The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1889-10-08
JOHN BURNS, THE SOCIALIST.
Description of the Man Who Has Engin-
eered the Dockmen's Strike.

Description of the Man Who Has Engin-
eered the Dockmen's strike.
John Burns, who has engineered
the strike in London, is a socialist of
the ire-brand stamp. From shrek
ing at the street corners, preaching
socialism in the parks, running his
head against policemen's clubs and
melting mobs to riot and plumber,
says the New York Sun, Burns has
passed through prison to seat in
the new municipal body which gov
erns the metropolis Burns was the
man who told the tramps and unem-
ployed laborers to loot the shops in
Regent street and Haymarket in the
riots of 1856, and he led the attack
on Trafalgar Square when it was
held by the police on Sunday, Nov
ember 9Th, 1887. Burns is an I'M
compromising reyolutionist, but he
did not this time show his tirebrand
qualities.
John Burns is thirty years of age,
and was born in Battersea, London,
and he is an engineer in Halls press
works in Southwark. He is a pow
erfully built man, with muscles of
iron and will of the same material.
He is five feet ten in height, broad
shouldered, thick-set and strong
limbed. His hair is as black as a
Negroes, and he wears a grizzly
beard and mustache Hairs grow
all over his cheeks, and stick out
straight like bristles. He has
voice of tremendous power, which
he has developed by bowling in the
open air. No man ever addressed a
crowd in London who had as power
full lungs as Burns. He is a born
demagogue, and he is successful in
sowing discomfort and planting the
germs of revolution among the ignor
ant masses of the London workmen.
THE INFLUENCE he YIELDS.
He yields great influence among
such men as the lockers, and is a
dangerous enemy to society. Crowds
gather round Burns whenever heap
pears in Hyde park, Battersea Com
mon or Clerkenwell Green. He has
a stereotyped form of oratory. He
prepares carefully the heads of his
orations, and gets ready some ear
tickling phrases before he starts
He begins with a preliminary saluta-
ton to Ibis friends and fellow-citi-
zens," and continues with a series of
bursts of eloquence for an hour.
He uses no gestures to enforce his
arguments. and requires none. His
voice is deep, full and loud, and the
strength of his language sufficiently
emphasizes his statements.
He makes an onslaught on cap
ital, an attack on the rich. and
points how few the employers are
compared with the army of workers
whom they employ. Then he taunts
the men on their condition, tells
them how they are worse than chat
tel slaves, says they are kept down
by force. and then runs in some
stories about the French Revolu-
ton, and imagines himself Murat
or. a Robespierre. He has told the
lockers that one company has made
a million out of their labor, and he
always finishes with an appeal to
force.
Down with everything that's up,
and up with everything that's down"
is his motto, and by fattering the
men about their power, minimizing
the danger to them of a social
upheaval, and picturing the glo-
ries of the socialist millennium,
when capital will be abolished and
every one will sit under his own vine
and fig tree, manages to work up
spirit of discomfort among his
hearers.
NCITING woRKMEN TO RIOT.
His creates triumph in the way of
melting a mob was on the occasion
of the riots in February, 1886. A
meeting was being held in the
square for a quiet and peaceful pur-
pose, when Burns and several of his
associates, including Hyndman,
Champion and Williams, turned up
with their followers. Burns at once
mounted the pedestal of the Nelson
monument and commenced an in
fiammatory speech. The occasion
was opportune. At that time there
were thousands of unemployed men |
in London who begged their food |
during the day and slept in the seats
in Trafalgar square and in the parks |
at night. They were a starving
crowd who would have scrupled at |
nothing had any one led them on.
Burns soon pointed out way for |
them to get food. There are plenty
of bakers shops along that street"
he said, and he added, IF they don't |
give US bread, then, by heavens,
they will get bullets" By 'they"
he meant 'the ruling capitalist
and he gave them the alter
native of 'bread or bullets" These
were the expressions that he was
prosecuted for using.
Having listened to these incen-
diary speeches, the mob rushed off
to put the socialist precepts into
practice. They made for Haymarket,
looted the bakers shops, rushed up