Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1890-08-29
Powderly's Back Talk.

majority IN the county convention to
20.
Powderly's Back Talk.
New YORK, Aug. 23.-Powderly to-
night wrote a reply to the statement of
Third Vice President Webb as follows:
II see that you have at last ventured to
break the long silence that sealed your
lips in relation to the causes which led
to the discharge of fifty or sixty en-
ployes of the New York Central railway.
Your alleged explanation is ven less
creditable to you than the silence it has
broken, and does not deny nor excuse the
stand you have taken. Your statement
is e~minently worthy Of a man who can
see no cause for investigation in cases of
drunkenness, incapacity, breach of duty
and characterization. Knights of Labor
have never questioned your right to take
such action as is outlined in that state
ment. Our order is as much interested
in that statement; our order is as much
interested in the maintenance of disci-
pline as you can possibly be. Grant
ing that these very men we're
discharged for the reason you
assign, in order to shield yourself, you
| charge all alike with the offences of the
worst among them. No just tribunal
will sustain you in your position. All of
these men have a right to know whether
they we're discharged for a cause. You
cannot assert with any degree of &C.
curacy that any of these men were dis
missed for the cause you set forth. You
must depend on the statement made to
you by your subordinates-our superin-
tendents and foremen." Powderly
then says the subordlnates used
their authority to levy a species
Of blackmail on those under
them. He then continues: "For from
five to twenty years the discharged men
we're in the employ of the company you
represent, but it was only when they
joined the Knights of Labor that you
discovered they were drunkards, incom-
petents or inattentive to duty. You
continue to assert that there is nothing
to arbitrate. Can you be so blinded by
your associations and surroundings as
not to realize that the travelling public
ought to know which Of these
men is a drunkard; which
incompetent, and so on, that they may
not trust their lives in the hands of such
characters, either in your service, should
you see tit to again employ them, or in
the employ of any other concern. We're
you a student of economic questions, you
would know what the sweating system
means; you would know that it is among
the, worst features of the competitive
system. Under your own nose; beneath
your W eye, and carried on by the very
men upon whose bare words you dismiss
old employees, exists a form of the sweat
ing system which finds a parallel only in
that of the sewing girls of London. Let
me remind you, sir, that he does not or
did not sustain you in the position you
have assumed. Depew's words, spoken
when the question of a national arbitra.
ton law was before the country, in.
dictate where Depew stood at that day.
You alone claim to have any rights in
the matter, and nothing but the fact that
you are the possessor of immense wealth
warrants you in taking the stand you
have taken. Men who have toiled on
the line of the Vanderbilt system
would not have done so had
not the hope of obtaining and retaining
employment been held out to them by
the company. Having induced workmen
to make their homes along the line of the
road, the management of the concern are
morally responsible for their presence at
these points and should recognize that
they have some rights in the premises
least of which is to be heard in their owl
defense. Men whose words I have never
had reason to doubt, make the statement
to me that they were called up before
their foremen and superintendent and
asked if they we're Knights of Labor, and
when they frankly admitted that they
we're, they were discharged. It is not
arbitration alone that you have refused
You have refused to arbitrate; second
to investigate; third, to satisfy yourself
whether they were guilty of charges
made against them. You have re.
fused to listen to The voice
Of public which asks for simple justice
and cares nothing for the personalities
Of either parties to the controversy; and
last, you have shown that, shumanity has
no claims upon you whatever. You dc
wrong, though, when you discharge &
man for want of a place to keep him en-,
ployed in, and then assert chat he il
thrown out for being drunk, incapable
or insubordinate, as you have done il
your public statement. You have re-
fused to satisfy the men whom you. have
discharged, and that act will always
stand to protest against your claim te
true manliness. Had you satisfied the
men, there would be nothing for us tc
ask. You are as much in duty bound tc
satisfy them in these matters as You arr
to satisfy legally constituted authorities
OF the company"