The Myth of the Innocent Third Party

No great industrial struggle but brings forth the cry of the great daily newspaper spacefillers about the 'right of that innocent third party to the dispute—the great general public.' Mr. General Public is always dragged out from his hiding place when an industrial struggle of any moment is on and dangled before our eyes, but he is not in evidence before nor after. Is Mr. General Public such an innocent third party? When the Lawrence textile workers were plodding along in their misery, eating the crusts of poverty and sweating drops of blood as they bent to their tasks, did Mr. General Public cry out in protest against such inhuman treatment? The Stanley investigating committee has disclosed conditions among the steel workers that should bring the blush of shame to every American cheek. But when it happens, as it surely will, that the workers in the steel mills and the workers in the cotton mills shall turn in their agony and turn the weapon of their labor against their employers, when the policeman's club descends upon the quivering flesh and the soldier's bayonet pierces the heart of the striker, we shall hear again of the 'rights of the general public.' They have no rights who will not fight for the rights of others.