The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1894-11-20
a CRITIC ON THE STRIKE COM
MISSION REPORT.

The New York EUening Post, which has
the reputation of being fearless critic,
and certainly cannot be justly charged
with any friendship for railroad corpora
tons, thinks the Strike Commission re-
port is unsound. 1t denominates it dis
appointing" and adds that it's theorizing
and recommendations are dangerous. By
she law the commission is to act where
differences arise about to eliminate in
strikes, and it is to take testimony and
report the facts and suggest means OF adj
Justment.
The controversy in this case, says the
Post, was already adjusted Debs had abb
Dictated, and the strikers had returned to
work at the seat of the original difficulty.
Under such conditions it was simply the
office Of the commission, says the critic,
to collect the facts and report them. Be-
yoRd this, however
they go into a lot of reasoning to show
how controversy that had adjusted Itself in
particular way should really have been adj
JuSted III another and radically different way,
siuons about compulsory arbitration and a
permanent United States strike Commission.
This may not have been going outside OF their
powers, but 1t certainly was oyerstepping the
bounds OF propr1ety and prudence.
The Post then points out that the COM
missions narrative OF facts is grossly in
adequate and unfair, but it is charitable
enough to say that it was ''uncon-
ciously' made so. All the rioting, the
plundering, burning and terrorism is left
out, as also the facts proving the necessity
for calling out the troops to protect the
property of law-abiding and unoffending
citizens. The impression the report
makes, it is added, is that it was only an
ordinary strike, peaceful strike, which
there was refusal to arbitrate on the part
of the employers. There is not a word,
says the Post, about train wrecking,
numbering, oad-blockading, threatened
famine in many cities and towns, and in
widely separated sections of a vast area
OF country; not word about the punish
ment of travellers, the intense excitement
in the land, and the suffering and distress
which was the direct and immediate re-
suit of the acts of the strikers and their
boycott. Nor was there made any refer
ence to the general feeling that the exist
ence of the Government itself was felt to
be at stake, and that to have given inn
to the strikers at the point of danger, or
at any point, would have been deadly
blow to human liberty, and to the right
TO acquire and possess property
nothing of this, but only the statement that
the commission is ''im pressed with the be-
Lief" that the company and the managers
should have given in. This part OF the report
is only a travesty. What account of the
circumstances aecompan ying'' this strike
which was not so much strike as q social
CONFUSION, can be complete ii il leaves out
the intense anxiety of the best citizens less
a fatal surrender CT principle should be made?
The Post asserts that there was gen.
eral feeling of satisfaction and of honest
eongratulation among Americans at large
that the companies and roads struck
against, did not give in" because mo
matter how pig-headed, cruel or arbitrary
Pullman was or is there was at issue a
principle of law" that wrongly settled
meant ruin to free institutions.
The Post calls attention to what it terms
another astonishing feature of the report.
namely:
The position taken by the commission is in
favor of compulsory arbitration, binding on
The railroads but not binding on the EN-
pIoyes. This seems too absurd to be credible
out there it stands in black and white Rail.
roads have not the inhefitant rights of en-
ployers engaged in private business and
hence a law can be passed to compel Them 10
pay whatever wages q commission of arbi-
Jratlon may nix upon. On the other hand
employees have an inherent inalienable
ElSnt 10 Wofk or quit, and. therefore they
cannot be forced to accept wages they do not
like. This is the most laborIsh scheme of
compulsory arbitration ever devised and h as
about as much chance OF being adopted as
The acknowledgements principle in
gambling We presume the commission WAS
led into its ambitious theoriZings and sug-
gestions OF remedies for all labor troubles ont
oT u desire TO magnify Its ONCE.
This is the position of critic that is
neither friendly TO corporations nor an
tagonistic to labor. The sharp calling up
OF the commission by such public COM
mentator on the times, will cause many
TO re-read the Commissions report, and
consider if it was what it should have
been, an exposition of all the facts for the
calm Judgment of the world.