The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1877-08-17
THF LABOR TROUBLES.
The Cause OF the Great Railroad Strike
A Remedy SuKrcatod.

=
well to consider this matter rehectively
and see if there is not a remedy. Their
are two sides to every question. Tn
railroad strikers are to blame for much
but not for all. For their acts OF unn-
cessary and brutal violence, for thei
murder of militiamen and legal official
who were fulfilling their sworn dut,
in trying to preserve public property
and freight, for their burning of ware
houses, cars and depOts, for the pillag,
of stores, the Tribune has no words ex
| cept of severe condemnation. 1t has N
sympathy with violence or mob rule.
| Now let US look at the other side auC
see if there is not something to be con
J demned. During the past two year
| business shrinking up. Prices hav,
fallen off. Freights have been reduced
| Stocks have had their values sqeezeC
out of them. They have been unable t.
pay dividends to their stockholders, rent
for their hired roads, or interest on thei
| bonds. The result has been that they
have suffered from the effects of the gen
| eral depression even more than otheI
branches of business, and scores of them
have gone inte bankruptcy. At thi
| crisis Of their affairs, when prudence
judgment and conservatism were needed
in the management, they have enormously
aggravated their troubles by entering
upon frantic, reckless, cut-throat com
petition with each other, by which they
have cut down the rates of moving the
products and merchandise of the country
to the bare cost in many cases drumming
the trains. The amount received fol
NJ oI,rhf hd lxy a
for the wages and coal, and left nothing
for repairs, wear and tear, capital, and
other charges. 1t has been a war of COM
petition to the knife and the knife to the
hilt. Combinations and compacts have
been made only to be broken the next
instant. The western cross cut bankrupt
roads have maintained a Punic faith.
They have broken every engagement.
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 proftless business
The great water highways from the head
Of Lakes Superior and Michigan to the
mouths OF the st. Lawrence and of the
Hudson have also engaged in the same
reckless work, and freight has been car
ried below cost to increase or retain
business. The railroads have not only
competed with each other destructively,
but have also sought to cut off the busi-
ness and steal the freight of the water
courses. This miserable process of
throat-cutting has been going on for two
yesrs, and has been intensified during
the past six months, until the transpOrta-
tion business has been plunged into utter
confusion, and a crisis has come. Hav-
ing destroyed their profits, 70 save them
selves from still greater losses-it not to
save their actual property-these compa-
MES have fallen upon their employees and
raced their already -three-times-
reduced wages down to the starvation
line. Trackmen, switchmen, and labor
ers who load and unload trains are cut
down to 81, and in some cases to 80 cents
per day; brakemen and firemen to $l35;
and engineers to $1.J0. 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 impOssibility
to live upon such wages They ask,
with pertinent force, if they receive 50
per week, and have to pay Sc per
week 1or 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 re fuse
TO starVe, and resist. One blow has
brought on another, and the fire has rap
idly spread through the combustible
material.
The strikers are not only in a war with
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 desperate
condition. With these wholly starved
men, who are willing to take the places
of the strikers, even at starvation prices,
the half lfstarved men are at deadly war.
1t adds to the evaporation of the
strikers that they have discovered that
the new scale of wages is lower than the
general average of wages of mechanics
in cognate departments of business
where no danger exists. This has
added fuel to the flames As all the
elements Of exasperatiCn have increased,
so have the ranks of the strikers been
swelled by accessiOns of idle and discon-
tented men from other branches of busi-
ness, by tramps who have come in from
the country, by the communists, and by
thieves and the rifrraff of the cities
who see in these uprisings of what is
called labor against capital" their
golden opportunities for plumber and es-
cape in the confusion.
This is the situation. What is the
remedy? The first and most important
duty is to quell mob rule, to stop vio-
lence, pillage, and iucendiari.m at all
hazards, and to restore law and order,
and place the safety of the general COM
munity in the hands Of the duly cOnsti-
tuted authorities, instead Of tx pJsi,g q it
to the blind, passionate, unreasuning fury
of the mob, which has neither discretion
nor discrimination. This done, an equally
duty devolves upon the rail
road companies. They must cease cut
ting each others throats as they have
been doing for the past twelve months,
and must make their agreements bind
ing. The community does not ask of
them to work for a remuneration less
than the cost or value of their service.
It does not ask them to carry freight or
passengers for less than living rates,
or at rates that compel them to
reduce the wages of their employees
down TO the starving point. The first
step for them TO take is to raise
their charges, not exorbitantly, but fairly
and reasonably, and then, restoring the
last two cuts of wages, let them alone,
and await the great crops to handle and !
the changes in the fiscal affairs of the
country that will tend to restore business
prosperity, and place values on an i'm
proving basis. The reduction of the
mems poor wages does not benefit them
70 long as this insane competition is kept
up. Every reduction of wages is fol-
lowed by a reduction of rates, and if
wages were lowered to a cent per dav,
rates would be put down to zero, with
premium offered toshippers. The quickest
solution of the present problem, a partial
remedy at least, so far as we can ee, is
or the railroads to make a schedule of
rates on the live and let live' basis
They must charge enough to pay their
nen-such compensation as to enable
hem to pay rent and fuel and feed and |
;lOthe themselves and their families. Be !
ore this can be done, however, mob rule |
md violence must be suppressed, what |
,ver may be the cost or the consequences. |
-ChSeago Tribune.
Summer Resorts Condensed.