The Portland daily press., 1877-08-03
Current Comment.

There was not much difference in the char
acter OF the riots east aud west. In San
Francisco they were ant-Celestial, and in
Pittsburg simply internal.
There are half dozen aspects in this case,
the first and most obvious being that the
Presidents order is wrong in principle and
policy. He has no right to make political
pariahs of his otfice-holders. Adper-
tiser.
Another blow at labor-cutting down the
fees of Connecticut witnesses ten per cent.
This cannot help but discourage, if not en-
tirely paralyze, an important branch of busi-
ness.-Ddnbury Neavs.
If a man driving on the highway in his
buggy was stopped, and the buggy was taken
from him, it would be violation of the law
If the buggy was freight train, what then?
The public seems to have been a little con-
fused on this point within the last few days.
Chicago Inter Ocean.
In spite of the wholesale destruction of
property at Pittsburg, the Pennsylvania road
has considerable left. 1t owns 1000 miles of
road, and controls nearly 5000 miles more.
1t employs about q, 900 men, and had, be-
fore the Pittsburg riot, lilo locomotives,
10000 passenger and 5000 freight cars.
Lucy Stone has nothing but contempt for
the riotous strikers. These men, who are
among the rulers over women, she says, and
who receive more than double the average
wages of women who have families, and who
by thrift live respectfully, recklessly burn,
destroy and kill; "while we," she adds, ''who
for thirty years have vainly petitioned for our
right of suffrage, and who have resorted only
to legal and peaceful means for the redress of
our wrongs, are still refused, and held in po-
litical subjugation." Put down the insur-
rection, she cries, if it costs hundred thou
sand lives and the destruction of every rail-
road in the country.
John Bright has fallen very far short of mis-
usual sagacity If as reported, he thinks the
railroad riots in this country are one of the
fruits of the protective system. They are the
direct and immediate fruit of trade-unionism,
and that is European product imported to
this country free of duty. 1t has exercised
mighty power in Great Britain of late years,
and many prosperous establishments which
gave employment to many thousands of
skilled and unskilled workmen have been
laid low by its remorseless and ill-directed
tyranny. We are feeling the effects of 1t on
a large scale now for the first tlme.-B0st0n
Advertiser.
Thomas Brown is poor workman labor
ing in factory, and paid by the job. By
patient abstinence and self-denial, and by
working out of regular hours, Thomas accu-
mulates $50, which he invests in improved
tools that will enable him to earn more
money a day than he did before. Now, in
stead of using his new tools he rents them to
a fellow workman for 20 cents day, with
the condition that after they are worn out
they shall be replaced. These tools are capi-
tai, and they are the emblem of all capital,
great or small. Thomas is capitalist, and
the 20 cents a day is his income from his capi-
tal The disseminated worklngman who
asserts that the capital of the rich man has
no right to the rate of interest which it can
command without compulsion can with pre-
cisely the same propriety say that Thomas
has no right to get his 20 cents day or to
bargain for 21 cents if he pleases to do so.-
". Y. Post.
If any respectable Democrat has the least
doubt left in his mind as to the damnable
folly and wickedDess of attempting to make
the title to the Presidency political issue in
this country at this time, we advise him to
read and ponder the following deliverance OF
Citizen Conroy, one of the chiefs of the So
called working mans meeting in" in Tomp-
kins square, and the colleague of Mr.. Swim
ton, OF the San, in the management of that
interesting assemblage. 81 tell Mr.. Hayes"
said this intelligent citizen, ''that he don't
represent the working classes of America.
Let no man obey the mandates issued by
him. He is not President by the voice OF the
people, but by chicanery aud fraud. There
fore don't obey his proclamations. II he at
tempts to call $1,000 men we will all enlist,
and then let him take care that he does not
have to leave Washington as Louis Philippe
left France in 1S48." If the President
should find it necessary, as he probably will
not find it necessary, to call out $1,000 men,
we trust the recruiting officer will keep an
eye on Citizen Conroy, Citizen Swinton and
the rest of them, for month or two in the
ranks under good drill-sergeant may possi-
bly, make better "citizens" of them than they
are otherwise likely to become. But mean
while and in any event, every honest and
law-abiding man who calls himself Demo-
crat has the upshot here clearly presented of
the poisonous drivel which a handful of
twaddling demagogues have been trying to
make the country accept as the political
creed of great national party.-N. Y.