Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1877-09-04
SeditiOus Strikes and Communism.

The Philadelphia Times gives an ex.
ceedingly sensible warning to both De-
mocrats and Republicans against the
folly and fanaticism of the movement OF
labor combined with fanaticism. The
Democrats are about to hold conven-
ton in Pennsylvania, and this gives oc
casion for the well pointed advice of the
Times. We copy from it the following
paragraphs:
The vital point to be guarded by all
parties at this particular juncture is the
tendency to rush after strnage gods,
whic Unjust perish before the considerable
Judgment of the American people. True,
men of unbalanced minds as candidates,
such as Judge West, of Ohio, can do ir-
reparable damage to party in sixty Sec
onds; but Judge Vests folly was bred
in the convention that nominated him.
The fountain was polluted, and its
streams could be no better than the
dates unite their follies to make Repub-
lican disaster in Ohio inevitable.
The Democrats of Pennsylvania will
find no lack of broad and apparently
inviting paths to victory through the
bramhles of class prejudices and COM
mon misfortune. There is an element
that will crowd upon the Democratic
and Republican conventions during the
next two weeks that is potent only for
evil. 1t deformed the Democracy of
Ohio and left scarcely a living skeleton
of the Republicans of that State, and it
will not be easily mastered in Pennsyl
vania. The disorder that has prevailed
in many localities in this State, and that
yet threatens both property and life in
the anthracite region, has brought a
bountiful crop of demagOgues to the sur
face, who hope to climb into prominence
or offices by wandering to lawlessness
To all such both Democratic and Repub-
lican conventions should have but one.
answer-that there shall be liberty law,
and peace in our great Commonwealth
The prostration of our industrial inte-
rests, and the consequent suffering of
most of our laboring classes, are proper
and statesmanlike consideration of poll
tical conventions but all attempts to
give countenance to the lawless spirit
that denies to any 1aborer the right to la
Dor on his own terms, and that teaches
violence as the remedy forreal or imagi-
nary grievances between employers an
employed, must provoke the revolt of
all fair-minded men in conservative and
law-loving Pennsylvania. No measure
of demagogism on this question by eth.
er party will gain the votes of the revo-
lutionary classes, and the more the great
parties degrade themselves by ignoring
the true interests of honest labor to
propitiate the lawless, the more defiant
Iy will the disturbing elements oppose
the tickets of the old parties until an
open huckster in the political market
place shall result from the mutual eff
forts of the traders to cheat each other.
| The Democratic convention has to
lead on this grave question IN Pennsyl-
vania, and it has many and dangerous
stumblin- blocks In Its way; but it has
fallen upon the demagogues of Ohio.
The dignity, the honor, the prosperity
of our labor is the first care of every pa
triotic citizens; it should be the guiding
star of every political party, and the or
ganiaation that turns from the true inte-
rests of our now suffering industry to de-
grade it and make it drink more deeply of
the cup of bitterness by pandering to the
disorder that is the foe of all trust and
thrift will be defeated in this State as
surely as the day succeeds the night.