The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1894-07-14
MISTAKEN MANAGERS.

special to this paper yesterday
stated that Debs had offered to call off
the strike if the railroads would permit
the strikers to go back to their old places
and that this proposition was refused by
the Board of railway Managers. If this
is the case, Mr.. Debs has played trump
card and has the railroads on the hip,
Public sympathy is evanescent, and
fades as quickly as a rainbow, when
there is reason why it should. That
sympathy which first went with the
strikers was Immediately transferred to
the railroad companies as soon as acts of
violence were committed. If the rail-
road managers now refuse the peaceful
solution of the difficulty not only will
public sympathy again go to the strikers
but a feeling of indignation will be
aroused against the companies that it
will take years for them to remove.
The railway managers want to remem-
Der that this is no longer their fight.
They are small factor in it. The real
sufferers, the parties in interest are the
people whose business is paralyzed and
who must eventually bear ali the ex-
pense. The railroad companies are
taking an untenable position, in asking
the great mass of people not only to
protect their property. and to open their
roads for them, but are also demanding
that these same people shall stand in
with them to put the thumb screws on
all engaged in the strike. This the
people will not do. The companies have
won the fight, or rather the people have
won it for them, and now that those
opposed to them have offered to sur
render, it is not fitting that they should
demand as a condition of that sur
render that they be allowed to first
handcuff and afterwards maltreat those
who were opposed to them. There is no
excuse for this, and now ii the COM
panies refuse to carry the mails for one
moment, they should be arrested and
prosecuted with ten times the vigor that
has been shown towards Debs. The
board OF railway managers have allowed
their individual heads to swell and they
are one and all making the mistake of
their lives. The people have protected
them and their property, but they have
not elected them as dictators. If the
mails are not now carried, we shall see
whether this administration and the
courts of justice are entirely for the
classes as against the masses. We shall
see if grand juries are venal and courts
corrupt. The public is tired, the people
whose patience has been severely taxed
are weary. Let the railroad managers
beware how they further tempt them.
Let them recollect that 40 per cent. of
the entire population, the farmers, who
eventually have all the costs to pay, are
not in love with boards of railway mana
gers, watered stocks and unholy charges.
They have been patient under all diff
culties, and forbearing towards the corpor-
ations that have grown rich levying toll
upon them. Let the managers look to
it that this element does not go on a
strike, for when it does, there will be no
board of railway managers. Let the
courts take hand to prevents this. and
if the companies will not accept Debs'
offer, let every delayed mail be followed
by the arrest of the president and board
of directors of that road delaying it..
Demonstrate to the laborers that there
is but one law which rich and poor, high
and low alike must obey. Do this, or
prepare foi the time when there will be
no law.