The Topeka State Journal

THE MINERS' STRIKE.
It seems unfortunate that the coal miners of the country, numbering into the hundreds of thousands, should be called upon to go on a strike just when everything points to a revival of business.
The iron makers and coal operators seem to be responsible for this strike. They represent the manufacturing class which profits more than any other by the tariff law about to be enacted. It would seem that of all others they were the last who should announce the cut in wages which precipitated this strike. Their employes were told that the election of McKinley would ensure better times for them. Why should they make the times worse for these same men by cutting wages just when the new administration is making times better for the iron maker and the coal baron? They might at least let wages remain as they are.
It has frequently been urged that all the country needs is a rest from disturbances of this character and from agitation. But if prosperity depends upon a cessation of strikes and efforts to secure changes in the economic system it will be a long time coming. There will be agitation and efforts to upset the existing order, like that embodied in the Debs plan, for instance, just as long as there are wrongs, or seem to be wrongs, which need righting.
There is a dissatisfied element always clamoring for a change in the existing order-sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Out of the agitation carried on by this class generally comes an adjustment which brings truth and right nearer to the front.
All reforms and attempts at changing the established order meet with violent opposition at first and sometimes it takes many years to overcome that opposition. It was so with the movement for the abolition of slavery. The opposition was so great that a resort to arms was finally necessary to put down the wrong and establish the right.
There are those today who believe that a laboring man is entitled to a larger share of his earnings than he is getting-some going so far as to maintain that he should have the entire product of his labor. Labor unions and strikes are the results of these opinions. They have generally been failures as a means of accomplishing anything permanent, but if these people are right in their contention they will triumph some time, if not through old methods, then through new ones.
Each generation witnesses great changes in public sentiment and in business methods. Things that are now considered just and proper by a large part of the people would have been thought startling and even dangerous 50 years ago.