The record-union., 1894-07-25
sAoRAMENTo AND THE STRIKE.

SACRAMENTO AND THE STRIKE.
Whoever reads the evidence being adj
duced in the preliminary examination at
Woodland of the train wreckers will
perceive that the men who committed
that dastardly, cowardly outrage did it
in a manner which proved that they did
not understand the necessity for conceal
ment. They hire team at livery stable.
They drive through the guard line openly.
They wear no masks. They employ a
boy as a driver. They know this boy
will witness the whole performance-will
know who committed that murderous
outrage. They meet telegraph line re-
pairer and turn him back. after practi-
cally admitting to him that they intend
10 wreck the train. He returns to the
city, having met the wreekers face to face,
and, to save his own worthless neck, he
lets the train run into the disabled trestle.
The men who committed this outrage did
not conceal from this line repairer their
identity nor the fact that they intended to
wreck the train. They did not conceal
themselves from passers-by. The farm
ers and others passing along the road in
sight of the track could have seen these
men at work, and could have subse-
quently identified them and connected
their personality with the nefarious deed.
There will be those to say that it was a
bungling piece of work. In this they
will be mistaken. It was not bungling.
The employment of the livery rig on Mr..
Knox's written order. and the hiring of
a driver taken up on the street and not
one of their number, were not evidences
of bungling in the commission of this
crime. They are evidences of something
far worse. They mean that the men be-
lieved that what they were doing would
be approved by the community. They
committed this act very largely as SOL
diers prosecute war. They expected ap-
plause. Their theory was that there
would be no passengers upon the train
none but United States troops and the
engineer and fireman. Against all these
they had murderous animosity. They
went openly to the murder of these men
and the destruction of the train.
The horror of the civilized world
surprised them. Members of the
Board of City Trustees had encour-
aged them to believe that the ap-
pearance of the soldiers in the mainte-
nance of law and order in this city was a
wrong and crime. The conduct of the
Mayor and the Sheriff had led to no other
conclusion than that the city and county
authorities were in sympathy with the
strike. A strike would never, in the ma
ture of things, amount to anything unless
it were accompanied by violence. Who
ever is in favor of a strike is in favor of
violence. Therefore, when a man in the
position of Mayor of city has uncon-
cealed sympsthies with such senseless,
which we have just passed, he illustrates
his unfitness to be intrnsted with posi-
tions where high intelligence and real
manIiness are necessary to the faithful
discharge of duties.
The San Francisco press encouraged
these murderers and scoundrels to be-
heye that the public would applaud as
sassination of the kind they were prac-
ticing. The CaI, the Chronicle. tue Er-
a1ainer and the Bulletin had told them
that strike without complaint was a
perfectly justifable thing. The disclos-
ures of the trial at Woodland show un-
mistskably that the train wreck at Trestle
No. 2 was the fruit of that approval. The
San Francisco journals were in search of
subscribers. The Mayor and Board of
Trustees of this city were in search of
popularity. The majority of the citizens
Of Sacramento, not directly interested in
the strike as employees OF the Southern
Pacific Company, not in the category of
persons who had left that employment as
a measure of eoercing Pullman 10 make
a different scale of wages, felt that they
had no part in the controversy. They
took the shortsighted view that the mat
ter could take care OF itself without their
help. In such times silence is encour-
agement; and thus the appalling wreck
OF the train at Trestle No. was con-
Quoted with as little concealment as mill
tary operations in time of rebellion.
The confession of some of the partic-
ipants in the train wreck will make fur
ther disclosures justifying the criticisms
in which we here indulge. In the mean
time we note that two sets of business
men are claiming the honor of having
compromised the strike. There were
few right-minded citizens of Sacramento
who saw from the first the fallacy un-
derlying the contest, who realized that
the tie-up of the Southern Pacific Com
pany was causeless and senseless, and
who did not need an appalling outrage,
such as the wreck at Trestle No. 2, to
awaken their consciences to the right and
the wrong of the situation.
But there is little about which there
need be any contention. One set of these
business men got seats in the gallery just
as the curtain went down on the drama;
that their appearance caused the curtain