St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-07-08
DEBS APPEALS TO GROVER.
A LONG Sc9EED BY SOVEREIGN AND
THE DICTATOR.
USUAL TALK OF TYRANNY.

Arrogant Monopolies Denounced
and the Government Alleged
to Be Approaching a Military
Despotism Desire of Rail-
roads to Destroy All Labor Or
ganizations.
CHICAGO, July S.-The following LETT
ter was telegraphed to President Cleye-
land tonight by Messrs. Debs and Sow
ereign, of the A. r. U. and Knights of
Labor:
Chicago. July Ito the Hon. Grover
Cleveland, president of the United
States-Dear Sir: Through long pc
riod of depression, enforced idlenes and
low wages, resulting in widespread pow
erty, and in many cases actual starva-
tion, the working people have been
patient, patriotic and law-abiding; and
not until the iron hand of corporate
tyranny was applied with the inten.
tion to subjugate the working people to
the will of arrogant monopoies did
they make any effort to stay their op-
pressors. The Pullman strike was not
declared until the employees of the Pull
man company were driven to the verge
of starvation. their entreaties spurned
with contempt, ana their grievances de-
MED hearing. No refusal to handle
Pullman cars was declared by any rail-
way emplOye until all propositions
looking towards arbitration and concil-
iation were rejected by the Pullman
company. Notwithstanding the facts
set forth above were known to the
public and the national authorities, you
have seen fit under the guiSe of pro-
tecting the mails and federal property
to invoke the Sc rvices of the United
States ar my, whose very presence is
used to coerce and intimidate peaceable
working people into numiliating
obedience to the will of
THEIR oPPREsSoRs.
BY your acts, in so far as you have
supplanted civil and state authorities
with the federal military power. the
spirit Of unrest and distrust has so far
been augmented that deep-seated con-
victlou is fast becoming prevalent that
this government is soon to be declared
military despotism. The transmission
of the United States mails is not inter-
rupted by the striking employees of any
railway company, but by the railway
companies themselves, who refuse to
haul the mails on trains from which
Pullman cars are detached. If it Is a
criminal interference with the United
States mails for the employees of rail-
way company to detach from
mail train a Pullman palace car
contrary to the will of the company.
then it holds true that 1t is the same
criminal interference whenever Pull
man palace car is detached from mail
train In accordance with the will of a
railway company while said mail train
is in transit. The line of criminality in
such cases should not be drawn at the
Willingness or unwillingness of railway
employees, but at the act itself, and inas-
much as it has been the common prac-
tice of railway corporations to attach
and detach from mail trains Pullman
cars at will while said trains are In
transit and carrying the mails of the
United States, 1t would seem an act of
discrimination against the employees of
the railway corporations to declare
such acts Unlawful interference with
the transmission of the mails when
done by employees with or without the
consent of their employers. In view of
these facts we look upon the far.fetched
decision of
ATTORNEY GENERAL oLNEY,
the un-American injunctions against
railway employees and the movements
of the regular army as employing the
powers of the general government for
sthe support and protection of the rail-
way corporations In their determination
to degrade and Cypress their employees.
The present railway strike was precip-
itated by the desire of the railway cor
porations to destroy the organizations
of their employees and make the working
people more subseryient to the will of
their employers; and. as all students of
government agree that free institutions