Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1877-08-02
The Rights of the Striker. +"

which 1t is in order to make just now.
Have the Trade Unions and public
reached any agreement or understand
ing as to what strikers may do, and
may not do in their attempts to coerce
employers to raise their wages ? The
strikers have one right that is univer-
sally conceded, right belonging to
them in common with all other citi.
zens, that is, they may refuse TO work
if they believe their compensation is
too small. But are the public in gen.
eral, the orderly part of it, willing
that they should go farther-that is,
destroy, burn, and plumber the prop
erty of their employers, by the million
as they did In the city of Pittsburgh
and other places =? Even in these ex-
cesses, it appears at first, that the
Pittsburghers were In favor of the
rioters. The papers so informed us.
And several journals which claim 10
lead public opinion, published long
articles showing the cruel oppression
of. the railroad managers, starving
their laborers and enriching them
selves. Some of these papers changed
their tone entirely. In the interests
of the grangers they had denounced
living freignts and fares, and when
driven by close competition to re-
duce their freights and charges, the
same papers denounced the roads for
this reduction for the strikers con-
tend that it was taken out of their
wages. Even such respectable
journal as the Dubuque Times tells us
that so unsparing was the cruelty of
railroad managers, that this rebellion
and vengeance on the part of the en-
ployes was natural, was to be expect
ed. Now what is natural, what we
should expect as the result of cruelty
and halt pay for hard and dangerous
labor, cannot be very wrong either in
law or morals.
But right here, it appears in these
hard times railroads have been more
generous than any other class of en-
ployers. Manufactures when they
could not run at reasonable profit, let
off their steam suddenly, their spin
dies stopt, and the employees were
turned out into the streets to tramp
through the country that furnished
them with no labor or wages, no work
at least that they were accustomed to.
The murderous Molly Mcguires, could
not compel the iron lords of Pennsyl-
vania to run their furnaces to pre-
vent their employees from starving.
But the railroads must run, profit or
no profit. 1t soon appeared in the
course of this strike that the great
mass of the rioters were not railroad
men at all, but persons who had been
dismissed from other employments
where profits would not pay wages.
The ordinary percentage of loafers,
loungers and bruisers has been multi
piled ten.fold by the discharged work
men from all branches of trade and
business. The railroads have treated
their laborers so as to retain greater
proportion of them and furnish them
work than any other business. But
it must be taken into account that
railroad property, the great mass of it,
is owned by non.residents ; in W all
Street or in Europe. Had the mob
attempted to burn the manufactures
in Pittsburgh, owned by the people
there, they would have been sudden-
ly checked and met with grape shot.
Yet this very mob, composed to a
great extent of men turned off from
the furnaces and manufactures of this
very city, while the roads were still
furnishing labor at something less
than former prices. Journals like the
Times, and other city papers should
be very careful in condemning other
employers for grinding the faces of
their laborers. Journeymen printers
are suffering as much now as any
other class of employees, they strike as
often and would have as much reason
to burn up such mammoth establish
ments as publish our daily papers, as
railroad locomotives and cars.
But whatever was thought and
written at first, we believe the Peo-
pie and Press are quite united in de-
nying the right of the strikers to burn
and destroy the property of their en-
ployers as q means of compelling an
advance in wages. What custom
sanctions will become common law.
But this general condemnation is ac-
companied with so much sympathy
that il will perhaps go a very little
| WAYS IN preventing suCtl uiStut OduCSs
In the future. But in none of the pa.
pers, not in the Presidents PROCLAIM
alton, nor in the resolutions of citizens
meetings, with the exception of what
Gov. Robinson published, lave we
seen one distinct denial of the strikers
right to compel others to desist from
working at lower wages then claimed
by them. 1t is the resort to this VIC.
lence which the people and the press
ought now to consider and settle ;
Justify it if right, and determine to
stop and punish it if wrong. This
violence is the very issue of . strike ;
trade unions have always regarded
it az part of the law of the land.
There ia no ststnte eondemEing such
conduct. 10 fact 6 legislator who
would offer such law would find
himself assailed on all sides. Dem.
agogues of every shade and stripe