LETTER XXIII.
UNIONISM.
August 21, 1904.
My Dear Boy:—“What will you put in its place, Bob?” was perhaps the hardest query that the brilliant Ingersoll had to answer in his assaults on the Christian religion. Does not the same question confront us in our attacks upon organized labor? We endeavor to tear down, but do we build up? This subject, like the marriage relation, cannot be entered into lightly. It is longer than a train of ore jimmies, and broader than a box vestibule. It is a bridge too close to the track for the telltales to sting your face in time to get off a furniture car. Like the ostrich, believing itself hidden with its head stuck in the sand, we feel that if we call them committees of our employes we are not recognizing the union. Is this consistent? We claim, and justly so, that a high principle is involved; that if we recognize the union we practically
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