Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-04-20
COERCING EMPLOYEES.

According to the confession of walking
delegate of some of the knights of Labor
organizations in New York, the blowing up
of the brewery in that city on the Sth of
February last was accomplished by
dynamite, and was the result of
long contemplated scheme to pun
ish the brewer because he refused to
employ "Union men. The confession
goes to the length Of charging the conspi-
racy and the explosion to the direct order
Of one of the Assembly organizations of
the Knights. Leading officials of the Order
have been prompt to disavow any connec-
ton with the affair, and to denounce the
crime as not chargeable to the Knights,
because by its laws no such attempt can
be justified This is certainly true, for no
organization acting as publicly as this
would dare to write into its laws the doc
trine of assassination and arson as justifa-
bic in order to compel employers to do the
bidding Of employees. But it remains that
the Assembly that is charged with counte-
nancing the outrage of February last has
not seen fit to come to its own defense as
yet 1t is also true that while the laws of
the Knights may condemn violence, that
it has often been resorted to under the
mantle Of the organization-that is, by
men who have used the facilities of the
, Order for organizing men, and that the
Order has not visited such offend
. ers with any severe punishment If it
has, we have not been so fortunate as to
hear of it. The Knights must do something
more than wash their hands OF these
crimes that some of their membership
commit in their name. All such cowardly
an brutal resorts to violence are direct
blows at the best interests Of labor The
day has gone by when civilization will re-
main silent and inactive under attempts
by any class of men to drive others to
their liking by terrorism. The inaliena-
bic right of men in this country to employ
whom they please, when they please and
for whatever they can bargain for, is to be
preserved, and all the unionism now exist
ing or that can be organized hereafter, will
not prevail against this right, until the
fountains Of free government are dried up
and the capacity of man to govern himself
has utterly failed. Murder and arson
are to be, as in the past, infamous crimes
and stepping -stones to the gallows-tree,
, and neither Trade Unionism nor any man.
ner of labor organization can use them as
weapons and not go down before outraged
public sentiment. Moreover, the Unions
have reached the limit of public liberation
in their demand for privileges that in turn
they refuse to Others That is to say, the
Unions demand that employees shall be free
to leave any employment when they
choose, in groups, singly or as body no
matter how great the damage to the en-
Iployer, he is expected to bear it without
murmur. But if, on the other hand, he
sees fit to dispense with one class of work
ers and to employ another, to practice what
he may know to be an imperative econo-
my, immediate warfare is declared upon
him; property and even life is threatened,
and, as in the case OF the New York
brewer, attempts to destroy the working
capital of the employer may be made That
is to say, these organizations do not APP
pear to be able to teach their membership
that the doctrine that wage earners have
a right to be employed at their own terms
of necessity involves the right of the
employer to hire workers at his own terms.
The doctrine cannot obtain in this coun-
TRY and age that men may not choose their