The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1877-07-21

by troops; threats against the Sheriff, the
peace officer, in Pittsburg; open and DIS
graceful resistance to law and right at
Newark, Ohio, and Hornellsville, in this
/ State, and at other places-these are not
nice things to happen in the United states
/ Whoever has a heart for the workingmen
and would like to see them prosperous and
happy must read with pain these accounts
of their blunders. They show lack
of logical power, want OF clear thought
an inability to steer o straight course, to
comprehend their situation and to keep
themselves in the right, which arc most
deplorable.
We will take it for granted that the
strikers have just cause Of complaint,
though while they are violating the laws
this cannot be considered. But suppose
them to have the most real and the strongest
grievances; that does not excuse their miscon-
duct. On the contrary, be their wrongs ever
so great and their complaints just, they
ought to see that they forfeit all public
sympathy and make themselves justly
odious to all good men by their lnwless
proceedings. They become the enemies OF
liberty the enemies Of their own class, If
class they choose to make it; they compel
the opposition of every man, no matter
how sincerely he desires their welfare
or even their success in this strike, who
values peace, justice and free government.
We repeat what we wrote yesterday: they
had the right to strike; they had the right
to organize before striking, and to arrange
by voluntary cooperation, if they could,
that every fireman and brakeman on every
railroad in the United States should stop
work at the same hour. Every man may
decide for himself for what wages and for
what employers he will labor. But when
the strikers prevent other men from
taking the places they have vacated;
when they prevent the running OF
trains when they fire stones into
running trains when they defy the law
officers when they riot-then they are in
the wrong, and so grossly in the wrong that
their best friends must and will turn against
them, and every good citizen will approve,
sadly and reluctantly it may be, but firmly
and thoroughly, the severest measures which
may be used against them.
We ask the striking men themselves to
read the summary of the acts which some
of them have committed during the last
twenty -four hours, every one Of which is
in violation of law and makes the actors
and their abettors criminals. At st. Johns
Run stones were thrown at moving train.
At Wheeling party of railroad men from
Steubenville, willing to work on the trains,
were driven off The telegraph wires have
been cut on the Baltimore and Ohio line.
At Keyser train was violently stopped,
the locomotive fires put out and
the train blockaded. At Newark, Ohio,
man who was firing up locomotive was
attacked and flung headlong from his post
of duty. At Pittsburg all incoming trains
We're stopped, and the rioters, collected ia
great numbers, refused to dispense on the
summons Of the Sheriff At Hornellsvills
the strikers blockaded all trains, notifying
the company's officers that no trains would
be allowed to pass. Finally, in Baltimore,
laboring men sympathizing with the strikers
attacked militia regiment marching
through the streets and set fire to a railroad
depot.
We give this brief summary, not to exag-
gerate the blunders and offences of the
strikers, but in the hope that some, at least,
among them may see by it what they are
committing themselves to and how fatal is
the course they are encouraging and help
ing. To say that these acts are criminal
does not cover the case. They are disrep-
<hoxy Of A ~; al
zens; they degrade all the men who take part
in them. No matter what their provocation,
this is not the American way to remedy q
grievance No reasoning can justify such
conduct. The strikers say that they receive
too little pay; that they are overworked
that the managers Of railroad companies try
to save out of workmen's wages what they
have wasted in speculation and in unbusi-
nesslike enterprises they say that q strike
will cost the companies more than an increase
in the wages Of train men. But all this
is beside the question. They had a right
to quit work, but they have no right to pre-
vent other men from working Nothing
can Justify that, which is an attack on the
most sacred right of workingmen, the very
right these strikers themselves are assert
ing.
The HERALD has always been the friend
of worllingmen. 1t has never omitted or
hesi.ated to assert and defend their rights.
1t is their best friend when it denounces
violence and lawlessness as not only
criminal, but un-American and dis
graceful, and when it urges the author
tiles to use the most effective and
peremptory measures to crush out law
lcssness. Ii the strikers had acted within
the law and according to their clear rights
We should have readily justified and de-
Tended them, no matter how great the in
convenience their strike might have caused