The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-05-01

| the chance to operate.
There are many excellent organizations al
| ready existing, bur their scope is limited. The
/ Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. for in
| stance, is order compact and admirable. 1t
does good. So do some other unions that know
| of; but those that are good are an Insignificant
fraction beside those that are bad, in their aims
/ and their methods. The workingmen of the land
/ to-day are under the leadership for the most
part of loud-talking demagogues of the worst
! type; men who left their native countries for
/ their native countries good; men who in Ger
many or Russia would be locked with their in
| eendiarism within prison walls, and are heroes
here Men who were born of patriotic parents,
/ who were reared in families where honesty was
| inculcated, and the fear of God and justice to
| ones fellow men, who all their lives have been
| Industrious and honorable-such men, sad as the
statement of the fact may be, have been befogged
| by the shonts, and imprecations, and fendish
teachings of these imported communists, who
| preach in the name Of suffering humanity
doctrines that could declare
who was rot mad in the fumes of the meanest
dregs of Nihilism. The day for this sort of thing
| is nearly at an end. There is a great awakening
! at hand Reaction against vicious incendiarisn
is setting in already. The spirit that filed the
streets of Paris with blood and that 4veloped
| outrage and murder to Russian science has
| been Haunting itself freely among our lines in
| Missouri, In Kansas and IN Illinois. But America
! is not France. and the Commune has failed;
| America is not Russia, and Nihilism has not de-
posed those in authority nor been able to ruin
| the property of those who presumed to disobey.
| Barbarity is weed that does not thrive we'll
| transplanted from across the ocean here 1t is
i not to the American taste to tear down, cripple
| and DESTROY; Americanism leads to development
| and building up. And Americanisin III the end,
! depend upon it, is bound to vindicate and assert
itself Strikes senseless, defenseless and
! pernicious to the last degree. They are born of
an idea that does not rise to the level of a FIJI
| islanders tactics.
'The boycott9 1t is Stiffness run mad The
| lxuho biyO fhair tlc
l to pieces. They hit not the object they aim at,
but rain upon their own heads their own blows.
New Workers reed not be told this since so re-
! Gently has Mrs. Gray, the brave little baker of
| Hudson street, been given, with her victory, to
| history. The recent Missouri Pacific strike and
the boycott attendant, which SO vigorously
proclaimed, emphasize this fact. The knights
| of Labor, apostles of both of these exalted
/ schemes of warfare, have used their ammunition
of this sort industriously and energetlcally, with
no result so marked as appears IN their own dis
comhture. Failure is written III bold characters
| on every move they have essayed."
| Mr. Gould considered President Cleveland's
arbitration plan, lately proposed, the most prac-
tica solution of the labor question yet presented
Mr.. Gould then said: 1.-THE assertion of
Messrs Powderly and Mcdowell, that stock
watering is one of the principal causes of labor
| troubles, is the merest slush. They present no
facts nor figures to verify their assertion simply
| because such figures do not exist. The wages,
on examination, will be found the same on roads
| OF high cost as on those OF low cost
| What calculated the millionaire, ''has stock
watering got to do with the strike in the sugar
| refneries in Brooklyn, the coal-mnes in Penn
/ sylvania, the street strikes in this city.
| the innumerable other strikes in manufactures
| all over the country? Such stuff shows that
| these men have got in deep wator, and when the
irons begin to burn their fingers they Shrek out
| Stock wateringr I attribute the origin of the
| existing widespread labor agitation chiefly to the
ministrations of the Knights of Labor. l have
l hat hat Mt IG ct IN M
strife, and breeder of discord 1t has little in
| it to challenge the respect of intelligent and
honest men; much that it pretends to it does
not possess Pretty plattudes about arbitra-
| ton and the like are in the mouths of the or
| CARNATIONS leaders continually, but it is
matter OF defamation only. Arbitration stands
second to the strike, and of the methods chosen
| by the order the boycott leads to every shame
that has relation to decency and justice The
organization bows down to the bludgeon idea:
| business assassination is virtue in its sight;
the ruin of industry is hailed as an exalted &C
| complishment Stand and deliver-that is the
| legend they bear boldly the front Obey
perish is the motto they give devotion to. Judged
| by acts that not to be disguised, the Knights
| of Labor have an illimitable amount of evil in
| their organization. What do they offer to their
| members Do they lift anybody up to better CIT
| izenship! Do they teach manliness? Do they
| inculcate any form of honor? If they do l have
nowhere been able to discern such thing, and
| think may say that | have had fairly good
| cnanc0 TO become acquainted WIN the aims ana
the practical workings of the order. Bad men
| are welcomed to its folds. The refugee from
over the ocean finds fitting fraternal place
with agitators already conspicuous in its
| councils The Communist whose words drip
constantly with igurative blood is given a high
| seat in command. Nowhere and in way is
| the good preferred before the bad man;
nowhere is the firstclass workman preferred
| before the botch and the laZybones Upon the
other hand the riff-raf are lifted to the back of
! those who excel. aud the man who is Industrious
| temperate and capable, hears the perpetual din
| of the maxim AN injury to one is the concern
| of ALL and misled by demagogism, he is bur-
! dened with the hack and the loafer That in
plain words is the story of the Knights of Labor.
| A vast deal of ornate rhetoric has been used to
| glorify the order, but cold facts rather dscour-
| age the idea that Mr.. Powderly's organization
| has been chosen to inaugurate the millennium.
| If they would survive as an order it must be as
| something more than project for punishment.
| When larger aims and nobler aims their
| principles then will workingmen organized win
| for themselves full JUSTICE and then, too, will
| there be end forever to the cry of conflict be-
| tween capital and labor. Education, sound
sense, and ideas of justice-these are the prir
ciples that ultimately will elevate our wage
earners and give us better times.
''Fhe Knights of Labor" Mr.. Gould consin-
| ued ''have entered upon far too great an under
| taking for the size of their brain and their
| shoulders Not content with limited scope for
J their work. they are attempting to run and rule
| everything Cne WfO6 WOrIQ over. Inc result
would be a roaring farce but that their shameful
| policy is at the same time responsible Tor so
much of distress and disorder They accom-
! plish none of the things they declare within the
compass of their ambition. Setting out to gov
ern the earth they govern n0thing and nobody;
court ridicule and insure defeat not in one
trade with special knowledge secured through
practical experience, but in all trades and all at
once; not the rule of this country alone, but the
reformation of all countries from the direction
| Of no ri n ri 10 an
eye upon the affairs of the gentle savage of the
South sea and the concerns of the almond eyed
native of far Asia Mr. Powderly has assured
the Congressional labor investigating committee
at Washington that compared with his duties
grand master workman, the tasks Of President
| Cleveland are trivial.
You see"-anG Mr. Gould smiled in his char
acteristic way-''you see, after all, that it is a
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