Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1886-04-30

| KNIGHTS OF ANARCHY.--The Philadelphia
Commercial and Price Current in recent
issue has the following headed the Knight:
of Anarchy:
The Knights Of Labor in the United
States, nearly eight hundred thousand
strong, profess to be hard working men
united for their material and intellectual
advancement. They say that they are
working in peaceable and lawful manner
for this, and, knowing the horror with
which communism is regarded by the bulk
of the population Of this country, their
leaders disayow, in public, all alliance with
tho red flag anarchists who bathed Paris
in blood, and whose creed is the destruction
of the family, religion, law and property.
The Knights of Labor say their weapon for
right is the ballot-boX, their idea freedom
from all political and social tyranny, their
motto, Equality FOR all men," and their
hope for the future better made and better
executed laws in the land of freedom.
These professions are high, noble, inspir-
hearts beat with more exulting pulse, for
thew set before us all that the world has
longed for, with al unutterable longing,
sion, and poverty first bighted the
face of Gods fair earth and scared
the hearts and lives Of millions with a dull
despairing sorrow. I,hey are not new no,
they are not new. Long before the Christ
ia;i Era, before Rome knew her greatest
glory, when Egypt was in her prime, and
Persia one Of the greatest of earth's pow
era, these sentiments were voiced with an
eloquence that hiss never been equalled !; by
Socrates, one OF the greatest intellects and
purest Saints in ali bis history, and by the
God-like Plato, as he walked in the fragrant
groves near his Alhenian home, with mis-
train OF disciples No, they are not new /;
and they will always stir brave mems souls,
and speed them On to high action.
But they don't describe the Knights Of
Labor, as they exist here. Is stopping traf-
&c by force on the Western trunk lines
working in peaceable and lawful mall
ner?" Is the overpowering Of watchmen
by masked mob of men, at Denison, Tex
az, and the destruction of scores of thous
ands of dollars worth of machinery the
doing of men bent on their material and
intellectual advancement? Is capturing y
train on the Missouri Pacific near Omaha, by
| threats OF death, showing any desire for "bet.
| ter made and hetler executed laws ?"
Are arson, threats OF murder, driving thous.
ands of men OF family FROM their work that
gives them bread an exempi6cation of the
ideas the Knights OF Labor hold about Gree
dom from I'll political and social tyranny?'
Knights Of Labor They are knights of
the boycott, knights of the incendiaries'
| torch, knights OF IL tyranny that knows no
| law bu5 the law Of brute force.
| They propose to capture the Government
of the United States by exacting slavish
obedience from eli their members at the
| polls; and if they ever succeed-which is not
| mpossibe-thrir record of the past is u
prophecy Of what may come. There may
be- communism, with all the anarchy that
European communism implies. There may
be wholesale despoIiation of property, great
corporations ruined, aud the financial credit
of the Government impaired or destroyed.
Trade may practically cease, for the laws OF
| the commune will not allow capital to seek
any Just return; and, at the last, when even
| the knights Of Labor have no employment
because their employers are ruined or driven
to lands where life and property are safe
there may come q saturnalia of civil strife
like the reign of the Commune in Paris.