Now."we believe that any honest man in
any employment would acknowledge that
such a reason was valid. If any such
honestman were himself an employer, and
while paying his men the wages they ask
ed. and maintaining perfectly friendly re
lations with them. he learned that some
of them were combined, and waiting and
watching for a convenient moment to make
a demand upon him under threat of ruin
ing his business if he did not comply,
would he nor feel himself entirely justified
in getting rid of such employes as fast as
he could? Could he honestly blame any
man or any company that did the same
thing?
Powderly dissuaded Lee from encourag
ing the strike at the time it occurred, but
only for the reason that the time was ill
chosen; and he intimated that a better
time would be the year of the world's fair,
when the enormous traffic of the road and
the consequent loss from interruption of
communication would induce the company
to grant almost any demand, lit view or
the light which these letters throw on such
combinations, no sensible man can be
surprised that there is a profound distrust
of employes whose fundamental principle
is that the employer is their natural
enemy, whom they must circumvent in
every possible way. Such a view cannot
lend to pleasant relations, nor dispose
either the employer or the employe to be
friendly. It will naturally, as we say, in
cline the employer to do just what the
employe would do in his place--get rid of
such employes with all dispatch.
INSTINCT OF BEES AND ANTS.
