Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-12-22
THE OUTRAGEs IN SAN FRANCISCO
AND WHAT MUST RESULT.

The continued commission of outrages
by the San Francisco street-car strikers and
their vicious allies, and for whose actions
they will be held accountable by the peo-
pie, will presently bring the public senti-
ment ur point of Indignation where
patience will cease to be virtue.
All attempts by menace, threat, or actual
force to coerce the public into adopting and
justifying the methods employed by the
strikers, only hastens the stroke of the hour
when the public sense of justice will fortify
counter movement In the conflict to
follow, and which all good men must de-
plore, there will be no uncertainty as to
the sufferers. They certainly will not be
Of law-abiding, peace-loving and right
respecting citizenship.
The rights with which republican
form of government invests every man
under its wardship must be maintained;
and they will be, for it is inconceivable
that the theory of our Government shall
fail in practice. The "inalienable right F"
has constitutional guarantees; but they
are after all only the expressed recognition
by the advanced thought of the world, of
that which exists in nature for all freemen
and independent of social warranty.
The inalienable, that of which man ca
dispossess himself only by voluntary act
and not even then, when the question is
viewed from the true standpoint
suffer by the trespass of another, without
the assailant being visited by equal pun
ishment Let the workingmen keep it
clearly in view, that the rights they assail
are the chief guarantees for the mainten-
ance of their own. Conflict is not the
outgrowth of well-ordered humanity, but
peace is, and the basis for it and for free
government is mutually of interests and
rights.
When the strikers in San Francisco or
elsewhere attempt to dictate to the railway
companies whom they shall employ
and what shall be the measure of
their wages, they assail even the privilege
tolerant society comedies to them to pro-
test. If the gripmen and conductors of
the cable roads are to be ex cused in their
attempts to force the managers of the lines
to accede to their demands, by the same
rule the managers would be justified in en-
ploying coercive measures to compel men
to work for them; the very thought of
which is abhorrent.
The laws of the land reflect only the
inalienable rights of men, even though
imperfectly. Now to obey the law is
an inalienable right, absolutely as lofty a
prerogatiye as to make it, and as much
right as an obligation. For without laws
there would be physical and moral disor-
der. He who abandons them submits him
self to the rule of impulse and passion,
precisely as the San Francisco strikers
have DONE The law condemns the acts Of
these men-and which we're resumed on
Sunday and Monday, resulting in injury to
innocent citizens and insult to women and
children-in their attempt to boycott the
companies whose employment they volun-
tarily abandoned. When, therefore, I'M
der the protection of the law, which alone
assures them the right to walk the streets,
they assail the barriers it sets up for the
protection of life and property, they pro-
nounce for the destruction of the guaran-
tees under which they exercise any rights
at all
Man is wholly man only in society,"
said Lieber, and so there can be no social
order without his obedience to the law. If
now the guarantee of the inalienable right
of the people to rum their car lines as
they please within the law, and to ride on
what lines they please, should be much
oftener assailed, the strikers must not be
surprised if that they invoke is visited
upon them in turn. The executors of the
law in San Francisco have been slow to
dcCoTQ the ttAANdN illlco tllelT uue meeQ OF
protection, while they have been still
more tardy in checking the outrageous
performances of the strikers. This
state Of affairs cannot long continue. The
people are aware that the burden of finan-
cial damage for disorder and lawlessness
must ultimately fall upon them. We can
not conceive, therefore, that they Will
much longer endure the insults and out
RACES the strikers put upon them. The
women and children of San Francisco
must be permitted to ride the streets of
the metropolis in safety, secure from the
bufietings of mobs and such outrageous in
suits as those of Sunday, when the strikers
and the human dregs that have come to
their assistance spat in the faces of the
women, and terrified by menace and blow
the passengers upon the street cars.
il labor interests we're true to their