Report of the Annual Meeting of the Virginia State Bar Association Volume 15, PT. 1903

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...reason for their being, is to resist the selfishness of employers, chiefly of Trusts. That this is necessary, unprejudiced minds will readily admit. That Trusts will grow less selfish I fully believe, but that selfishness with them will cease to exist anywhere in the near future none but the dreamer will contend. Therefore, instead of fewer unions, we may expect more, for Labor Unions are but in their infancy; and instead of dissolution, we may expect organization on a wider scale, and combination of organizations, and federation of these, until all labor is controlled by a central power. It may be wise for employers to try to prevent, temporarily, the organization of their employees, because most Labor Unions do not yet know their rights, or if they know them, they refuse to keep within their limits, and do many acts of injustice; but employers should recognize that their success along this line will be but temporary--soon or late organization will be perfected, and efforts to prevent it will be seen to have been misspent energy. In the meantime, what employers should do is to lfind out just wherein Labor Unions overstep their rights, and bend their energies to checking these oscillations from the true line, the legitimate line of the labor movement. In such efforts they will have the sympathy and support of the public generally, and will meet with ultimate success. But as long as they refuse to see what every one else sees as plainly as the noonday sun, as long as they refuse "to recognize the Union," and continue to assert that they are unmixed evils, just so long may they expect but little sympathy from the masses, and but little support i.n anything where the masses have control; they will have to rely more and more upon the "Pinkerto...