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 Ufye 
 Dignity 
 Power and 
 Responsibility 
 
 of J&J& 
 
 Organized Labor 
 
 Labor Day Address 
 
 By W. E. FAISON 
 
 Greensboro* N. C. 
 
 September 4» 1905 
 
Greensboro, K". C, Sept. 4. — The Labor Day Celebration 
 and parade here to-day was the most successful ever held. 
 Floats representing every class of trade and industry paraded 
 the streets until 11* o'clock, hundreds of representatives of 
 labor unions, appropriately costumed, marched in procession. 
 Large crowds of home people and visitors witnessed the im- 
 posing spectacle. After this there was a grand concert at the 
 city hall. 
 
 At 2 o'clock the Grand Opera House was packed with 
 people to hear the speeches. Rev. Dr. H. W. Battle opened 
 with prayer and was followed by an address of welcome from 
 Mayor Thomas J. Murphy. Mr. W. E. Faison, of Raleigh, 
 then delivered an admirable address on the dignity, the 
 power, the responsibility of organized labor, which was fre- 
 quently applauded and has been highly complimented. After 
 a short and eloquent address from Mr. A. W. Cooke, the 
 meeting closed with an invocation from the chaplain, Dr. 
 Battle. — Special to Raleigh (1ST. C.) News and Observer. 
 
THE 
 
 DIGNITY, POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 OF ORGANIZED LABOR. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Fellow Unionists, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 In appearing on this platform to-day as a speaker, I can 
 not say that I am very glad to be here. Not that I feel no 
 interest in the cause for which this day is set apart and 
 celebrated, nor yet because I am not in full sympathy with 
 everything that tends to advance the cause of the wage- 
 earner, and more especially the cause of organized labor. But 
 the reason lies in the fact that I am not a public speaker 
 by training, and on an occasion like the present I greatly 
 fear I shall be unable to properly present to this audience 
 those things for which organized labor stands, and those 
 things, too, which it opposes. 
 
 Organized Labor Misunderstood. 
 Were I speaking to an assembly of working men it would 
 be unnecessary to explain many things, or so much as men- 
 tion others, that before an audience like this must be thor- 
 oughly discussed. For it has been my observation and ex- 
 perience during the fifteen years that I have carried the 
 working card of the Typographical Union, that there is no 
 other subject of which the general public is so densely ig- 
 norant as that of organized labor. And so to-day it will be 
 my object to make clear to you, as best I can, what trades 
 ^ unions are not, as well as what they are. 
 
Labor Humanity's Heritage. 
 You have all listened to the orator as he eloquently por- 
 trayed the picture of the boy born in poverty and at the 
 very bottom of the ladder, and yet fired with an ambition 
 to attain unto greater things in life, sets his foot upon the 
 bottom rung of the ladder of fame, performs the most menial 
 tasks of labor as if in their performance he found his great- 
 est joy. Slowly, yet surely, he ascends rung after rung, mas- 
 ters a trade in half the time required by his ambitionless 
 brother-worker, and before a weaker vessel would have gotten 
 his bearings as a mechanic, we find this prodigy mastering 
 a profession— and behold he has scaled the topmost rung 
 of the ladder of fame! 
 
 You have all heard this beautiful story, usually rehearsed 
 on occasions like the present, and always to gatherings of 
 working people. And so often have you seen this youth, in 
 your mind's eye, as he has been presented from time immem- 
 orial in the beautiful word-painting of the orator, that doubt- 
 less many of you have come to believe that he actually exists 
 in flesh and blood. He may ; but it has never been my privi- 
 lege to meet him. 
 
 I would not say one word to-day that might dampen the 
 ardor of youth in the God-given aspiration to attain unto 
 better things in this life. I would place no stumbling-block 
 in the path of the toiler in his struggles with poverty, 
 buoyed up by the hope of one day reaching the goal of his 
 ambition — a life of ease and plenty after years of toil and 
 privation. I am a firm believer in the maxim, "there's al- 
 ways room at the top" ; and the addition to this maxim, made 
 by a latter-day philosopher, that "the top is about the only 
 place where there is any room," is equally true. 
 
 Men have risen from the ranks of the low and humble 
 to prominence in the world. Men have gone out from the 
 trades into the professions and achieved success. But these 
 are the exceptions which only prove the rule. 
 
And this brings me to the point which I desire to impress 
 upon yon to-day — a truth that no amount of sophistry can 
 change. Pleasing it may not be, and yet it were well that we 
 appreciate its significance. It is this : That from the beginning 
 of time until this day — and until time shall be no more — 
 the great mass of humanity must eat their bread by the 
 sweat of their face, under the edict of Almighty God. And 
 of all the forces at work in the world to-day organized labor 
 is the one agency that has accomplished most for the amelio- 
 ration of the material condition of the toilers. 
 
 Organized Labor Protects the Individual. 
 
 f Organized labor means for the worker shorter hours, 
 larger pay, better conditions, and greater independence. 
 
 But we are told that labor unions destroy one's individual- 
 ity, and our pretended friends preach "individualism," and 
 
 | endeavor to show us the beauties of individual contracts and 
 
 \ the folly of paying money into the union to be squandered 
 by venal leaders. 
 
 y I am here to tell you, my friends, that organized labor is 
 conducive to the highest type of individualism. If the in- 
 
 I dividualism they preach is so great a virtue, why is it that 
 our advisers along this line fail to put it into practice ? Why 
 is it that the great evangel of individualism, one David M. 
 Parry, finds it necessary to organize his forces ? How is it 
 that we find him to-day the president of an organization 
 whose sole object is the destruction of organized labor? 
 ' Organized labor stands for the man, and it does more — ■ 
 it protects him. It is one of the stock arguments of the 
 enemies of organized labor, that in our scales of prices we 
 force better workmen to accept the same wage as the less 
 skilled. And this charge is on a par with the majority of 
 the arguments made against organized labor. On the con- 
 trary organized labor fixes the minimum and never the maxi- 
 mum wage. I do not know how it is in Greensboro, but in 
 
my own trade in Raleigh the larger per cent work at a 
 wage in excess of the scale of prices as prescribed by the 
 union. 
 
 Labor Leaders are not Corrupt. 
 
 Another constant charge of the enemies of organized labor 
 is that our leaders are corrupt. I have the honor to know 
 personally the great labor leaders of this country — Sam 
 Gompers, John Mitchell, James Duncan, Frank Morrison, 
 James Lynch, and a score of others, and I stand here to-day 
 and defy any man to produce their superiors from any 
 walk of life. "No, my friends, if any cause ever had faith- 
 ful, self-sacrificing, honest, fearless leaders our cause has 
 them to-day, and has had them in the past, or we would 
 never have attained unto the position we occupy to-day 
 against the combined opposition of the forces that make 
 for human slavery. 
 
 But some one asks, "How about Sam Parks?" Only a 
 few months ago Sam was in the lime-light, every paper in 
 the country featured Sam with great scare-heads, and held 
 him up as an awful example of the effect of organized 
 labor and as a sample of labor leaders. You all recall Sam — 
 but can you mention a single other ? I can not, though I do 
 not doubt in the least there are many others. The truth is, 
 organized labor has not yet made any claim to perfection or 
 infallibility, and as long as men are human we shall expect 
 to find sinners even in the "amen corners" of our churches. 
 But what great crime did Sam Parks commit? They 
 charged him with accepting a bribe, and sentenced him to 
 jail. What became of the bribe-giver ? I presume he is still 
 engaged in the laudable endeavor of crushing out organized 
 labor. 
 
 A gentleman over in Milwaukee the other day stole some- 
 thing like two millions of dollars — and he was actually the 
 president of the national union of bankers of America. It 
 
was an awful crime for Sam Parks, a "walking delegate" of 
 a labor union, to accept a bribe of a few hundred dollars, 
 tendered by a wealthy employer, and the press of the coun- 
 try and the enemies of organized labor rolled it as a sweet 
 morsel under their tongues, and organized labor was held 
 up to ridicule. The bank president walks off with millions, 
 and no one has yet made it a charge against the bankers' as- 
 sociation. I take it there are about as many labor union offi- 
 cials in North Carolina as there are bank officials. How 
 many bank officials can you recall having gone wrong in 
 North Carolina during the past few years ? When you have 
 figured that out, then try to recall the number of union offi- 
 cials that have gone wrong in the same period of time. 
 
 Organization the Order of the Day. 
 
 Only a few years ago, and organized labor was practically 
 1 unknown in North Carolina. To-day we find the leading 
 / trades organized in the cities and larger towns, and the work 
 I has but commenced. The day has happily passed when any 
 one questions the right of labor to organize, although I can 
 J well remember, as doubtless can many before me to-day, the 
 time when it was necessary that we defend even our right 
 to organize. To-day is a day of organization, and the man 
 who is a skilled mechanic and yet refuses to align himself 
 with his fellows in their efforts to better his and their con- 
 dition is a traitor, and deserves what he generally receives 
 at the hands of organized workers. 
 
 The Strike Labor's Last Resort. 
 
 But you ask: "How about strikes?" I believe in strikes. 
 And I will say further, that no man has any business in the 
 ranks of organized labor who is not a firm believer in 
 strikes. I am not here to say that there are not ill-advised 
 strikes, that there are not strikes where organized labor is in 
 the wrong. But I do say, and most emphatically, that there 
 
are fewer mistakes made by organized labor along this line 
 than by the employers. A strike is labor's last resort, and is 
 never wholly lost, for if it accomplished nothing more, it was 
 a wholesome lesson to capital that labor, however humble, 
 was not yet ready to bow in abject servitude. 
 
 Organized Labor Wins Oftener than It Loses. 
 
 How many of you know anything personally about a 
 strike, anyhow? Is it not true that all the information you 
 have about strikes is that gathered from the press reports? 
 Now let me give you a new standard by which to measure 
 the enormity of the crimes committed by organized labor as 
 reported by the press. Did you ever seen the pictures that 
 are used in a moving-picture machine ? Then have you seen 
 these same pictures flashed on the canvas enlarged to more 
 than life-size? The picture goes into the machine only a 
 few inches in diameter — it appears on the canvas ten feet 
 high ! The picture as it goes into the machine is the strike 
 as it really is ; the picture as it appears on the canvas, en- 
 larged an hundredfold, is the strike as it is portrayed in 
 the press of the country. 
 
 The statistics as gathered by the Departments of Labor of 
 the several States, those wonderful institutions usually pre- 
 sided over by one-horse politicians whose every thought is 
 inimical to the interests of organized labor, actually show 
 that more than fifty per cent of the strikes in this country 
 are won by organized labor! But the fact is that more 
 than seventy-five per cent are won by us. Granting, how- 
 ever, that we only succeed against the combinations of capi- 
 tal, the unfriendliness of the press, and in many instances 
 the bitter opposition of the church, in a little more than half 
 of our fights for better conditions, is it not a record of which 
 we can justly feel proud ? 
 
9 
 
 Labor's Greater Conquests. 
 
 Our greatest achievements, however, are not the results of 
 strikes. We accomplish far more by peaceful methods than 
 could possibly be obtained through strife. When the history 
 of the great labor movement of to-day is written, it will be 
 the record of a peaceful conquest which revolutionized the 
 conditions of the toilers, and accomplished stupendous re- 
 forms which have blessed mankind, and thus brought us 
 nearer the recognition and acceptance of that divine truth — 
 "the Fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man." 
 
 And, so, when you come to contemplate what is gained by 
 organized labor without recourse to a strike, you will begin 
 to appreciate the great work that is being accomplished by 
 organized labor, and you will begin to recognize in the men 
 who are the leaders in the labor movement a devotion to 
 duty and the welfare of their fellow-workers seldom wit- 
 nessed among men. To illustrate: When I became a mem- 
 ber of Raleigh Typographical Union the minimum scale was 
 $14 per week and ten hours per day, and not a half dozen 
 men received more than the scale. To-day the minimum 
 scale for hand composition is $15 per week and 8 1-4 hours 
 (and it will be 8 hours after January 1, 190G), and $1G 
 per week for day and $18 for night work, at 8 hours per 
 day on machines, and three-fourths at least receive wages in 
 excess of the scale. Now, all this was accomplished without 
 a strike. Does any sane man believe for a moment that it 
 would have been possible to have accomplished this much 
 for the printers of Raleigh by any other method than or- 
 ganization ? 
 
 The Friend of Every Reform. 
 
 While the primary object of organized labor is, of course, 
 the bettering of the condition of its members, yet we stand 
 . for other things that are of vital interest to the whole peo- 
 ple. Organized labor is a unit for compulsory education, is 
 
10 
 
 most bitterly opposed to the system of child labor as prac- 
 ticed in the mills of the State, is opposed to immigration, and 
 is the friend of every reform movement for the uplifting 
 of humanity. 
 
 Compulsory Education and Child Labor 
 
 We believe in compulsory education because it means the 
 taking of the child out of the mill and giving him a common 
 school education, which will prepare him to take his place 
 as a citizen and an intelligent worker. 
 
 Child labor in North Carolina must be abolished. Baby 
 hands and baby feet are chained and helpless. How long 
 shall the cry of the defenseless little toiler be unheard ? The 
 forces that make for human slavery — child slavery; that 
 would "grind up the seed-corn" ; that would cast a withering 
 blight upon the minds and bodies, yea, the very souls of in- 
 nocent childhood, and condemn them to a life — short, indeed, 
 it will be, but long enough to reap the fearful curse of ig- 
 norance, disease and servile dependence, are indeed strong 
 in North Carolina — strong enough to control Legislatures, 
 to violate their own agreements, and to defy the written law. 
 Strong enough, too, to muzzle to a great extent the press, and 
 its influence even reaches into the pulpit and finds a de- 
 fender. 
 
 We are irrevocably committed to compulsory education. 
 Vote for no man to represent you in the Legislature who 
 puts the dollar above the man, and therefore sees no wrong 
 in child slavery. 
 
 The leaven has already begun to work. A number of towns 
 and cities as well as counties in North Carolina now have com- 
 pulsory school laws by special acts of the Legislature. Raleigh 
 township, in which is located the capital of the State, is under 
 a compulsory school law, and the day is not far distant when 
 we will have a general compulsory school law for the entire 
 
11 
 
 State, and free text-books for the children too poor to buy 
 them. 
 
 The Curse of Foreign Immigration. 
 
 Organized labor is opposed to foreign immigration. The 
 last Legislature placed its seal of disapproval upon the 
 proposition to establish an immigration bureau for North 
 Carolina, and it acted most wisely. But there were those 
 who were not satisfied with this action of the Legislature, 
 and a mighty effort has been and still is being put forth, 
 through the State Agricultural Department, to force upon 
 the people of North Carolina the criminal hordes of Europe. 
 They tell us that they will only secure the desirable classes 
 who will work on the farms and make good citizens, and to 
 this end they have flooded the State with circulars asking 
 the farmers to make application for such labor as they need. 
 And after an exhaustive campaign for the past six months, 
 the secretary of the department gives out the startling in- 
 formation that he has had applications from the entire State 
 for fifty immigrants. I presume this order was turned down 
 as they only furnish this class of labor in car-load lots. This 
 should put an effective quietus on the immigration question 
 so far as North Carolina is concerned. But it will not, for 
 there are those who seem determined to inject into the purest 
 American citizenship in this country to-day, the citizenship 
 of a State whose proudest boast should be that only two- 
 tenths of one per cent of her entire population is foreign 
 born, the deadly virus of an old-world civilization. 
 
 The Cry of Greed. 
 
 The great cry raised by these promoters of immigration 
 is the "scarcity of labor." This is the cry of greed. There is 
 enough labor in North Carolina to supply all the demand 
 that may be created, and if by any possible chance there 
 should be a shortage in the labor supply there are thousands 
 of American-born citizens willing and anxious to come to 
 
12 
 
 us. And here we come face to face with the real issue — that 
 of wages rather than laborers. A standard of wages that 
 makes possible but the bare necessities of life will ever force 
 the American citizen to seek other fields of labor. Raise the 
 standard of wages to a point where the laborer may enjoy a 
 few, at least, of the comforts of life and educate his children, 
 and the Old North State will bloom as a rose. Fail in this, 
 and we will continue to witness the annual exodus of our 
 own people to more fertile fields. 
 
 The Threat of Capital. 
 
 But all this is to be remedied by cheap foreign labor, they 
 tell us. Only the other day I read in one of our leading 
 dailies an interview with a capitalist, in which he said if 
 the time ever came when the mill labor of the State should 
 rebel against their long, tedious hours of toil, and their short, 
 scanty pay, their places would be immediately filled by 
 cheap, foreign labor, as had already been done in the mills 
 of New England. It will be a dark day for North Carolina 
 when the hordes of cheap foreign labor cross her borders. I 
 have seen this class at their best and at their worst in the 
 anthracite regions of Pennsylvania, in the manufacturing 
 centers of New England and in the slums of our great cities. 
 And I say to you to-day, that taking them at their very best, 
 their standards of living, to say nothing of the other ele- 
 ments to go to make good citizens, are far below that of the 
 most illiterate and lowly of our own American-born citizen- 
 ship. 
 
 Degradation, Vice, Treason and Anarchy. 
 
 There is yet another feature of this question that should 
 receive the consideration of the "powers that be." We have 
 eliminated the negro as a factor in politics; shall we now 
 inject into our citizenship the germs of degradation, vice, 
 treason and anarchy? 
 
13 
 
 Little Fear of Foreign Invasion. 
 
 Candidly, I have little fear of the Old North 
 State ever being cursed with foreign immigration. 
 Those who would make good citizens and whom we would 
 they came, and they settle in the great Northwest and Can- 
 ada, and not one in 10,000 ever has or will find his way to 
 North Carolina. Those we do not want, and please God 
 we will not have, come from Southern Europe, and herd amid 
 the crime, disease and corruption of our great centers of 
 population. We should thank God to-day that we have no 
 large cities to draw, as magnets, this "froth of the pit." 
 
 Political Action the Only Remedy. 
 
 And now I come to the discussion of a subject that most 
 vitally affects the laboring classes of this State, and especi- 
 ally organized labor. For years I have consistently advised 
 the workers to steer clear of partisan politics, for this is the 
 rock upon which many another reform movement has met 
 its doom. But we can not, if we would, longer blind our- 
 selves to the fact that in a government like ours, where the 
 people are the sovereigns, if we ever hope to bring about the 
 reforms for which we stand, we must take a hand in politics. 
 Let me give you a few pointers: There are to-day in the 
 ranks of organized labor in North Carolina more men by 
 far than are to be found in the professions and all the busi- 
 ness callings combined. In the ranks of labor, organized and 
 unorganized, is the great mass of the citizenship of the State, 
 not even exceeded in numbers by the farmer. Now, where 
 arejiie at politically? How is this, the largest class of citi- 
 zenship in the State, represented in its government? In 
 all the varied departments of our State government, among 
 the boards of our numerous institutions, from the 
 heads of the departments and institutions down to and in- 
 cluding the janitors, how is this great class of our citizen- 
 ship represented ? By one lone man , B. R. Lacy, the State 
 
14 
 
 Treasurer. And how did he get there? I will tell you. 
 The working people of North Carolina put him there, and 
 if they are alive to their interests and would show their 
 appreciation of the best friend they have to-day, and the 
 only friend they "have at court," they will put him in the 
 Governor's chair in 1908. 
 
 The Labor Department a Farce and an Insult. 
 There is a department of our State government which was 
 created about twenty years ago at the demand of the labor- 
 ing classes, that we might have a representative at the seat 
 of government, and for the special purpose of bringing about 
 the reforms for which we stand. And in all these years who 
 have been the men who have presided over the Labor Bu- 
 reau of North Carolina ? A lawyer, a school teacher, a 
 farmer, and at only one time have we had a representative 
 of organized labor as Commissioner, and then in the person 
 of Hon. B. R. Lacy. And this department is to-day presided 
 over by one unfitted by every possible standard to represent 
 the honest toilers of North Carolina, a standing insult to the 
 intelligence and integrity of the wage-earners of North Caro- 
 lina. 
 
 What are You Going to do About It? 
 
 What are you going to do about it? With you is the 
 power to change the present condition of things. Will you 
 do it? Are you satisfied with being so completely ignored 
 that but one, single, solitary representative of yours succeeds 
 in landing in any place of honor or trust throughout the en- 
 tire system of our State government? I think not. 
 
 Some one is going to say, "O, yes, Faison is after a polit- 
 ical job." Well, suppose I am. One thing is certain — I 
 can never get it under present conditions, and if I get it at 
 all it must come through a revolution set on foot by the men 
 who do the voting, and therefore have the right to name men 
 for the offices. But the truth is, I have held office, and but 
 
for the fact that the time came when I must either sacrifice 
 character or resign, I might be holding one to-day. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 And now, my fellow unionists, in conclusion I want to 
 say to you that you represent a great class of the citizen- 
 ship of this State — a class which has ever been the bulwark 
 of the liberties of the people; a class that in peace and war 
 has ever been the strength and support of our government. 
 The vast majority of you must ever remain toilers ; few may 
 hope to gather great wealth or attain unto positions of power 
 and influence. But you have it in your power to make bet- 
 ter conditions for those who come after you, by standing 
 ilrmly on the platform as enunciated by organized labor. 
 Hold sacred your obligations to your brother toilers, assert 
 your rights as men — and ever remember that character alone 
 is l.'.e supreme test. 
 
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