Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-01-18
RAILROAD EMPLOYEES.
They Are Rapidly Becoming Educated
the Doctrines of the Peoples Party.

vote of the railroad employees Why
they should have expected the rail-
road employees to solidly vote the re-
publican ticket is difficult to under
stand, and would seem to be a slur
upon the intelligence of such employees
No such expectation would have been
indulged in had republicans been in the
habit of reading the official magazines
of the several railroad employees organ
izations No reform journal anywhere
is more ably edited, or more consistent
ly advocates the true doctrines of re-
form in relation to the railroad ques-
tion than is and does the Locomotive
Firemen's Magazine, edited by that ear
nest and aggressive advocate of labor's
cause, Eugene V. Debs. The following,
from his pen, in the number of the mag
azine Immediately preceding the cleo
ton, is not such reading as is calculated
to cause its readers to vote for the party
responsible for present conditions:
There are those who. apparently, re-
gard the situation with serenity, but
their composure is largely pretence,
necessarily so. They see a storm brew
ing, not in one direction but all around
the horizon. These apparently tran
quill people, having lost faith in the
power of reason, discussion, compro-
mise, the ballot, arbitration and all the
peaceful forces of our vaunted civiliza-
tion. now appeal to the military power,
not to overcome wrong and enthrone
the right, but to perpetuate injustice
and the expressions and abuses respon-
slble for conditions which, even now,
demands bullets, bayonets and blood
for their maintenance. We do not ex-
aggerate. Take the case of the Tennes-
see and the Idaho mines, the strikes at
Homestead and Buffalo In each case
those who perpetuate injustice, those
who rob labor and degrade working
men, throwing aside every principle of
adjustment dear to our people, every
thing founded in right, justice and fair
dealing, clamored for troops and the
troops, as in every land where liberty
lies PROSTATE and dead, responded and
the wrong triumphed.
''The Philadelphia Record, a paper
that aids plutocrats to achieve success,
right or wrong, referring to the
troubles of workingmen at the places
named says: Apparently, the only sue
cessful way of undeceiving and bring
ing these deluded men to their senses
is by main force. At the muzzle of the
guns of the soldiery' Here we have it
tersely stated that the only way to sub
jugate the workingmen is to call out
the military and shoot them down, and
the intimation is broadly given that
killing workingmen by the military
machine is to be the future policy. No
one doubts the efficacy of bullets in
settling labor troubles. Winchester
rifles and Gatling guns will do the work
for time, perhaps for all time, and in
view of the potency of the military ma
chine millionaire employers rub their
hands and chuckle audibly. But are
battle-fields, where citizen wage work
gore and the starry flag waves tri-
umphantly above them, and drums
drown the groans of the dying, the best
way to right wrongs and readjust con-
ditionsP Evidently, it pleases the
plutocrats, but what say the
workingmen? Being sovereign citizens,
wealth creators, Taxpayers fathers of
children, in this ''God-favored land" (?),
they ought to be consulted rather than
insulted. Sovereign states and great
nation Of freemen ought to readjust
conditions without the aid of bullets
and bayonets, help men to live decently
rather than shoot them down as if they
were highway robbers. instead of men
whose Drawn and skill are the only, the
last hope of progress and civilization
L
sionately, do they not impress all, who,
like Abou Ben Adhem. love their fellow
men, that readjustments are required
with an imperativeness, such as never
before confronted Americans? Are
hewers and delivers to be further de-
graded? Is the clank of slave chains to
mingle with the Columbian fair music?
Are the men who make the harvest pos
sible, to starve? Are the busy bees of
labor never to have taste of the honey
they have collected and stored? Was
the decree that man should eat bread
in the sweat of his face? If so, when
he has earned his bread and demands
it, are there words in all the vocabula-
ries of earth to denounce the heartless
pirates who answer that demand by of
fering the toilers stones?
''Turn whichever way we will, we are
met by ringing demand for the read
justment of conditions. Can they be
secured? Why not? What forces favor
and what forces resist the required re-
adjustment of conditio ms?
First Workingmen have the ballot
A poet has said:
'.It executes freemans viii
"As lightning does The viii of God
(Which is true or not true, owing to
conditions The ballot is not only
worthless in the hands of ignorant,
timid, cringing men, but serves to rivet
their fetters more firmly In the hands
of courageous, self-respecting, indie
pendent men, it is a weapon with which
they can hew down all opposition, Sc
cure victory and readjust conditions.
Second The organization of work.
ingmen and the federation of organiza-
tions, under leaders honest, capable
and courageous, having no axes to grind
and no selfish ends to promote, would,
with startling suddenness, readjust con-
ditions.
THE resisting forces are:
f1rSt Ihe alliance between the
capitalists and scabs, which presents
for the contemplation of labor, wealth,
intelligence, social and political infiu-
ence, in alliance with an element that
kisses the rod that smites them and
licks the iron clad boots that tramples
them to deeper degradation. These op-
posing alliances constitute mighty
force, the purpose of which is to create
labor caste in the United States and
hold it in irrevocable degradation. But
formidable as it may appear, it can be
overwhelmed by the unified ballots of
workingmen or annihilated in day by
the federation of the organizations of
Rofkiagmen demanding the readiust-
ment OF conditions as one.
organized ignorance will not secure
victory, nor will federated selfshness
accomplish the task Organized intelli-