The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1883-07-11
The Mining Troubles.

Vermont has had taste of warlike
parade the past week, but happily there
was no nearer approach to the real bust
ness of war than when the historic forty
thousand French soldiers "marched up the
hill and then marched down again." The
story of the trouble at Ely is very
fully told elsewhere in this issue of the
WATcHMAN, and it is believed that the
true inwardness of the whole matter is
there disclosed In plain English the
situation seems to have been about as
follows; A body of laboring men has
been kept out of the wages they have
earned till want and restitution were
not only at their doors but in their
houses. Their wives and children have
suffered the pangs of hunger, and the
husbands and fathers have shown some
thing of those turbulent feelings which
wrong and injustice and suffering will
stir up in any mans veins. The state
has been deceived into making a cause
less use OF the last resort, the employ
ment of military power to quell civil dis.
turbances. 1t has been put to great and
needless expense and all by reason of the
wrong-doing, the extravaganza, the mis-.
management of mining company and
the senseless panic into which its chief
officers and counselors were thrown when
the men whom they had wronged showed
mans resentment. The miners, or rather
some OF the baser spirits among them,
have been guilty of some overt acts and
may have threatened many more, as men
who are not miners sometimes do, but
they seem to have been grossly misrepre-
sented not only by newspaper correspond
ents,with subserviency to official rank and
to corporate power, but by the local, civil
officers whose business it was to know
the real situation. In the light of the
simple facts stripped of the garniture with
which bias or imagination had surrounded
them,ita appears that these poor miners have
been more sinned against than SHINING,
that instead of the harsh words which
have been showered upon them they really
deserve praise for the temperance and
self-control which as body they have
shown under circumstances as trying as
are often presented to men. From the
most reliable reports obtainable from per-
sons who were among the miners during
the days of alleged rioting when the civil
power, it was represented, was entirely
overthrown or powerless to execute the
laws and preserve order, it would seem
that resolute sheriff with sturdy posse
OF assistants would have been abundantly
able to preserve the peace and to take
care of all the persons who by incendiary
acts or speech were endangering the safety
of persons or property. 1t is even posi-.
BILE that civil officer of ordinary address
and courage would have found it unnec.
essary to resort to any degree of physical
force to have maintained order. Actual
knowledge of the real condition of things
and tact and boldness in dealing with the
few malcontents, it is exceedingly proba-
BILE would have suficed to do what two
hundred militiamen with all the acquire
ments of war, from the remote corners of
the state were summoned to accomplish.
A plucky and tactful railway conductor
showed his disgust of the proceedings, and
in the following laconic remark condensed
the real exigency Of the occasion, 81 have
put down bigger rows on my train and
never thought of calling for helpl" And
this seems to be the full stature of the
Ely "riot," to subdue which Governor
Barstow, under the false and panicky rep
reservations made to him at time when
profound quiet in fact reigned at the
mines, called out half a regiment of troops.
No blame can attach to Governor
Barstow for his action on this occasion.
AS matters were represented to him he
could hardly have done differently. So
far from censure he deserves commenda-
ton for the prompt and business-like
manner in which he dispatched the
troops and, when he found that they had
come on FOOLS errand, in sending them
home again. The entire proceedings of
the mining company, its attorney and the
civil officers, the high flown, frothy and
lying reports sent to the city journals by
sensational correspondents have deeply
disguised the sensible citizens of the
state. The utter causelessness of the whole
affair is plainly demonstrated by the fact
OF the discharge of the arrested parties at
Chelsea yesterday without the pretence
of trial.
An IshmaeIitish COin