Among those who watched him were very prosperous men come in from the seaside on the flying express, bound for Wall Street. These men were sorry when their boat pulled out, so deeply interested were they in the skill and courage of the mechanics working so high up on so narrow a footing. If their opinion had been asked then and there they would have said that no reasonable rate of pay would be too high for such mechanics, and that eight hours of work catching red-hot bolts and driving them home, on a narrow plank sixty feet in the air, ought to be considered a fair day's work. We trust that if these men read in the future that the structural iron-workers or the house-smiths are striking for a little more pay and for eight hours' work they will remember those men working on the ferryhouse, and remember that all of these iron-workers, like all miners, and many others, earn their bread at the risk of their lives. We hope that those who watched the red-hot bolts flying through the air will remember their sensations when they hear of a strike among those men, and not say, as they usually do: "The impudence of union labor must be suppressed. The men are lazy; that's what's the matter with them. It is all nonsense to talk about working eight hours. Union labor, if it keeps on, will ruin this country's commercial supremacy." ---- The trouble with human beings is that their lives are widely separated and sympathy is killed by ignorance. The banker does not see, therefore cannot appreciate, the courage of the man working on an iron beam at the top of a steel frame 300 feet in the air. The mechanic cannot understand, and therefore cannot appreciate, the worry, the mental stress of the money man, who must make ends meet, pay bills, arrange mortgages, find tenants and settle his union troubles at the same time. Better acquaintance with each other is what human beings need. It would be well if more very rich men had seen that young mechanic catching his red-hot bolts. It would be well if more young mechanics who like their beefsteak and onions could see John D. Rockefeller sipping his glass of milk and seltzer (his whole dinner), or know what Rockefeller feels when he lies awake half the night. He has found pretty well-paid employment for a hundred thousand men who sleep soundly while he tosses and turns and feels the weight of a ton on his chest. THE TRUSTS AND THE UNION-- HOW DO THEY DIFFER? A letter signed "Several Democrats from St. Paul" reads, in part, as follows: "In order to convert several rank Republicans it is necessary that we should be able to explain the difference between a trust and a labor union. Will you kindly, through your columns, make a clear explanation of this distinction? Our opponents holdthat both trusts and unions are combinations, which appears to be true, but there is apparently a weak point in our ability to definitely show the difference, and we beg that you explain it." ----