The Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1885-1886, 1886-05-01
A TfLT AT THE KNIGHTS.
JAY GoULD'S TONGUE HAS YET ITS
FREEDOM" AND

He Indulges in Some Rather Slashing
Criticism of the knights of Labor-The
Eight Hour Ball Opened Vigorously at
Chicago-Cowboys for Street Car Hands.
New YORK, May 1.-The Times has an
extended interview with Jay Gould on the
industrial situation, from which the follow
ing opinions on labor unions, boycotts, etc. :,
are extracted Mr.. Gould, referring to the
association of labor for its own benefit,
said:
There are many excellent organizations
already existing but their scope is limited
Tie Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers,
for instance, is an order compact
and admirable 1t does good. So do
some other unions that | know of;
but those that are good are an insig-
nificant fraction besiJles those that are bad
in their aims and their methods The work
ingmen of the land to-day are under the
leadership, for the most part, OF loud-talk-
ing demagogues of the worst type; men who
left their native countries for their native
countries good. = Cool Amer
leans have been foggei by the shouts and
imported Communists, who prea h
in the name of suffering humanity
doctrines that no man could declare
who was not mad in the fumes of the mean
est dregs of Nihlism. The day for this sort
of thing is nearly at an end There is a
great awakening at hand. Reaction against
vicious incendiarism is setting in already.
| attribute labor agitation chiefly to the
ministrations of the Knights of Labor.
have found that that organization is
a stirrer up of 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 platitudes about
arbitration and the like are in the mouths
of the organizations leaders continually, but
1t is matter Of defamation only =
The organization bows down to the bludgeon
idea; busin' IS assassination is a virtue in its
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 Is disguised, the Knights of Labor
have an ilhmitable amount of evil ia their
organizations
"9he Knights of Labor, Mr. Gould CON
tinued, have entered upon far too great an
Undertaking for the size of their brain and
their shoulders. Not content with limited
scope for their work they are attempting to
run and rule everything the wide world
over. . = Setting out to govern
the earth they govern moth
ing and nobody; court ridicule
and insure defeat: i not the rule of
this country alone, ut the reformation of
all countries, from the direction of the Thru
avenue car drivers to an all i-seeing 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 as
sured the congressional labor investigating
committee at Washington that compared
with his duties as grand master warkman,
the task of President Cleveland is trivial
You see"-and Mr. Gould smiled in his
characteristic way-''you see, after all, that
it is fairly good sized job to rule and re-
gulate the universe"
"The boycott? 1t is Stiffness run mad.
The men who Use it are smashing their own
skulls to pieces They hit not the object
they aim at, but rain upon their own heads
their own llows New Workers need not be
told this, since so recently has Mrs. Gray,
the brave little baker of Hudson, heen
given, with her victory, to history. The
recent Missouri Pacific strike and
the boycott attendant, which was so val
urously 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 energetically, with no result so marke d
as appear in their own discontinue
Failure is written in bold characters on
every move they have essayed
"The assertion of Msssrs Fowderly and
Mcdowell that stock watering is one Of the
principal causes of labor troubles is the
merest slush. They present no facts or fig.
ures to verify their assertion, simply be-
cause 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 retineries in Brooklyn, the coal
mines in Pennsylvania, the street-car strikes
In this city, or the innumerable other strikes
In manufactures oil over the country! Such
stuff shows that these men have got in deep
water and when the irons begin to burn
their fingers they sh lex out stock water
ing"