The Hawaiian gazette., 1894-07-17
THE GREAT STRIKE.

gence of one of the greatest strikes
in the history of the United States,
and indeed in that of the modern
world. Because the Pullman Car
Company will not pay apparently
a far rate of wages, strikes have
been ordered, and are in force, on
fifteen great railroads, and both
freight and passenger traffic are
suspended all the way from New
York TO San Francisco. Nor is
this all. While there has been, in
most sections of the country, very
little violence, rioting and anarchy
have broken loose in Chicago, re-
sulting in panic, des truction of
property and death.
Those persons must be indeed
blind who cannot see in these
events the approach of a crisis, car
rying with it consequences far
more grievous than the mere loss
of the nome, | The pillage, the
arson, the murder which have
taken place in Chicago streets are
simply an episode of the social
war, which is beginning to be
fought all about us, and which
threatens the existence, not merely
Of this mans property and that
mans life, but of the framework of
society itself. In this warfare
there should be no sympathy with
the methods of violence, and it is
to be hoped the excuses in Chica-
go have been put down with a stern
hand, whether the weapon used be
the Federal sword or the militia
and police of the State of Illinois.
To point out the cause of the trou-
BILE, not only in the present in
stance but in all others, is simple
enough. 1t lies in the fact that
the laboring masses are no longer
satisfied with the purely abstract,
formal equality guaranteed by the
law, and demand real and substan-
tial equality. Here are the fruits of
civilization and culture, education,
leisure, the enjoyments of art, sci
ence, music, books, not to speak of
fine cooks and fine clothes. The
great mass looks on these things
from without, as the hungry look
upon feast. They want some
share of these good things, better
food, warmer clothing, and a little |
leisure if nothing more, and they |
cannot understand why they |
should be cast into the outer dark
ness of want, while others live with |
abundance.
There is at bottom a fundamen-
tai justice in this demand. The |
problem of society is how to meet |
it, how to make the good things go
round. The mistake of the poor is
to hold the wealthy responsible for
the condition of things, whereas in
reality the cause lies in an iron
economical system which controls
rich and poor alike. An even dis
tribution of all the wealth in the
world would afford but momentary
relief. The improvident will squan-
der, the prudent will save, and in
a year or two the world would look
very much as it does today.
This does not mean that solu-
ton of the economical problem is a
hopeless thing. 1t means merely
that the evil lies very deep in the
body of society, and that it cannot
be cured by quacks. Checks may
De found to the selfishness of the
,ich and to the imprudence of the
Door, and such checks may and
doubtless will do much. They will
1t least furnish the soil upon which
l better economical system can
,row. The final remedy, however,
must be in applying scientific ideas
o the grand scheme of production
md distribution, just as those ideas
re already applied to the details
f production. The problem is GER
ainly a difficult one, but there is
10 reason to suppose that it tran
cends the powers of human iDtelli-