Morning journal and courier., 1886-05-01
Jay Gould on the Knights of Labor. From an Interview Published in the New York
 Times.1


 From an Interview Published in the New York Timesl
 ''To what do you attri bute the origin of the existing widespread labor agitationa" ''Chiefy to the administration of the ! Knights of Labor. I have found that that organization is stirrer up of strife and a | breeder of discord. It has little in it to l challenge the respect of intelligent and hon est men. Much that it pretends to it does not l possess. Pretty platitudes of arbitration and ! the like are in the mouths of the organiza- l tion's leaders continually, but it is a matter I of Reclamation only Arbitration stands l second to the strika, and of the methods l chosen by the order the boycott leads every scheme that has relation to decency l and justice. The organization bows down I to the bludgeon idea: business assassination l is a virtue in it's sight; the ruin of industry IS hailed as an exalted accomplishment. Stand and deliver-that is the legend they
 bear boldly at the front. Obey or perish is
 the motto they give devotion to. Judged by acts that are 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 citizenship? Do they teach manli- ness? Do they inculcate any form of honor? If they do I have nowhere been able to dis eern such thing, and I think I may say that l have had fairly good chance to be- come aeq tainted with the aims and the prac- tical workings of the order Bad men are welcomed to it's fold. The refugee from over the ocean finds fitting fraternal place among agitators already conspicuous in it's councils
 The Communist, whose words drip constant ly with fgurative blood, is given a high seat ill command. Nowhere and in no way hnfN {1o bod man; nowhere is the frst-class work
 man preferred before the botch and the lazy bones. Upon the other hand, the riff -raff are lifted to the backs of those who excel and the man who is industrious, tenn perate and capable hears the perpetual din of the maxim, An injury to one is the con- cern of all, and, misled by demagogism, he | is burdened with the hack and the loafer That, in plain words, is the story of the Knights of Labor. A vast deal of ornate 1 rhetoric has been used to glorify the order, but cold facts rather discourage the idea that MT. Powderlys organization has been chosen to inaugurate the millennium"
 1.-The Knights of Labor," MT. Gould con- tinued, "have entered upon far too great
 an undertaking for the size of their brain and their shoulders. Not content with Him. tied scope for their work, they are attempting l to ruin and rule everything the wide world over. The result would be @ roaring farce but that their shameful policy is at the same
 time responsible for so much of distress and disorder. They accomplish none of the things they declare within the compass of their ambition. Setting out to govern the earth they govern nothing and nobody, court ridicule and insure defeat. Not in one trade with special 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 the Third avenue car driver
 to an all-seeing eye upon the affairs of the gentle savage of the South Sea and the con-
 cerns of the almond-eyed native of far Asia How little is accomplished, how little hope
 there can be of accomplishing what is under taken, was shown with clearness, when, at
 the outbreak of the Missouri Pacifc's strike,
 we received, after two days of waiting, the entering assurance that all the officers of the order knew of the trouble on our lines was that they had read in the newspapers, which they telegraphed us,) that man named Hall had
 been discharged upon another road for which the Missouri Pacific had absolutely no re- sponsibility whatever. This was character istic. In the very nature of things it could not be otherwise. Mir. Powderly has assured
 the Congressional labor Investigating com
 mittee at Washington that, compared with
 his duties as grand master workman, the
 tasks of President Cleveland are trivial
 You see," and MT. Gould smiled in his char acteristic way. ''you see, after all, that it is
 a fairly good sized job to rule and regulate the universe"