The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1886-05-11

The less intelligent AID sober work
men resorted TO violence, as they do
now. The Anar, hists, ordinarily
powerless IN America, seized the oc.
casiOn to cause riots in Pittsburg,
Scranton and other cities, as they
have now in Chicago and Milwaukee.
The consequence in 1877 and 1878
was the most terrible prostratiOn of
industry since the outbreak of the
civil war, the lowest prices known In
this country for forty years, a greater
number of failures than had exer oc-
curreI before in any year, and suffer
ing inexpressible for great body of
workingmen and women.
The authorities in many locali-
ties also seem to have forgotten the
lessons then learned at the cost of
much bloodshed, and by the light IF
the flames which destroyed millions of
property. After the riots of 1877
every sane workman, and every other
law-abiding citizen, came to know
that the only way TO deal with lawless
violence was to put down sternly ana
mercilessly the vey first beginning.
at whatever cost of life. All learned
that the sharpest possible distinction
must always be made between the
peaceful strikes of labor and any re-
sort whatever 10 intimidation or force,
and that the worst enemies of labor,
as of society, are the weak officials
who palter with a mob b, cause it pre-
tends to have the cause of labor in
view.
The cause of honest labor has been
set back for years again by these vio-
lent outbreaks. Let it be noticed
that every one of them begins in an
attempt to intimidate labOrers who are
not on a strike, anddo not want to be.
Strange to say, so capable a man as
Henry George is quoted as defending
intimidation in support of strikes, on
the ground that strikes could rarely
succeed without it. But do not sensi-
BILE workers begin to see that intimi-
dation is law breaking, and therefore
the first step in that fatal path which
leads inevitably to mob-law, rioting,
prostration of industry, and great sui
fering to labor? The first resort to
violence or intimidation, for the pur-
pose of making a strike successful,
leads to others The example is con-
tagious, and the movements of labor
this year have to strange extent be-
come identified with the counsels
of anarchy. Cannot Industrious
men see that it is the very height of
folly for them 10 send capital into
panic by lawless acts 1t is bad
enough to embarrass industry by any
and excessive demand. But
an experiment on the eight hour basis
might have been made in peace, and,
had it proved a failure, in peace it
could have been abandoned. Instead
and rioting now threaten to
disturb all industry to such an extent
that, had the experiment the bright
est prospects Of success, it could
end otherwise than in failure. |
And if it fails, and years or months
Of prostration result, and the great
army of the unemployed seeks work
On any terms, do not laboiers see that
they will have lost all that they had
gained or hoped to gain, and more ?
Labor has no other enemy on earth
20 dangerous as the man who coun-
sels the first act of intimidation or of
awless violence. York Tribune. |
They discharged our brother
and we struck" said Martin Irons
after the great uprising in the south
west, and sad and bitter lot of men
ire the old employees of the Missouri
Pacific Railroad in consequence
After seeing the total failure of their
,ffort, most of them are to-day with
tut employment They must see that
sIr. POwderly. and others who disap-
proved of the strike, and sought to
nd it six weeks ago, were right.
Stick to Powderly,. said the Sun;
nd how much better it would have
,een if that advice had been needed.
New York Sun.
That's all very fine, but the fact is
hat Powderly didn't stick to himself.
n his controversy with Gould he lost
is temper, and soon after that he
oined the Irons faction. Powderly
hould have stuck to his secret circu-
ar.-Globe Democrat.
Powderly evidently did not write
he "secret circular" He is shrewd
nan and knowing that the Zig" was
retty well "up" SO far as public O.
Union was concerned, he had it writ
en- for a purpose merely and that
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