It
awakens a hope, and the only well grounded hope, of averting the
miseries of an insane struggle between those who ought to be the
closest allies, to see which can the more injure the other. Need I urge
that in this crisis the friends of Association ought to be most earnest
and untiring in the promulgation and advocacy of their faith; that they
ought to improve the opportunities which are daily presented of
commending the truth to others whose minds are but newly prepared to
receive it? What Associationist so dull that he cannot improve every
"strike," every collision respecting the hours or the wages of labor,
to the advancement of the good cause?
To do this with effect, we must be, in the true sense of an abused
term, catholic. We must not suffer Association to be merged in mere
partisanship for any class or calling, or blind hostility to any abuse
or oppression. We are not the champions of the slave or the hired
servant, the factory girl or the housemaid, the seamstress or the
washerwoman. We are not the advocates merely of labor against capital,
of the employers as opposed to the employed. Ours is the cause of all
classes and vocations, and our success is the triumph of all. We are in
danger of becoming partial and one-sided; let us take special care to
overcome it.
Pages:
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412