The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1886-04-14

THE EAST ST. LOUIS HORROR.

The EAST ST. LOUIS HORROR.
1t may be taken as absolute truth that the
instigators of violence in times of confusion
are greatly in the minority of the population.
Violence is contrary to the expressed in
functions of labor unions, and the Knights
of Labor have made peaceful means of over
coming difficulties between employer and
employe cardinal principle. With such
unanimous recognition OF self-apparent
necessity for social order and progress
through peaceful evolution of habits and
ideas, we can only consider the laxity of
authorities in failing to provide effectual
means of preserving the peace as culpable to
a high degree. 1t does not follow, in case of a
contest or strike between employers and
employees, that in order to show
sympathy for the cause OF labor
disorder and riot should be permitted, or
proper measures not taken to prevent any
riotous demonstration. 1t was shown in the
destruction of life at East st. Louis as it was
shown in the riot at Pittsburg that the
rioters were roughs rather than actual
strikers. True, strikes provide the occasion
for riots, because they unsettle the minds
and relations of men, and their existence is
primarily the cause of riot. But it is so
only in an indicative sense, and this Undue
ton would not exist were the authorities
rigidly to draw the line upon the law, and
when an emergency is foreshadowe0 by any
extensive strike to make preparations to re-
press violations of the law, and with force
sufficient to pretcat such occasions as culmin-
ate in scenes like that at East St.
Louis on Friday. Were 1t done,
and done promptly, and with eooiheaded
disci plined men, under cool-headeL and dis
ciplined officers, who would have discretion
and GOODNESS enough not to fire at the first
alarm, nor to get panic. stricken because
some hooting is done by an excited crowd,
such terrible scenes would not occur.
No citizen should suffer arrest or De placed
under a liability to be punished or shot until
he is caught in an act of law-bzeaking Aay
mere condition that places him in a positi )n
where he may break the law should not be
held, but it is the duty of the authorities to
be in position to promptly suppress any man
or any set of men the moment he or they
attempt an overt act of actual law-t reaking
continued to the end. Our authorities allow
things to proceed and admit the rif-raf
of society, that have ne other end or
aim but plumber, and who are not
under even the discipline of trades union,
to do about as it pleases until in some hasty
nervous act the authorities strike out quite
as blindly and recklessly as the mob it at
tempts to suppress. Men have right to Or
eanize and they have right to strike, and
they have right to impose such terms as
they can. But they have not right, nor
do they as bodies claim such right, to do
this in a way that is in violation of law, and
1t is the business of the authorities to see
that neither the passion OF strikers nor the
passion of the riff-raf that come to the sur
face on any occasion OF excitement, be al
lowed to eliminate in law violation. The
trouble always has been that where the law
is executed at such times it is done in equal
passion and recklessness. The strikers are
passionate, and the passion leads to violence.
The railroads are passionate, and the
passion calls for blood, until when
blood is shed it is shed with
the unreasoning fury of mob.
and the blood of the innocent is shed. A
company of regulars would have pushed the
mob back and dispersed it, and would not
have fred a shot unless the gathering was
known to be hostile and bent upon actual
warfare In fact, small display, backed
up with the knowledge that violation of the
law would certainly lead to punishment,
would prevent the occasion for a use of the
force behind it.
The world is in kind OF confusion, and is
drifting into future surrounded on all
sides with uncertainty. Temperance is de-
manded of all. Order and justice must be
preserved until the law, the proper arbiter of
human quarrels, builds itself upon the best
results attainable, and what those are only
the future can determine, but which with
out order can only have one-anarchy.