The Washington critic., 1886-03-26
RICHARD II. SYLVESTER, Editor.
WASHINGTON. MARCH 30, 1886.
THE LAST RESORT.

1t is the tendency Of power in all its
phases to be more or less despotic; of
usurped power, always to be arrogant
and dictatorial. Every page of history
abounds In illustrations Of this fact. 1t
Is an attribute of human nature.
Whether IL be the power of wealth. or
rank, or intellect, or brute force, or In
whatever respect there Is real or
implied superiority of one class or con-
dition of men over the other, once
divest il of a sense of subsection to the
supremacy of the law, and it runs in
the direction of tyranny just as natur-
ally as water seeks its level.
There are suggestions of this in the
pending controversies between the
great corporations and their operatives
between employers and employees, or a.
it Is called in popular parlance between
Capital and Labor Were IL possible
for either of the interests involved to
gain such victory over the other, that
the one were left wholly at the mercy
of the other, ii would be the triumph
of despotic principle, dangerous to
the very foundations of social order
and civil liberty.
The political freedom which we en-
Joy would be worth much less than the
paper on which the Declaration of ln-
dependence is written should the coun-
try ever fall under the absolute domi-
nation Of either organized capital or
organized labor or of any organization
other than the supreme will of the peo-
pie as declared by its votes.
Railroad corporations Trades Unions
Manufacturing monopolies, Federations
of Labor, are alike to be dreaded the
more nearly they approach to a mastery
Of the economic welfare of the coun-
try, outside of legal restraint and moral
responsibility. They are all so many
forms of tyranny to be held under
wholesale check.
Henry Sumner Maine, in one Of his
recently published essays on political
science land there is no living English
man more intelligently observant of
American affairs). says that the
''beneficent prosperity of the United
States is due to the fact that we live un-
der government "where coercive re-
straint, except in politics, is reduced to
minimum" but if great antagonising
forces are much longer permitted to
trifle with the interests of the people,
there will arise even here the necessity
for government much stronger, and a
Capitalization of power that American
citizens have always deprecated.
Such an absence of "coercive re-
straint" as permits the wheels of com.
merce to be locked at the dictatlon of a
railroad president or railroad switch
man, is not to be tolerated, and unless
the disturbing elements can agree
among themselves aud cease to
blockade the trade of the country,
some higher power must be invoked to
end the strike. 1T Is the last resort,
but 1t is not the people who will have
forced 1t. They have no over, weening
fondness for the railroad monopolists.
Their sympathies are naturally with
the weak, but not with those who in
their hour of weakness take advantage
of the public sympathies to become
themselves the oppressors. Yet, of
greater importance than all else are the
public peace and the freedom Of COM
mercial interchanges on which oul
peace and prosperity depend. These
must be maintained by the General
Government and the governments OF
the several States against all public
enemies at any cost.