The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1877-08-03
THE syRIYF AND IT'S LFag0 VS.


Tie strike Of the Fast two weeks
has been the most extensive and VIC
lent ever known. Unlike ordinary
strikes, which have affected various
trades or callings, and have usuaIly :
involved only private rights, this has
involved the interests of the entire
country, and struck at the underlying
| principles Of Law and order; i, has set
itself up as a law unto itself, and has
undertaken to control the property of
Others, as though the right TO it was
vested in the distur jers of the peace
If man or body of men called rob-
bers stop you on the highway. or en-
ters upon your property, and divests
you of your goods, you call it robbery !;
and if in the struggle to retain your
own, you are killed it is murder out
right. But if body of men calling
| themselves strikers. seize railroad
property, hold it in their keeping, re.
fuse to allow il to be moved until it is
rausomed by according their claims
and even despoiI the property and
render it unserviceable, in order to OBJ
lige compliance with their demands,
and kill, pillage and burn, when an
effort is made to recover the property
for its owners, there are in community
those who have a maudlin sympathy
for the strikers, and words OF excuse
and encouragement for acts which in-
wade the sacred rights of property, and
sap the foundation of society. Such
maudlin sympathy encouraged the
strikers and the rioters of Pittsburg
until the pillaging, and the burning,
and the numbering, brought the COM
Inunity to the verge of the abyss; and
not till then did the community realize
the extent of their misplaced syInpa
thy. The recoil was as sudden and
determined as their sympathy had
been spontaneous and real. Up till
this time the civil authorities and the
police, the military and the State auth
ority were really powerless. Not till
the stable citizens discovered their er-
ror and arrayed themselves on the side
of law and order, was the lawless sat
urualia over.
There is a lesson in all this-that
civil government must be maintained
law and order must be vindicated-
the rights of property must be re-
spected and maintained, or misrule,
anarchy, and mob violence, with all
the horrors of communism, will gain
the ascendency. And the way to this
is patent-civil government must be
strengthened by the moral force of the
community bent resolutely in its favor,
and all efforts to defy law or obstruct
its execution promptly suppressed.
! The right of laborers to demand and
accept stipula led sum for their labor
need not and cannot be denied; but
neither can their right to stipulate that
no o;her laborers may be employed or
other wages paid than what they de
mand, be countenanced or in the re-
motest manner recognized. That is q
war upon labor itself in favor alone of
those who hold the situation, and is
reprehensible in the highest degree.
The right OF the employer to secure
labor at such price as the profits of his
business will warrant him in paying,
cannot be jeopardized by seizure of his
property, driving his hands from his
workshops, or other violent remedies
resorted to by lawiess msn. Neither
can a right be recognized in the EN-
ployer to compel men to accept the
wages offered. The right of each to
make their own contracts, or in other
words, their right TO agree. must not
be at the mercy of associations whose
leaders are usually trade idlers, who,
when at work, keep their eyes fixed
upon the clock, (and at best are poor
workmen, )-and when idle are alwa
prating of the rights of labor, its poor
pay, and of grasping, avarciousc apiti-
lists. Intelligent, skilled, industrious
labor always finds employment at good
wages, and always will. The compe-
tent workman is by nature neither a
tramp or a striker. His labor is always
In demand at bis own price, and his
price is based upon the profits which
his labor yields to his employer. He
recognizes the intimate relation of
capital and labor; that neither can ex-
list without the other; that capital as
well as labor must be paid, and so is
not in conflict with his employer or
fomenting strife among the workmen.
The laws enforced will right the
wrongs. The government sustained
will suppress rebellion and prevent
outbreak. Therefore, if it is neces-
sary to employ the whole military
fore of the general government to
suppress this outbreak in the North,
employ it, just as it was and should
be to suppress disorders at the South
which strike at individual rights or the
rights of society.