said raising the minimum wage to $9/hour was a “no brainer.”

Alas, he didn’t account enough for the anti-brain lobby.

What do you think?

More:

Also good, an update:

4 Comments | Business, Business Ethics, Civil Rights, Economics, History, Labor and unions, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

March 4, 1933: Frances Perkins sworn in as Secretary of Labor, first woman to serve in the cabinet

March 4, 2013

FDR’s administration hit the ground running.

On March 4, 1933, Frances Perkins was sworn in as his Secretary of Labor.  She became the first woman to serve in a president’s cabinet.

Frances Perkins, by Robert Shetterly

Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve in a president’s cabinet, was Secretary of Labor in Franklin Roosevelt’s Administration. Painting by Robert Shetterly, part of his series, Americans Who Tell the Truth, Models of Courageous Citizenship

The text on the portrait:

“Very slowly there evolved… certain basic facts, none of them new, but all of them seen in a new light. It was no new thing for America to refuse to let its people starve, nor was it a new idea that man should live by his own labor, but it had not been generally realized that on the ability of the common man to support himself hung the prosperity of everyone in the country.”

Perkins was one of the chief proponents of Social Security and the Social Security System.  She was a crusader for better working conditions long before joining FDR’s cabinet.

Perkins witnessed the March 25, 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and watched the trapped young women pray before they leapt off the window ledges into the streets below. Her incessant work for minimum hours legislation encouraged Al Smith to appoint her to the Committee on Safety of the City of New York under whose authority she visited workplaces, exposed hazardous practices, and championed legislative reforms. Smith rewarded her work by appointing her to the State Industrial Commission in 1918 and naming her its chair in 1926. Two years later, FDR would promote her to Industrial Commissioner of New York.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Jim Stanley and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut; Rep. DeLauro posted a Facebook note of the anniversary, which Jim called to my attention.

More:

1 Comment | Franklin Roosevelt, History, Labor and unions, New Deal, Presidents, Women in History | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Gilbert and Near, Woody’s “Pastures of Plenty”

October 20, 2012

Woody Guthrie wrote of freedom . . . when was this written? 1930-something?  [1941, it turns out.]

Ronnie Gilbert and Holly Near combine on one of my favorite arrangements of the song.

[That one disappeared? Try this one; click through if you have to:]

[Maybe this one will work:]

This film must be at least ten years old, maybe more.  The song is more than 60 years old [71 years — from 1941].

It’s still a powerful indictment of corporate greed, heartless and oppressive immigration policies, and it’s a case for a strong labor movement.

Be sure you vote in the November 6 elections.  Sing this song on the way to the polls.

More:

Leave a Comment » | Agriculture, Farming, Folk Music, History, Immigration, Justice, Labor and unions, Politics, Woody Guthrie | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment, again: Abraham Lincoln on job creators, ‘labor is the superior of capital’

September 4, 2012

Lincoln enters Coles County, Illinois, by Charles Turzak

Abraham Lincoln as working man, woodcut by Charles Turzak circa 1933 – Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum; caption on this image at the Lincoln Library site notes that Turzak portrayed Lincoln as the working man Lincoln himself never aspired to be, though he well respected those who did labor.

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.

Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

◊ President Abraham Lincoln, Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861 (the “State of the Union”)

Abraham Lincoln took great inspiration from Americans and their striving to move up in the world.  He admired inventions and inventors, he admired working people and their drive to become their own managers and proprietors of their own businesses.  Lincoln had been there himself.

By the time he stopped at the Wisconsin State Fair in 1859 — a full year before his campaign for the presidency — Lincoln was a relatively wealthy lawyer, a good trial lawyer whose better-paying clients included the largest industrial companies of the day, railroads.  Lincoln grew up on hard-scrabble farms, though, and he had been a shopkeeper and laborer before he studied law and opened his practice.  Lincoln also owned a patent — a device to float cargo boats higher in the Sangamon River that served Sangamon County where he lived, the better to make the entire area a figurative river of free enterprise.

Lincoln was invited to comment on “labor,” at an exhibit showing new machines to mechanize America’s farms.  At the Wisconsin fair Lincoln complimented farmers, inventors, inventions, and all laborers.  Just over 24 months later, excerpts from that speech showed up at the close of his State of the Union declaration, his December 3 remarks delivered to Congress as the Constitution required.  Lincoln probably did not deliver the remarks as as a speech, but they appear in the Congressional Record as a speech, and it is often cited that way.  He spoke something like these words in Wisconsin, and they were his views at the end of the first year of the Civil War, expressing yet again his hope that the union would survive, and continue to prosper, for all working people.

Below is a more complete quoting of Lincoln’s remarks from the Message to Congress.

It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government– the rights of the people. Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most grave and maturely considered public documents, as well as in the general tone of the insurgents. In those documents we find the abridgment of the existing right of suffrage and the denial to the people of all right to participate in the selection of public officers except the legislative boldly advocated, with labored arguments to prove that large control of the people in government is the source of all political evil. Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the people.

In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism. It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.

Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class–neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families–wives, sons, and daughters,–work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.

Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.

From the first taking of our national census to the last are seventy years, and we find our population at the end of the period eight times as great as it was at the beginning. The increase of those other things which men deem desirable has been even greater. We thus have at one view what the popular principle, applied to government through the machinery of the States and the Union, has produced in a given time, and also what if firmly maintained it promises for the future. There are already among us those who if the Union be preserved will live to see it contain 200,000,000. The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to-day; it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.

[Excerpted here from the online Classic Literature Library, Writings of Abraham Lincoln Vol. 5; the complete Message to Congress of December 3, 1861, begins here; the section quoted above can be found on pages 143 and 144.]

Yes, I should have reposted this yesterday, for Labor Day.  Lincoln’s words are good 365 days a year, 366 days in leap years.  Keeping the thought with us is what counts.  (This was originally posted in February 2012.)

See Also:

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6 Comments | 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Capitalism, Civil War, Famous quotes, History, Labor and unions, Quotes | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“Fighting to prevent this,” still – World War II poster

June 17, 2012

Think American Institute. “We’re Fighting to Prevent This.” Rochester, New York: Kelly Read, 1943. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Think American Institute. “We’re Fighting to Prevent This.” Rochester, New York: Kelly Read, 1943. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Both Republicans and Democrats might make a claim on this poster, today.

Propaganda for patriots, from World War II, from collections now held by the Library of Congress.

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4 Comments | Fascism, Freedom - Political, History, History and art, History images, Labor and unions, Propaganda, U.S. Constitution, World War II | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: Abraham Lincoln on job creators, ‘labor is the superior of capital’

February 16, 2012

Abraham Lincoln as working man, Charles Turzak woodcut - Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum

Abraham Lincoln as working man, woodcut by Charles Turzak circa 1933 – Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum; caption on this image at the Lincoln Library site notes that Turzak portrayed Lincoln as the working man Lincoln himself never aspired to be, though he well respected those who did labor.

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.

Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

◊ President Abraham Lincoln, Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861 (the “State of the Union”)

Abraham Lincoln took great inspiration from Americans and their striving to move up in the world.  He admired inventions and inventors, he admired working people and their drive to become their own managers and proprietors of their own businesses.  Lincoln had been there himself.

By the time he stopped at the Wisconsin State Fair in 1859 — a full year before his campaign for the presidency — Lincoln was a relatively wealthy lawyer, a good trial lawyer whose better-paying clients included the largest industrial companies of the day, railroads.  Lincoln grew up on hard-scrabble farms, though, and he had been a shopkeeper and laborer before he studied law and opened his practice.  Lincoln also owned a patent — a device to float cargo boats higher in the Sangamon River that served Sangamon County where he lived, the better to make the entire area a figurative river of free enterprise.

Lincoln was invited to comment on “labor,” at an exhibit showing new machines to mechanize America’s farms.  At the Wisconsin fair Lincoln complimented farmers, inventors, inventions, and all laborers.  Just over 24 months later, excerpts from that speech showed up at the close of his State of the Union declaration, his December 3 remarks delivered to Congress as the Constitution required.  Lincoln probably did not deliver the remarks as as a speech, but they appear in the Congressional Record as a speech, and it is often cited that way.  He spoke something like these words in Wisconsin, and they were his views at the end of the first year of the Civil War, expressing yet again his hope that the union would survive, and continue to prosper, for all working people.

Below is a more complete quoting of his remarks from the Message to Congress.

It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government– the rights of the people. Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most grave and maturely considered public documents, as well as in the general tone of the insurgents. In those documents we find the abridgment of the existing right of suffrage and the denial to the people of all right to participate in the selection of public officers except the legislative boldly advocated, with labored arguments to prove that large control of the people in government is the source of all political evil. Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the people.

In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism. It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.

Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class–neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families–wives, sons, and daughters,–work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.

Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.

From the first taking of our national census to the last are seventy years, and we find our population at the end of the period eight times as great as it was at the beginning. The increase of those other things which men deem desirable has been even greater. We thus have at one view what the popular principle, applied to government through the machinery of the States and the Union, has produced in a given time, and also what if firmly maintained it promises for the future. There are already among us those who if the Union be preserved will live to see it contain 200,000,000. The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to-day; it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.

[Excerpted here from the online Classic Literature Library, Writings of Abraham Lincoln Vol. 5; the complete Message to Congress of December 3, 1861, begins here; the section quoted above can be found on pages 143 and 144.]

See Also:

Related articles (from Zemanta)

4 Comments | 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Capitalism, Civil War, Famous quotes, History, Labor and unions, Quotes | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

While you’re celebrating Labor Day . . .

September 5, 2011

Remember that the weekend was a Crazy Liberal Idea™, and that union men and women died for the right to have them.

See this and more at PoliticalLoudmouth.com

Text of the poster:  “The weekend was a crazy liberal idea.  In 1886, 7 union members in Wisconsin died fighting for the 5-day work week, and 8-hour work day.”

Source:  PoliticalLoudmouth.com

 

4 Comments | Democracy, Democracy in action, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Labor and unions, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Wisconsin Republicans ignore Wisconsin voters’ views, and teachers

June 16, 2011

It is now quite clear that the people of Wisconsin disapprove of the union-busting, school-busting, library-killing antics of Wisconsins’ Republican Gov. Ahab Walker, and the Republicans in the legislature.

So, why don’t the Republicans do what the people of Wisconsin want, instead?  Why are Wisconsin Republicans acting as a special elite, ignoring voters’ wishes?

Forbes columnist Rick Ungar wrote:

A Rasmussen poll out today reveals that almost 60% of likely Wisconsin voters now disapprove of their aggressive governor’s performance, with 48% strongly disapproving.

While these numbers are clearly indicators of a strategy gone horribly wrong, there are some additional findings in the poll that I suspect deserve even greater attention.

It turns out that the state’s public school teachers are very popular with their fellow Badgers. With 77% of those polled holding a high opinion of their educators, it is not particularly surprising that only 32% among households with children in the public school system approve of the governor’s performance. Sixty-seven percent (67%) disapprove, including 54% who strongly disapprove.

Can anyone imagine a politician succeeding with numbers like this among people who have kids?

These numbers should be of great concern not only to Governor Walker but to governors everywhere who were planning to follow down the path of war with state employee unions. You can’t take on the state worker unions without taking on the teachers – and the teachers are more popular than Gov. Walker and his cohorts appear to realize.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Wisconsinite Jean Detjen.

14 Comments | Democracy, Education, Elections, Labor and unions, Politics, Polling and Public Opinion, Teachers | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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