Daily Yellowstone journal., 1886-05-06
TIL ursday, May 9, 1886.

THE present reign of terror at Chi
cago is demoralizing 10 our Ameri-
can nation. The carnival Of blood de-
picted in our dispatches yesterday fills
right disposed American citizens with
horror. Foreign laborers, principally
Poles and Germans, are the class of
laborers who are seeking to rule the
hours of labor aud the amount Of re-
muneration in Chicago, and because
their demands are not acceded TO, they
are licensing themselves to acts that
turn sympathy for them into hate.
The Knights of Labor are not respon-
sible for the outbreak. The knights
are Americans, who reason well, and
they were never known To do an act
that they could not countenance.
They have inaugurated strikes when
their grivances demanded that they
do so, but they have always acted
quietly, and If an onslaught was made
1t was by the foreign laborers who
haveno standing. Those among them
who were gifted with evolutionary
voices, no matter how crude, would
stir the masses to revolt by pursuad-
ing them they were wronged greatly
and the only hope there was in achiev-
ing a victory over their prosecutors
was to rise to the necessity of the case
and provoke warfare. In our dis
patches were statements that those
who were on the strike visited shops
where men were working and COM
manded them to desist, and in a few
cases where they found men at work
they inflicted bodily injury. as chas-
tisement for working when co-workers
were on a strike. The mob In Chi
cago and Milwaukee is composed of
ignorant people who cannot reason on
anything but ten hours pay for eight
hours work. They even persist that
those working by the piece shall quit
work. What can be done with such
people who cannot reason and who
would rather fight than try to reason.
Many of their demands are unreason.
able, and employers cannot grant
them, and the strikers say that until
they are granted they will not work.
This leaves capital idle and means
general depression. This is the season
of the year when labor is most requir.
ed. as the demand of the consumer is
much larger In the spring of the year
than at any other season. The result
is that the demand cannot be supplied
and the country is thrown behind.
The histor, Of the eight-hour move
ment is no new problem. Previous to
1856 twelve hours constituted a legal
days work. Then ten hours came to
be legal work day. When the war
closed and hundreds of thousands of
men were thrown into the labor mar
ket the eight-hour movement began to
take tangible shape. 1t has appeared
in many places since, but never be-
fore in the form of such general de.
mand as now. The laboriDg men
have taken a most important step.
How fully they appreciate this fact is
well expressed in the following from
the Eight Hour Day, the official organ
of the Trades and Labor Assembly, of
Chicago:
The results of the coming week will
be watched with interest by friends
and foes alike. The atmosphere is
filled with strikes aud rumors of
strikes. Some of the unions, we regret
to say, have gone off half-cocked, and
are cOmplicating this eight-hour ques-
ton too much with that of wages, and
herein lies the greatest danger to the
movement in this city. Many of the
manufacturers declare that they can
not pay the 20 per cent increase in
wages until the same demand has been
made of their eastern competitors.
This looks reasonable, and the Eight
Hour Day deprecates the action of
those unions who have thereby COM
plicated the situation, and are likely
to endanger the movement.
Whether the proper conditions of,
and relations between labor and CAPT.
tai have been brought about to war
rant the stamping of eight hours
work with the value of ten hours pay
Is the great question TO be solved. We
hope the time is ripe for such a change
in our industrial system, but II 1t is
not no amount Of resolving, or strik-
Ing, or fighting, or conceding can
avail anything. 1t is a plain question
of social economy which arbitrary
action can't settle and keep settled, no
matter how much II may try.