Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-08-09
A PICTURE OF PIrTsBUKG.

GtNsh 10 bnc PittsDurK PEOPLE
burg Public ODiOiOn.
Pittsburg Evening Telegraph.
The most alarming feature of the
crisis was the amusing mental and
moral blindness, which, in certain
communities, and notably so in
Pittsburg, seemed to have taken
complete possession of the people.
A Pittsburg man in New York,
Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago or
St. Louis to-day, or for that matter,
anywhere that he may be found
away from home, is an object of the
most melancholy interest, and is
apt to be looked upon either as an
incendiary in disguise or as spe-
cies of moral idiot.
At sundown last Saturday even
ing the people of this city knew
that q reign Of mob-law, with all its
fearful horrors, was about to be in
augurated, and yet what did they
do to prevent the destruction Of life
and property, which every one
knew to be inevitable ? Nothing,
absolutely nothingl More than
that, they went to their homes and
retired to their beds and slept-aye,
and slept-while the little band Of
brave men, who had come hither at
the demand of the constituted au-
thorities to protect their lives and
property, to restore order, to re-es-
| tablish the maintenance of law and
raise the embargo Oh trade, which
was crippling every industry, TAX
ing money out of every taxpayers
pocket and taking bread from the
mouths of the hungry, were shut
up in kennel, surrounded by an
infuriated mob of bowling fiends,
shrieking for their blood and using
every element of destruction, the
torch, the bullet and the bludgeon.
And the next day, when these same
men were driven by the flames into
the streets and were murderously
pursued by fendish wretches, not a
man went down to their rescue or
defense. Aye, they were scarcely
offered a cup of cold water with
which to moisten their parched lips
and quench their raging thirst, en-
gendered by Imprisonment in al
atmosphere of smoke and flame!
Aud then what was done toward
suppressing the infamous work oi
the red d.handed murderers, who,
with such diabolcal GOODNESS and
systematic daring, were destroying
millions Of valuable property, level
ing some Of the proudest monu
mentG Of commercial industry and
imperiling the existence of tho
whole city? For twelve hours the
storm of arson and pillage reignod
in all its frightful fury, and then
how feeble and ineffective was the
. response to the call to duty, prompt
ed simply by the first law of nature
viz, self-preseryation. The city was
: at the mercy Of the mob, and only
escaped because overweight hui
man nature, in the persons Of The
rioters and pillagers, could 90 nC
further,
Thore was cause for all this
amazing apathy and singular su
pineness. And we find it righ
here: Fanatical prejudice agains
capitalists and mistaken sympath!
with men who bad placed them
selves outside the pale Of the law
protection and were de6antly resist
me the execution of its cmdina
mandates. "Whom the gods wisl
to destroy they first make mad,
was never more strikingly illus
trated. Sowing the wind an(
reaping the whirlwind," was neye
I more terribly realized. The verl
d moment the strikers vt Twenty
: eighth street foroibly compelled
: engineers, under threat of thei
! lives to abandon their freight trains
and thereby interrupted Legitimate
\ traffic, they were clearly violator
y of the law. They had a perfec
e right to stop working, but they ha'
2 no right to compel other men go t
V do, aud in doing so they rendere