The Hawaiian gazette., 1894-07-27
THE STRIKE.

/
be hailed gladly by all friends Of
| law and order. The disorderly
movement which has cost millions
of money and destroyed a num-
Der of lives, was not properly a
strike at all, but a boycott. The
Pullman workers had a perfect
right to strike if they were dissatis-
fed with their wages. When, how
ever, they induced railroad en-
ployees all over the United States
to assist them in an effort to coerce
the Pullman Company by destroy
ing the property of innocent per-
sons and visited thousands with
ruin, they did a thing which was
without any color of right. The
boycott has not injured Mr.. Pull
man in the least, but it has caused
Unreasonable loss, and in many
cases ruin, to the farmers of Cali
fornia and to producers and ship
pers all over the Union. The action
of the boycotters has been in prin-
ciple exactly the same as that of
the bomb-thrower. The bomb
thrower does not pick out the
guilty and blow them up. He des-
troys the innocent, with the inten-
ton of terrorizing society and thus
frightening his enemies into grant
ing him what he considers his
rights. So the boycotter says, eff
you will not give me what 1 want, 1
will injure the business and des-
troy the property of everybody"
Such methods as have prevailed
in the United States during the
past weeks cannot possibly ad-
vance the cause of the laboring
man. They will simply hasten a
conservative reaction.
The following editorial in the
Outlook contains an admirable
statement of what we conceive to
be the truth about the strike. 1t
should be thoroughly digested.
The Outlook, be it remembered, is
a journal very friendly to working
men.
The issue is not whether the Pull
man Car Company ought to have SUBJ
united to arbitration the question
what wages it should pay to its en-
ployees. 1t is whether the American
Railway Union shall determine when,
under what conditions, on what rail-
roads, and in what sort of cars the
people of the United States may
travel. The Pullman Car Company
decided that they could not afford to
pay the former rate of wages to their
employees. Their employees decided
that they would not work for less.
Thereupon the Pullman Car Com
pany decided that it would cease
work for the present. For this avowed
reason, and for no other, the Amer
lean Railway Union, an organization
of switchmen, brakemen, firemen,
and few engineers and conductors,
has decided that no railroad shall
carry any Pullman car on its trains
until the Pullman Car Company re-
opens its works and re-employs its
wOrkmen. We repeat that the issue
now is not between the Pullman Car
Company and its employees; it is
not even between the great railroads
and their employees; it is between
the American Railway Union and the
American people.
The issue has only to be stated in
another form to be perfectly clear.
Suppose the railroad employees had !
asked Congress to pass law prohibit
ing all use of Pullman cars on Inter
State Commerce lines until the Pull |
man Car Company re-opened its
works and re-employed its workmen;
with what derisiOn would the prOpo-
sition have been received But what |
they would have then attempted to
do by lawful means they are now at
tempting to do by unlawful means;
that is the whole difference.
Until the right of the American
people to use the highways of the |
nation Is settled, all other questions
should stand to one side. Tariff, in
come tax, silver question, woman
suffrage, are Insignificant compared !
with the question, are we free peo-
Pile? The railway corporations will |
have the sympathy and support of |
substantially the entire nation in this !
issue until it is settled, and settled |
Alright. 1t would be better to ride in
common cars, freight-cars, cattle
cars, platform cars, or not ride at all,
than to live under social system
which leaves the question whether |
we may ride, and when and how we
may ride, to be determined by an
irresponsible organization, formu-
lating its DEGREES by secret committee
and enforcing them by mob violence. |
We can live without railroads, as our
fathers did before US; but we will not |
live without liberty.
1t is the paramount duty of every |
railroad official to stand for the right |