The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-07-18
Very Great Alarm Caused by Them
How They Were
Ended. n
Reasons Why the Strikes Col
lapsed so Ignominiously
This Year.
woeful Lack of Organization Of the Men
and the Inefaciency OF the 4.
LeaderA

NEW YORK, July 1.-1u0 AOu0Ou COIIo6'
pondent of the Times cables that paper as
follows, anent the recent strikes: Last year
ut this time English public feeling was
much interested in the beginnings of the
great dock strike which lasted for months
and was finally ended in the remarkable
and complete triumph for the laborers. It
was foreseen by wiser observers then that
results of this upheaval in one department
of labor must be to foment discomfort else
where, but no one could have imagined that
in one week of the following summer there
would be combined strikes of the London
police and postmen, and fiat mutiny in one
of the crack regiments of the household
troops. To-day we all congratulate our
selves that the danger from all three
sources has passed away. but the excite
ment was intense while the menace lasted,
and in reality the economic situation, from
which the veil has been temporarily lifted
this week. must continue to cause the
oravest alarm. Two causes worked to-
gether to create hitherto unheard-of dis
turbances in these all-important public
services. First, there is sucn dishearten
ing surplus of able-bodied males continu-
ally growing on this fecund island
that the difficulty of finding
work for them increases terribly year by
year, with the result that the outside rate
of wages by which payment in the public
services is graded remains very low. Sec
ondly all three departments of the police.
the postofice and the army are governed in
an exasperatlngly stupid manner. with un-
necessary insistence upon aggravating trites
of discipline and exaction, and bewildering
coils of red tape blocking all the avenues to
reform in way fit to break mems hearts.
Both the police and the postmen are bad
I~, n~n NJ,
ployed men standing around eager to take
their places at even less wages. and they are
both also angered and bullied by their su-
periors, because that is q tradition OF both
services. Thus when the professional
strike agitators began trying to SOW the
seeds of revolt among them they found the
soil in promising state of readiness.
Both strikes have failed to some extent
because the officials at the last moment
realized the necessity Of behaving in a de-
Gently fair and civil manner, but more
through the effect upon the minds Of the
they threw off their uniform they would be
promptly donned by others and the world
would roll on Just the same, with the ex-
ception that they themselves would be out
of work. This discovery excited wonder
fully SOLDERING influence. There was one
over the police situation, and if the strike
of Monday night had been anything like
general, matters would have been very seri-
GUS indeed for London, but the orRaniza-
tion of the strike managers was SO gro
tesquely bad that two-thirds of the men re-
lied upon to quit were never notified at all
of the decision.
spent all of Monday night in going from
place to place making inquiries, because
there are no telephones here to speak OF
and no means exist at night of learning
what is going on in various parts of this
vast camp of brick and mortar, save that
of making personal circuits of territory
about the size of the state of Rhode Island.
At every station the police were in total ig.
norance of what had happened elsewhere.
In going among them and talking with
them one was filled with amazement at the
absolute chillishness of the whole thing.
Little American boys playing at soldiers
in rural village would have better notion
of organization and system, and would dis
natured, overgrown babies had.
The were simply led by this professional
agitators into position of defiance to au-
thority. and then neither they nor the agi-
tators had sense or skill enough to either
advance or retreat. Naturally enough. the
police officials made easy work of them.
Some two hundred were summarily thrown
out, the rest were allowed to get off with a
sharp admonition, and in day or two the
whole thing had collapsed, much to the
grief of London's 100000 habitual crimi-
nails. The postmen's strike was equally
abortive. The agitators who had them in
charge made appointments which they
themselves failed to keep, and muddled
the whole thing 80 cruelty that the
themselves to the will of the depart
ment after 400 of their number had been
dismissed and the whole public was en-
tirely disgusted.