Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1894-07-18
EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENTS.

INV WV SUM- SiSdhtiS iheSASop'
are involved as the laboring classes
on one side and the corporations of
the country and the United States
Government on the other, it is next
to impossible that either side can
enter the contest and come out of it
without allowing self-interest end
passion to take the place of reason
and deliberation.
In casting about for the causes
which brought about the strike it is
necessary to go long way behind
the trouble between the strikers and
Pullman.
When the West WIS settled up
there was for time great activity in
railroad building. The building of
the big lines which reached out for
the commerce of the West, gave en-
ployment to thousands of men, and
the roads, realizing how vast an un-
dertaking they had on their hands,
and feeling, perhaps, that the success
of the undertaking was problemat-
icsl, secured the cheapest labor OBJ
tainable. To do this they imported
it from Europe and Asia and sue
ceeded in securing men who would
work for about one-half the price
Americans would have demanded for
the same service.
Time has demonstrated the lack of
wisdom in this policy. The money
paid the foreign labor was sent out of
the country, and when railroad build
ing declined, because nearly all of
the country capable of supporting
the roads was covered, the imported
laborers were thrown out of employ
ment, and most of them either went
into competition with the American
laborer, reducing wages and crowd
ing him from avenues of employment
or becoming non-productive and
burden on the community.
1t is natural for employers to seek
to secure low rate of wages for
those whom they hire, but it is some
times a mistake, Had the millions
of dollars paid out for foreign labor
most of which was sen. out of the
country-been paid to American la
Dor, the better times resulting from
the higher wages and retention of
money in the country would have
more than made up the difference to
the road in the long run.
Another factor in the production
of hard times was the demonstration
of silver, which put an additional
squeeze on the money market, and
as money gets tighter the employer
is bound by instincts of self-preser-
walton to make a cut in tho wages OF
his employees sufficient to preserve
his margin, for if anyone suffers from
the tightening of the financial screws
the capitalist will take good care that
it is not himself who gets caught in
the pinch.
With falling prices and falling
wages, each stratum of society pro-
tects itself, intent mainly in passing
the loss down to the man below, and
when the wage-earner IS reached he
has no one to pass his losses to, and
SO has to stand the burden himself.
A man with hungry stomach has
very little time to follow up logical
sequences or trace back causes from
one stage to another; he only feels
the immediate thing that presses
against him and irritates him, and he
makes his fight then and theirs on
those lines.
In getting even on those who are
rich and in comfort while he starves,
he naturally does not stop to consider
how his move will effect anybody but
those who are his immediate employ
ers.
When the law of the land is in
voked he does not regard that al
amounting to much, as he has no re
spect for it, and that natural,
enough, for he is perfectly well awar'
of the fact that Congress is no longe
represent of the people bu
the purchased tool Of Wall Street
and he also is we'll posted on the fac
that when big corporation wants
Judge, no matter how high he ma
stand, that they have merely to loo
over the ground and consider wher
they can secure him the cheapest.
Again, they know that the Presi