The National tribune., 1894-07-19
THE UNITED STATES OF IT.


to labor need readjustn3ent. They always
do. 1t is one of the ipseparable con-
ditions of vitality and progress. If
every relation were carefully adjusted
to-day, with everybody entirely satisfied,
it would be necessary to make some new
adjustments Tomorrow, on account of
the development of new conditions.
But if there is any principle held
vital and sacred by Anglo-Saxon peoples,
and above all by those in the United
States, it is that all social and economic
changes must be matter OF mutual
consultation and consideration, where all
parties shall have full hearing and the
settlement made according to the will OF
the majority. The older we as a people
get and the oftener that we have recourse
to this method of settlement, the more
firmly we become convinced of its right
fulness. 1t is the only human method
by which justice can be assured and
wrong prevented or remedied. The sense
of justice in the entire people can always
be relied on, and their power to enforce
justice is undeniable.
No man nor set of men must set them
selves up as sole judges of their rights,
and attempt to apply violent remedy
for what they conceive to be wrongs.
This is intolerable in any form of Gov
eminent claiming to be Republican.
The limitations to their rig hts are not to
be set by them, but by the whole people.
Anything else means chaos. IF they
have been wronged it is easy to demon
strate it, and the whole people will join
in compelling righting.
Mr.. Debs's scheme was violently and
fagrantly un-American. It was an at
tempt to return to the conditions Of
barbarism. He simply announced that
certain men had been ill-treated, and
proceeded to make the whole country
suffer inealeulable annoyance and loss,
under the pretext of Fighting the alleged
wrongs of an indefinite number of people.
What those wrongs were he has even yet
not condescended, to, explain to the
country. He and his accomplices have
contented themselves by declaring that it
was "a contest between capital and
labor" but this is. irritatingly indefinite.
Any man can give that designation to
anything that he chooses to do. He
may waylay another and bludgeon him,
and call it merely a contest between the
labor involved in carrying the .bludgeon
and the capital the man may have in
his pocket-book.
The Debs program was an insult to
the intelligence and justice of the Amer
lean people. 1t was declaration that
the only way in which certain class
could obtain its rights was to extort
them by force. and that the whole peo-
pie could be bullied and intimidated
into doing just what knot of conspira-
tors should choose to require. Debs and
his fellow conspirators were entirely too
short-sighted to see the logical result of
this. At the very outside they repre-
sented less than one man In 60 of the
population. They scarcely represented
more than that proportion of the actual
woFkingmen, because we are all just as
! thoroughly workingmen as Mr.. Debs
and his particular crowd. 1t was in
tense arrogance for them to assume to
be the only laborers in the Nation.
Each of the other SO laborers had Just
as much right and excuse to declare
that he was ill-used and stir up a gen.
eral turmoil as the men who happened
to be engaged in the railroad business.
Suppose that the farmers should get it
in their heads that they were selling
food to the railroad men entirely too
cheap; that the railroaders were respon-
sible for the high freights by leaguing
together to keep up their wages above
what man could make tilling the soil
and should seize the roads and hold
them until wages were reduced, what
would Mr.. Debs and his crowd think
Yet such scheme weuld be Just as ra
tional and excusable as bis.
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