Daily press and Dakotaian. [volume] (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1875-1880, 1877-07-26
SENSIBLE REMARKS.

The Cause CT the Strike, And a Probable
Remedy Suggested.
The Chicago Tribune in a double loaded
editorial discusses this subject. After stating
that the strike has reached the dimensions
Of civil war, and that it has no sympathy
with mob violence and mob rule, it pro-
ceeds:
Now let us look at the other side and see
if there is not something to be condemned.
During the past two years railroad compa-
MES nave found their business shrinking up.
Prices have fallen off. Freights have been
reduced. Stocks have had their values
squeezed out of them. They have been un.
able to pay dividends to their stockholders,
rents for their hired roads, or interests on
their bonds. AT this crisis of their affairs,
when prudence, judgment, and conservatism
were needed in the management, they have
enormously aggravated their troubles by en-
tering upon a frantic, reckless, cut-throat
competition with each other, by which they
have cut down the rates of moving the pro-
ducts and merchandise of the country to the
bare cost in many cases of running the
trains. The amount received for one train
load OF freight has scarcely paid for the
wages and coal. and left nothing for repairs,
wear and tear, capital, and other charges.
1t has been a war of competition to the knife
and the knife to the hilt. Combinations
and compacts have been made only to be
broken, almost the next instant. The western
crosscut bankrupt roads have maintained a
Punic faith. They have broken every engage
ment. They have involved other lines in
the conflict, and even the great trunk lines
have not maintained their scales of rates,
but, actuated by the same insanity as the
rest, have engaged in the mad and disastrous
work of trying to steal each others profit
less business. This mi cradle process of
throat. cutting has been going on for two
years, and has been intensified during the
past six months, until the transportation
business has been plunged into utter confu-
sion, and a crisis has come.
Having destroyed their profits, 10 save
themselves from still greater losses-if not
to save their actual property-these com
panies have fallen upon their employees
and raced their already 70 or-three times
reduced wages down to the starvation line.
%Trackmen, switchmen, and laborers who
load and unload trains are cut down to ST.,
and in some cases to 80 cents per day; brake
men and firemen to $1.35; and engineers to
$3.50. These, men in the majority of cases,
are married, and have wives and children to
support and house-rent to pay and they
claim, with truth, that it is a physical i'm
possibility to live upon such wages. They
ask, with pertinent force, if they receive SO
per week, and nave to pay So per week for
their own meals while on the road, how they
are to pay rent and feed and clothe their
families on what is left. AS they cannot do
it, they refuse to starye, and resist. One
blow has brought on another, and the fire
hoe ranidly cnroo1 ibronob ill., ann,Iu,i;bI.
material.
their employers, but with still another class
back of them,-the men whom the roads
have heretofore discharged for want of work,
who are living upon odds and ends and
charity, and are in a desperate condition.
With these wholly starved men, who are
willing to take the places Of the strikers,
even at starvation prices, the half starved
men are at deadly war.
1t adds to the evaporation of the strikers
that they have discovered that the new scale
8 of wages is lower than the general average
of wages of mechanics in cognate depart
; ments of business where no danger ex ists.
, This has added fuel to the flames. AS all
the elements of evaporation have increased,
e SO have the ranks of the strikers been
a swelled by accessions of idle and disconnected
> men from other branches of business, by
tramps who nave come in from the country,
9 by the Communists, and by thieves and the
r%iffraff of the cities, who see in these up
risings of what is called labor against cap
ital" their golden opportunities for plumber
: and escape in the confusion. = \ :
: : Every reduction of wages is followed by re-
duction of rates, and if wages were lowered
to a cent per day, rates would be put down
! to zero, with a premium offered to shippers
The quickest solution of the present prob.
lem, a partial remedy at least, so far as We
can see, is for the railroads to make a SEIZED
: ule of rates on the Give and let live basi &
! They must charge enough to pay their men,
such compensl ion as to enable them to
pay rem aud fuel and feed and ciothe them.
L.. .l ~. -. D.r... ~.