Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-12-29
INEVITABLE RESULT OF cowARD1cE.

The Bulletin, Alta and Eraminer OF San
Francisco, enter their protest against
further tolerance of the outrageous acts of
the street-railway strikers in that city. 1t
is not with surprise that we find certain of
the press cooling to the strikers beseech-
ingly to avoid further difficulty; to be
guilty of no other infractions of the law, and
telling them that they are "going too
far"
This is apologize and weak, and in the
line of excusing past acts. They went
too far" when they attempted to dis
suade people from riding upon the cars of
the assailed lines. In New York that kind
of boycotting has been held to be criminal,
and those guilty of it are promptly sent to
the penitentiary. If there is any property
right to be preserved and protected at all,
it includes the right Of business to bid for
patronage without illegal interruption or
resistance. Without that incident of pos
session and ownership, the two latter are
valueless.
The right expression is that of the Alta,
which did not hesitate to call the coercive
and menacing acts of the strikers by the
right names at the very outset, and to stand
for the law and the inalienable right of
owners of property to manage their own in
their own way, within the law.
The right expression, also, is that of the
Examiner, which warns the people of San
Francisco that the conformation of mob of
lenses is equivalent to a decree of exile
for capital, and of death to investment. 1t
points significantly to the established re-
suits of rioting and lawlcssness in Mil
waukee, where brief season of disorder
checked business, turned investment back
ward, caused industry to languish and abb
solutely and abruptly stopped the growth
of the city. When, as in Milwaukee, the
workingmen of San Francisco find the
fallen hammer from the unfinished build
ing not again be taken up; when they
rusting in disuse when they find the arm
of honest labor suspended on great works
and the exposed timbers left to decay and
the mob spirit, they will thunder their
condemnation of the cowardice that has
permitted the outrages in San Francisco to
attain even a fortnight of age, and the
lightnings of their rebuke will not fall
short Of shining marks.
Such Of the press as fear to rebuke the
dastardly assaults upon Life and property,
areunworthy of public respect or sympathy.
The people have all they possess, exercise
every right they enjoy, by the guarantee
of that rule of society by consent of its
members, which we call law. That
stricken down at one point without rebuke
and punishment for the crime, is breach
made that may not be easily closed.
1t is no time for mild-mannered words
and deprecating supplications to criminals
TO obey the law, to Withhold their hands.
to stay the torch and the bludgeon. The
men who have given rein to passion and
taken out license from anger, read all
such admonitions and pleadings between
the lines. Behind such dough-faced plati-
tudes they see cowardice, and despise it.
Let not our weak-kneed contemporaries
fear. They might lose something by call
ing spade spade, and by invoking the
majesty of the law in defense of life and
property, but by a contrary course they
will earn the contempt of the very element
they seek to conciliate.
Let them remember that if capital fees
from even the shadow of danger, honest
labor is equally sensitive, and thousands of
workingmen in San Francisco have no
sympathy with disorder and communism,
and do not join palms with the dema-
gogues who play upon the passions and
prejudices of the strikers. When these
find industry stagnating, the motive power
of investment ceasing, they will not be
slow to put their fingers upon the cause. or
to visit upon timidity the reward of tern-
porizing and cowardice. They, more than
capital, are to safer in the post riotous
season; they of all Others are to feel the
pinch and bear the bitterest i'll that fol-
lows all diversion Of the peaceful streams
of industry into the troubled waters of dis
trust They will neither forget nor forgive
the men or the Journals that, having it in
their power to stay the tide of disorder.
r.I g 49, H.