San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1885-03-19
FROM 81. LOUIS.
From our Regular Correspondent,

EpIroa FAIR PREssi Six companies
OF the srd Regiment OF Missouri
Militia are at Centreyille watching
the movements OF tho strikers at Sc
dalia Missouri, a few miles above
Tho condition OF things at Sedaiia
remains very critical and unchanged
at the present writing,
Over one thousand strikers are in
line, They are quiet, orderly. sober
and determined, They have thus far
violated no law. and have done and
said nothing TO forfeit or diminish
that warm sympathy which every
honest man and woman in the state
feels for them. Texas and Missouri
are the scene Of this unfortunate
trouble. II is q subject which should
be spoken Of and written OF with dis
erection and caution. Your cores
pondent has predicted tho coming OF
these disturbances in recent letters
TO the FREE PREss, and a careful in
quiry and investigation show conclu.
siyely that this conflict is precipitated
by tho capitalists who control the
vast railroad and other monopolies OF
this state, who persist in system of
organized robbery Of the laborers
pittance to swell their enormous div
idends and cash balances. 1t is the
old story of unremitiing and uare.
Quilted labour.
To appreciate and understand the
condition of these poor men, we have
but to consider that a majority of
them receive as a reward for a days
perilops labor from one dollar and
fifteen cents, to one dollar and sixty
cents, and they are frequently 'laid
off, two or three days in the week,
and out OF this beggarly pittance
they have to support themselves and
families. And yet this is not low
enough to appease the knavish greed
of railroad officials.
Mr., Hal Gosling, whose tragic death
was SO feelingly noticed in the last
number of the FHEE PRESS, was well
known to many st. Louisians, who
speak in the highest terms of him,
and bitterly regret his uptimely
death,
The legislature OF Missouri will
adjourn in few days, to the relief
and Joy of everybody, They have
not, during long session, passed a
single law of any consequence or i'm
portanoe, except the repeal Of the
Sunday law of 1857, which effeotual-
~ closes the twenty five hundred So,
looms Of st. Louis from midnight
Saturday to midnight Sunday. There
is a prolonged howl among the sa-
loon keepers, who have spent tens of
thousands to maintain the law of
"57," under which they claimed the
right to keep open on Sunday. This
pretended law was only applicapable
to tho City of st. Louis, and this con-
struction provoked the antagonism
of the country members, who united
in voting to repeal it,
Friday "a M, just before mail
ing this letter dispatches are received
from Sedalia, stating that the situa
ton of affairs is growing more serious
every moment. The strike is spread
ing far and wide. Fifteen miles of
freight trains are "side tracked" IN
Pettis county, and the only weapon
and pursuasion the strikers use is an
appeal to their fellow workers, ''for
Gods sake, and the sake of your fam
lily don't touch a locomotive or lift q
hand" and this potent appeal makes
all threats, intimidation and promis-
es on part of the railroads unavail-
ing.
There seems to be no way of ad
justing the trouble, excepting by the
road officials resembling their late OBJ
poxious order of q per sent ''reduc-
ton" on present wages. This last
.!gouge" the men won't stand, The
whole locomotive brotherhood are
fast joining the strikers. Business is
becoming paralyzed here.
CARL SMYTHE.
-
See ann ouncemept in our columns of j.