Birmingham age-herald., 1894-07-11
GOVERNOR JONES Explains the Situation to the
 Citizens.
WHY THE TROOPS ARE HERE
He Tells What Martial Law Is and Comments the Course
 of President Cleveland.


 ernor Jones yesterday and asked him about the situation, requesting him to give, if he so desired, his reasons in full for ordering the troops here.
 The governor said:
 I have never known troops to be sent to place, no matter how great the neces- sity, that some did not denounce the act. suppose there is no anarchist or anarchist sympathizer in Chicago today who will not tell you that the presence of the troops was an insult to law abiding people. We are not taking the views of the lawless as to the necessity for troops here. The wisdom of ordering them here is appreciated by most people in Birmingham, and has been in- dorsed by the people of Alabama with all intensity and earnestness seldom sur passed.
 Why were the troops ordered here?
 man must be blind to ask such ques- tion.
 These are times of passion and excite ment. A gigantic effort to blockade not only the raiir pads, but including plan to stop all industries and trades from work until local grievance between a car builder and his employees in Chicago was settled, had been in progress for weeks. State after state in which this project has been attempted had become the scene of riot, bloodshed, incendiarism and insur- rection. The papers were filled daily with graphic accounts and details of these dis turbances, and the people thus became, as it were, eye-witnesses to these constant scenes of disorder. The actions and emo- tions of men under similar conditions are almost invariably the same, especially when they are animated by the same pur- poses and moving to accomplish the same '4nommon end. It was certain, when nearly 160Ueof our railroad men have become par ticipafrts in the Pullman boycott, that commotio,os and tumults would arise, which, If not repressed at the outset, would soon end in'the grayest disorder.
 The situation, however. was complicated by the fact that we have ovelr 1000 miners still out of work on account oi-ss stt7Re of long duration, which had reduced many of them to great want. It is known to every body that there is in this vicinity large element which the strikers themselves admit they cannot control, and which took advantage of the miDers' strike to inaugu- rate reign of terror in Jefferson county. That lawless element, in which am glad , to believe there were comparatively few strikers, had in the past ninety days mur- dered men for daring to work, blown up property with dynamite, applied the torch to other property and finally devised and begun to execute plan to burn the bridges, shoot the watchmen guarding them, and even fire upon children.
 If these crimes followed in the wake of the miners strike, in which the railroads were s.ot not involved, INi greater impetus tacks upon railroad property, and then, as certain as fate, broadening into other dep relations, would be set in motion when our railroad operatives here quit work, and thus added to the perils of the situa- tion, the excitement and passions of an- other strike.
 In the midst of all this Birmingham was suffering an era of secret meetings, where agitators famed passion and ignorance to deeds of violence, in contempt of law and authority, in spite of the dissent of con- servative men.
 Did you see the railroad station last Sat- urday when the crowds of strikers and their sympathizers took practical posses sion of the passenger shed and roamed over it at will, in spite of the efforts to keep it clear? As late as o'clock that night sev- eral hundred men were in the vicinity of the depot, hooting and jeering. at men at work, threatening them, etc. If police man had injured any of this crowd in his efforts to disperse them or protect the men at work, do you doubt what would have happened? If the small police force of eleven men. all the city has on duty at one time, had tried to disperse this crowd does any one doubt that they would have been defed and overpowered? If conflict had resulted, does any doubt that the crowd would have been swelled to hundreds, who, in the excitement and passions of the hour, would have run rough shod over the law? What adequate means had the civil power here to cope with such disorder? Under the conditions existing, even if 1t had the power, the ordinary civil posse could only succeed after great bloodshed and riot. How long does any sane man suppose the crowds could have had their way about the stations with out serious consequences resulting? The crowd on Saturday night, if it had not been denied access to the station on Sunday, would have swelled to thousand on Sun day night, and kept on increasing as long as an attempt was made to run trains. If this had been allowed how many working men would have been beaten and stoned? What power could have put stop to it or enforced the law? How many Pullman cars would have been destroyed, and what consuming themf concede the railroad men would have refrained from doing these things, for the vast majority of them are honorable and law abiding, and even con- trolled all their own men. This seems to have been the case at Chicago, and yet cars were fired, tracks destroyed and property burned by men whom nobody controlled. Were the city, the railroads centering here and the commerce of the whole state to be left to the mercy of such crowdsf Or must life. and property be, destroyed in the vain attempt:of an inadequate civil posse, without arms or effective organlza- ton, worn down by constant watchfulness in guarding property, to cope with the forces of lawlessness which surely would have focked here if the crowds about the depot had long been allowed to do as they pleased, and those who fiocked to the scene would