The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-07-28
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
About Strikes.


For one, 1 am glad of the telegraph strike
am glad that the Western Union holds out
stubbornly. am glad that the entire bust
ness of the country is seriously deranged by
it. The only element of regret is that the
good that is to follow is to be purchased at
too great cost to those who can poorly al
ford it. All OF these things have been more
or less foreseen and preventive has occa-
sionally been suggested, but we have been
too cowardly to tackle the case heroically.
II our system of government is so constituted
that we cannot prevent the existence Of such
a monopoly as the Western Union, then we
have a weak place that needs reforming.
On the other hand, if ten or ten thousand
men may combine with such strength that
at the beck of the organization the
entire social and commercial in
terests of the country may be
suspended or seriously deranged, then is
there some latent power of government UNI
applied, or something necessary to self-pro-
lection is lacking in the government. There
is no difference between monopoly of the
lines and a monopoly of the keys. The
brotherhood is as dangerous as the stock
holders and managers. 1t is no justifica ton
of their strike to allege that their wages are
not satisfactory. The merchants clerks and
statesmen who are equally cultured and whose
average wages are even less than the tele-
grsphers, and whose hours of labor are at
least twenty-five per cent. greater, have
right to strike. but they cannot These find
dozens ready to take every place they vacate,
notwithstanding the starvation wages OF
clerks, just as there are dozens
by the dissatisfied telegrapher
if it were not for the conditions that the
Brotherhood imposes.
But first of all this strike must turn the
attention of Congress to the telegraph ques-
ton. Telegraph communication is as much
interviewer into the warp and wool OF every
social and business relation is the post
Office and it would be as great an outrage upon
the economy of the nation to allow individ-
uals to monopoliZe the one as the other
Perhaps the most convenient remedy is for
the government to take the business in hand
and establish postal telegraph system. But
against this there are a thousand serious OBJ
jections. 1t might as well, and for the same
reason, go into the railroad business, What
the government ought to do is to protect the
people against a monopoly which charges
such prices and pays such wages as to make
the stock pay from go to 70 per cent,
ana Wnlcn is IN q COnQltlOn 10 OeIY
all competition. And the government
should as heroically tackle that other mo-
nopoly, the monopoly of labor. 1t should
not be possible for ten men or ten thousand
to secretly plan and concoct for years SO
that at given signal the entire business of
the country should be brought to a stand
still for some real or imaginary grievance by
abandoning railroads or telegraphs or fac
tories or mines. This whole system of strik-
ing, which strikes the poor and the rich
alike, far remote from the scene of the strike.
and those who are mot only innocent of
Yrong but utterly defenseless, needs heroic
tteAtment in behalf of the toiling millions
wA6suffer most from it, and who vet are
little counted in estimating the damages.
If this strike continues a year in its most ag-
gravated form it will not damage Jay Gould
n copper but it will damage a mill
ion of laboring and commercial men,
and it will not in the end benefit the strik-
ers. whatever concessions they may extort.
1t is to be hoped, therefore, that this strike
will continue until business will SO suffer
that Compress will not dare to ignore it any
longer We want the existence of such an
outrage as the Western Union to be an i'm
possibility and at the same time such a COM
bination of railroad interests as now exists
must be made impossible. Congress may not
fix the wages of employees, nor establish a
tariff OF rates, but it can prevent monopo-
lies, whether of capital or labor. As the late
railroad war utterly failed TO call attention
to proper legislation, it is my hone that this
strike and its thousand evils will produce
lasting results, U. L. SEE.