ery
real, is little felt. Employers, as a rule, are prepared to stand
their losses with equanimity; in fact, when trade is dull, or when
an employer desires to make changes in his business, a strike is
no inconvenience at all; but the men are the real losers, and
especially those with families and with small homes unpaid for; no
one can measure their losses, for it may mean the savings of a
lifetime. It frequently does mean a change in character from an
industrious, frugal, contented workman with everything to live
for, to a shiftless and discontented man with nothing to live for
but agitation and strife.

It is easy to acquire the strike habit, and impossible to throw it
off. A first strike is more dangerous than a first drink; it makes
a profound and ineradicable impression. To quit work for the first
time at the command of some central organization is an experience
so novel that no man can do it without being affected; he will
never again be the same steady and indefatigable workman; the
spirit of unrest creeps in, the spirit of discontent closely
follows; his life is changed; though he never goes through another
strike, he can never forget his first.

In the long run it does not matter much which side wins, the
effect is very much the same,--strikes are bound to follow
strikes. Warfare is so natural to men that it is difficult to
declare a lasting peace. But some day the men themselves will see
that strikes are far more disastrous to them than to any other
class, and they will devise other ways and means; they will use
the strength of their organizations to better advantage; above
all, they will relegate to impotency the professional organizers
and agitators who retain their positions by fomenting strife.

It is singular that workmen do not take a lesson from their
shrewder employers, who, if they have organizations of their own,
never confer upon any officer or committee of idlers the power to
control the trade. An organization of employers is always
controlled by those most actively engaged in the business, and not
by coteries of paid idlers; no central committee of men, with
nothing to do but make trouble, can involve a whole trade in
costly controversies. The strength of the employer lies in the
fact that each man consults first his own interest, and if the
action of the body bids fair to injure his individual interests he
not only protests, but threatens to withdraw; the employer cannot
be cowed by any as