The Portland daily press., 1894-07-11
AN ILLOGICAL PERFORMANCE.

Vice President Wickes of the Pullman
company, has refused arbitration, and
IN consequence 200, 900 men who are now
at work earning support for themselves
and families are to be ordered to stop.
What for? Well, we suppose the labor
leaders would reply that their idea was
that the cessation of work would put
the public to a great deal of inconven-
fence and loss, and that this loss and
Inconvenience or the threat of them
would impel the public to bring press
ure to bear upon the Pullman Company
to grant what it has refused. The
trouble with this idea is that it neglects
to take into account the fact thatta
large portion of this public are employ
ers of labor vitality interested in the
maintenance of the right which the Pull
man Company is contending for, of man
aging its own business in it's own wav
To offset. therefore, the impelling for
of loss and inconvenience to bring press
ure to bear on Mr.. Pullman to let out
siders decide how he shall manage his
business and what wages he shall pay is
the feeling that in sense Mr.. Pullman's
fight is their fight-that is, that the
principle he is contending for is one
that they, themselves are vitality inter
ested in having maintained and that
they cannot afford to assist in breaking
it down, as they would do by putting
pressure upon him. The ground the
1o hnr
upon Mr.. Pullman-that he would not
submit the questions at issue to arbitra-
tion-is very weak one, because it forces
to the front the question of the right
of employers to control their own bust
ness, and on this they are likely to be
unit. The unions would have been in
much stronger position if they had made
their fight against Pullman on the
ground that he was paying in efficient
wages. If that position were we taken
then the men would have excited the
sympathy of good many employers as
well as fellow workingmen. AS it is
now, when the 200. 900 men are ordered to
go out they are likely to find all their
employers prejudiced against them on
account of their action and entirely out of
sympathy with the thing they are con-
tending for. Instead of putting pressure
on Mr.. Pullman by this performance they
are more likely to create great many
allies for him who will insist on his
maintaining his position because it is
for their interest that it be maintain ned.
This is the experience the railroad en-
ployes who struck met with. The strik-
ers doubtless expected that the threat of
loss to the roads would induce the man
ayers of them to bring pressure upon
Pullman to grant what his men demand
ed, but to a man the managers
took the ground that Pullman's fight
was their fight, and that to put pressure
on him meant the esta blishment of
precedent that would return to plague
them. These strikers are contending for
something that strikes at the very vitals
of all individual and corporate enterprise.
They are undertaking to abridge the
rights of the owners of property to man
age it. And as long as they contend for
that they are sure to be beaten. The
men who owD a railroad, or machine
shop, or factory will insist upon run
ming it, and rather than sacrifice that
right they will abandon the enterprise
altogether