Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1894-07-20
A ROYAL SPREE.

4si
Mr. Eugene Victor Debs, President of
the American Railway Union, has just been
On spree which cost tile workingmen, the
railroads. and the people generally OF this
country about fifteen million Of dollars and
twenty lives. MIR. Debs is a professional
workingman. He is the child of French
parents, is all infidel in religious matters,
and is a politician. As early as the age Of
twenty he found that a living could be
made without work. He became chief of
a Democratic political club in Terra Haute,
in Indiana, and got elected City Clerk. He
then became an ardent supporter of Dan
voorhees, and in that boat got elected to the
Indiana House of Delegates. having secured
a large following in the factories of his
town. In that capacity he was chosen to
present the name of Voorhees, to the legis-
lature for the place of U. S. Senator
and his speech being failure he
dropped out of place in the Voorhees, ranks.
But he had found out in the meantime that
a man could get on without manual labor
and lie became a professional labor agita-
tor, selecting the organization of railroad
firemen as his first stepping stone He had
worked up the American Railway Union,
which is simply an organized attempt to
absorb all the other railroad organizations
i'll the country, to great strength, and had
managed to get the Pullman workmeu
(Who are not railroad mem into the Union,
and then. the railroads having given no
cause for strike, one was manufactured
for the occasion by ordering a strike OH
every railroad which attempted to carry
out its contract to haul Pullman cars.
The financial outcome of what Presi-
dent Debs attempted to do is most disas-
trous. 1t has cost the railroads alone, in
property destroyed and business stopped,
about $S,000,000; it cost the striking rail
road men in lost wages nearly SIS ZOO, GOO; it
cost the Federal government nearly 81 600,
coo; it cost the State government Of Hi
nois nearly the same, and what it has cost
the country at large in the stoppage of bus
mess Can not easily be estimated And
after all that, it leaves many thousand
IdilI odu INSH III NdllOio pdltS u Tie COuu-
try thrown out Of work, and with no hope
of getting their old places back again
And the worst Of all, is that a large body
OF the railroad men struck against their
better judgment and against their wishes,
like local Union n o. 3S7 at Charleston, Ka-
nawha, who:
Resotoed, That we wish to put ourselves on
record as protesting against tie injustice Of the
present stfike but inasmuch as we are loyal
members Of the American Railway Union,
we deem it our duty as members Of that Union
to abide by the decision Of the majority and
by the laws which govern that Union, &c.
There is general feeling of Indignation
throughout the country, but we trust a
proper discrimination will be made between
such professional agitators as Debs and
Sovereign and the others who live by agita-
ton, and such mistaken but well meaning
loyalty" as that displayed by the Charles
ton Union. When men drunk with power
and ambition go on such costly sprees as
this one OF Debs and drag after them hon
est men who follow against their convic-
tions and against their interest," they ought
to be tried, convicted and punished by law,
and as the United States Department OF
Justice now has some sixty Of them in its
hands it is to be hoped they will be SO
dealt with as to secure respect for law
hereafter.