>>it is equally possible that better working conditions
could have been obtained through reasoned discourse.
Take the Anthracite Strikes at the beginning of the 20th
century. Violence built on violence, leading to a general
strike followed by reprisals of the mine owners (such as
kicking members of relief committees out of their company
houses)--all against a background of violent strike breaking
behavior followed by violent reprisals by the strikers (such
dynamiting company offices).
When the Anthracite Strikes had an economic impact on the
US, Teddy Roosevelt intervened, put in a temporary fix, and
then proclaimed a series of investigatory hearings into the
circumstances of Anthracite mining (the danger, the child
labor, the low pay, etc.).
The violence then led to reasoned discourse between the
forces sponsored by the mine owners and the fledgling UMWA
union, who fielded Clarence Darrow to argue their cause. The
miners eventually saw some improvements and a ten percent
pay raise.
What Roosevelt did was a FIRST in US history. No President
had previously come down fairly for both sides of a strike
question, and then set up an investigative commission to
hear both sides of the dispute.
To imagine, as Robert does, that reasoned discourse could
have emerged first--before the strikes, the Molly Maguires,
the dynamiting, the arrests, the clubbings, the hangings,
the forcing of people out into the streets, and BEFORE Teddy
Roosevelt's new approach to labor problems--is indeed
imaginative. It's also ignores history. Sure they could have
reasoned first. Sure. Napoleon could also have invented a
nuclear submarine and rock music. We could also have been
born as butterflies dreaming we were philosophers.
In high worker solidarity dudgeon, Eric
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