Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/449

 PROBLEMS OF MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION 433

After all, the daring of the so-called " slum politician," when he ventures his success upon an appeal to human sentiment and generosity, has something fine about it. It often results in an alliance of the popular politician with the least desirable type of trades-unionist, as the reformer who stands for an honest business administration becomes allied with the type of business man whose chief concern it is to guard his treasure and to prevent a rise in taxation.

May I use, in illustration of the last two statements, the great strike in the Chicago Stock Yards which occurred a few weeks ago? The immediate object of the strike was the protection of the wages of the unskilled men from a cut of one cent per hour, although of course the unions of skilled men felt that this first invasion of the wages, increased through the efforts of the unions, would be but the entering wedge of an attempt to cut wages in all the trades represented in the Stock Yards. Owing to the refusal on the part of the unions to accept the arbitration very tardily offered by the packers, and to their failure to carry out the terms of the contract which they made ten days later, the strike in its early stages completely lost the sympathy of that large part of the public dominated by ideals of business honor and fair dealing, and of that growing body of organized labor which is steadily advan- cing in a regard for the validity of the contract and cherishing the hope that in time the trades unions may universally attain an accredited business standing.

The leaders, after the first ten days, were therefore forced to make the most of the purely human appeal which lay in the situa- tion itself, that thirty thousand men, including the allied trades, were losing weeks of wages and savings, with a possible chance of the destruction of their unions, on behalf of the unskilled, the newly arrived Poles and Lithuanians who had not yet learned to look out for themselves. Owing to the irregular and limited hours of work a condition quite like that prevailing on the London Docks before the great strike of the dockers the weekly wage of these unskilled men was exceptionally low, and the plea was based almost wholly upon the duty of the strong to the weak. A chivalric call was issued that the standard of life