Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1878-09-13

time | openly avow that am ready to d
again.
The men who work for this company ma,
reckon on protection in their lawful right
il it lies in our power to give it. For myself
! hope yet to see the day when, though ever,
man in this valley is opposed to work excep
one, that one NAV walk to his work from thu
top of Sbanty Hill through the streets o
Scranton and Hyde Park uninsultcd and un
mOlested.
come, lastly. to my action on the lst 0
last August when the "innOcent" Mr.
Dunlayy, and the equally innocent" Mr.
Lingon came to their lamcntcd deaths, OF
what the Times called their "little holiday
walk through the city"
The events of that time need no recapitula,
ton, How others may feel, ! neither know
nor care, but, so far as my share in that
days work goes, am deeply and humbly
grateful to God that did Just what | did
OF the forty odd men, who marched down
Lackawanna avenue at the call Of their
| Mayor, to save the city from destruction, to
my dying day, ! shall be proud that more
than thirty were my associates in this Iron
Company, that they organized in my Office,
that armed them with Remington rifles,
that ! walked at their head, and that by the
help of God alone, we forty scattered, like
chaif, mob Of 1000, which had already
tasted blood ard thirsted for more; that We
saved the city from the tate Of Pittsburg,
and gave it Il feeling Of conscious strength
and security, which alone has enabled the
editor Of the Times to blackguard us with
IMMUNITY ever since.
What did then | am ready, If need be
to do again. | knew perfectly well what |
vas about. | counted the cost. | never
expected anything else than that shOuld d
ever attcrward have the hatred of the crini-
nal and riotous element and its apOlosists,
like the editor of the Times. | never
doubted but should be niSreprescnted and
beled by every dirty demagogue, by every
timid politician, by every INSCRIPTIONS
<coundrel, by every unjust judge who Oh
tanned his high place by pandering to popu-
lar passion.
say publicly that no one who acted AS
leader in the criminal part of last summer :
strike shall ever knowingly have work at
my hands. So far a. this company goes, no
one who drove our employees from their
work with stones and pistols, who put out
our Elast furnaces, who set our engine
house on fire, who burncd the Pennsylvania
Coal Company head house, fired Pine
Brook stables, drove engineers from the
mine pumps and flooded mines, prevented
the gathering of our crops and plundered
them while growing, drove the railroad
hands from their shops. sh2t into houses at
night. tried to kill the Mayor, and started 10
gut the town; (eyery single act of which the
Times palliated or excuSed), not one of these
leaders need ever look for work or favor at
my hands. The employer who weakly gives
work to these men, who does not make
every effort to root these criminals out Of the
community, in nv judgment, not only sOws
future trouble for himself, but commits an
outrage on his neighboTs and this city.
However quiet and untera.ed they may be
in ordinary times | thank God there are yet
in this country a majority who care for some
thing else than Office, who, regardless Of
temporary can.or, dare to do what they
know is right What have done, has not
been done in corner. am not ashamed OF
my record. have attended strictly to my
own business. have meddled with no one.
The man docs not live, who can say ever
broke my pledged word.
never in my life refused to treat with
courtesy or to listen with patience to the
man or to the committee of nv employes
coming to me with their complaints, no mat
ter how unreasonable or impossible to
crafty. The man docs not breathe who can
say ever asked men to 20 where | dared
not lead them, or that, when in trouble for
my sake. did not back them up to the las;
degree of nv power and ability. When
poor men, in a minority have chosen to
work for their wives and little ones, the
Tunes has denounced them with every
epithet of savage abuse; I have defended
them in their lawful rights. The Times has
pailiatcd and excused every form of oatrase
and riot; have stamped them out. When
the Times was the recogpized organ of the