Whitelaw Reid: “Why not depend on the power of wages, if they work, or of want, if…”

On the record

Why not depend on the power of wages, if they work, or of want, if they don’t, to settle the labor question?” I asked one.

Said by

Whitelaw Reid

Source

Reid questions the Southern reliance on force and suggests a more rational approach to labor management based on wages.

More from Whitelaw Reid

Our national experience has demonstrated that public order reposes most securely on the broad base of universal suffrage.

It has proved, also, that universal suffrage is the surest guarantee and most powerful stimulus of individual, social and political progress.

And it is both natural and right that colored Americans, entitled to the rights of citizens, should claim their exercise.

They should persist in this claim respectfully, but firmly, taking care to bring no discredit upon it by their own action.

Whitelaw Reid: “Why not depend on the power of wages, if they work, or of want, if they don’t, to settle the labor question?” I asked…”