The Labor enquirer., 1886-05-15
.vsstigation is being made with view Of
Indictment for completely In the killing

Only three days ago some OF our east
ern newspapers which possessed rather
more honesty and decency than the
majority of them do. repr .nted an adver-
tisement which one of the railroads con-
cerned in this strike had circulated
through the southwestern press, offering
S. day to "men of grit" who were
sworn as Especial deputies" to "protect
property" and armed with Winche ter
rifles and seven shot revolvers! I
In view of this fact, the capitalistic
pursuit of Martin Irons, for completely
in any "killing," seems just little bit
cheekv-doesn't it2
Place these news items side by side,
worklngmen, and let US make use of
them, together witt the histories of past
labor troubles, to point moral for your
benefit.
Observe, in the first place, that the
aspersion on Irons is going the rounds.
1t has been or will be found hugged close
to the breast of every one of the journal
istic vampires, from the great" dailies
which pollute the atmosphere. of New
York, down to the seven by nine sheets
which shafae and struggle along. in the
old-fogy country towns.
And, IN the second place, note that
the railroad company's appeal for muir
derers has not had wide circulation. The
labor press discovered and reprinted it;
but neither the great" papers nor the
seven-by-nines will copy it. 1t reflects
too much discredit on the railroads
and the railroads must be coddled, at all
hazards
According to the journalistic vampires,
the deputy sheriffs" who wounded five
innocent persons, at East St. Louis, few
VS. ago, were drunk at the time; they
should not be held responsible for the
killing. Strangely enough, if striker
gers drunk and hen breaks law, the
journalistic vampires always hold that
the fact of his intoxlcation makes the.
crime greater
This evening, our local daily devotes a
half column of its valuable space to
telegraphic report of a lecture delivered
in New Haven, Connecticut, by Colonel
Norris G. Osborde, q give his name to
fame free of CHARGE, editor of the New
Haven Register 1t mrst have been a
very entertaining lecture-to mOneved
men. The Colonel" said that capital is
independent Of labor and that he boy
colt strikes at the very foundation of
personal liberty" etc, etc, etc. BV the
side of this brilliant effort Is dispatch
from Brussels, which ates that the
Socialists who caused the Belgian riots
are to be stamped out" In the same
issue are five dispatches about the strike,
each of which contains more or less
transparent slur at the strikers. l Won
der, as read all this, on which one of
the four pages the laboring men who
support this representative daily find
their moneys worth ? the capitalist gets
the value of his subscription on every
one
When it touches upon what it den)m
mates "the labor problem" the average
newspaper exhibits either ignorance or
dishonesty, or both. 1t approves the
purposes of the Knights of Labor and
in the same breath denounces Socialism
which reminds one of the down,
easter" who favored the proh!bitOry
law" but was "agin its enforcement"
or on the other hand, it prostrates itself
before every object that smells of capital
and stamps on every new growth from
the mud in which labor lies buried !;
both of which fttlngly illustrate the
condition of classes, under our lick
spittle civilization.
Now for the moral: The workingmen
keep all t.. ese papers alive, and it is
likewise in their power to keep them
dead.
And here is the point" of the moral :
The boycott will never have attained to
the full measure of its usefulness until
1t mas rid the United States of-not the
New York Tribune alone, but of about
5000 other produces of rat printers and
skunk editors WALTER L. SAWYER.
PORTLAND, Maine, April l3.