, 1877-09-15
SOCIAL RESTLESSNESS IN
AMERICA.
from the S~pec!dtor.)
AMERICA.

The Railway Strike in the United
States has been rapidly and energetically
suppressed, and the momentary panic into
which American society WIS thrown has
had time to subside. But thinking mon
are not less alarmed than they were at
first, aud much ingenuity of explanation
has been bestowed upon inquiries into
the causes Of the recent Outb eak. II is
clear that this instruction Of labonr,
though it fixed upon the Strike Of the
Railway hands as an excns and an coca
sion. was not 10 a very considerable extent
Trades union movement. The Uu:Ons
may indeed have prompted the stckprs
and ffemen to revolt, bat in the places
where the struggle between order and
disorder was most f0rmi.lab'e the men
on strike were from the bogiJai1g in the
minority, and very soon lost the coutrcl
of eveots. The active work of Destroy
ing pronertv aGd %trr;ori ( great towns
was done, not by the actual Strikers, bat
Ky " sympathisers." This is DOT by any
means a consoIatory fact. II the Trades
Unions had been the ouginators
and orgaUisers OF the late war
against the Railways, it would be com.
parativeIy easy to estimate their forces
aud 10 weigh their demands. But when
the first manifestation Of turbulence
arouses a wild spirit # resistance to au-
thority aud OF amnesty TO property in
the most prosperous and progressive OF
American communities. it ii time to ask
Mhy this is so, and who are these enc
mics of order aud capital. These qucs-
tions are of the most vital consequence
for the United States, where, in spite Of
immense internal resources, progress is
always delayed when foreign capita is not
forthcoming. 1t is obvious that foreign
and especially English capital, lately so
many times alarmed, decei7ed, and
mulcted. must look anxiously for any
ineligible explanations Of the social
situation in America, and that Ame-
ricans must be DESTROYS Of supplying
them, if they can. Bat in the meautirie
there are a few considerations explanato-
ry Of the recent difficulties to which
sufficient weight has not been given in
English discussion. They MAJ not cover the
whole ground, but they bring out some
points hitherto lett un-oticed.
IL has been observed that the more for
midable masses and forces st in motion
by the rising Of the men on strike were
made UP not Of native citizens of the
United States, but Of uAas>imilated immi-
grants, Of Irishnien and Germans, who had
not leatned 10 feel themselves elevated by
the law-reapecting dignity CT the genuine
American and of reckless political refu.
gees from the Continent of Europe
chiefly Slavs, Poles, Boheaaiaus.-with
whom hatred Of property and Government
had become a consuming and %inextin.
guishabIe passion. But without denying
this or diminishing its due weight, il may
be pointed out that the rioters, whether
Of foreign descent or not, could hardly
have possessed themselves of the power
they misused SO ferociously at Pittsburg
and Chicago, if the native born citizens
had not actively or passiyely supported
them. The native-born Americans of the
vorking-class are nearly everywhere in
the majority they are shrewd enough to
see some ut least r.of the misahiefs. NJ dis.