The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-07-15
The RIOTS OF iO77.
Labor Went Mad at This Season SeV-
enteen Years Ago.
A Great Railroad Strike That Ended
in the Most Dreadful Scenes in La
boris American History.

try were Just beginning to be heard, and
labor was girding up its loins for the most
desperate and far-reaching, though not
the most powerful struggle it has ever
made. The strikers fought Tadly, and
brains and craft The chief cause Of the
conflict was a quite general reduction of
10 per cent. in the pay of railroad en-
ployes. Before July and August of
that year were ended 100000 men
had been engaged in the struggle,
and 1900 miles Of railroad, from
the Atlantic to the Mississippi as far
south as Baltimore, had been tied up.
There is food for reflection in compari-
son of the conflict of that memorable year
to the labor troubles of the present.
The great contest of ~ began insignif-
cantly enough with the strike of forty
brakemen and firemen on the Baltimore
and Ohio road at Baltimore on July IA.
In i've days the strike had stopped every
wheel on the Baltimore and Ohio, and had
extended to the Pennsylvania road, and
on July 20 Baltimore found itself stained
with blood. The Sixth Maryland regi-
ment of militia had been stoned by a mob
of strikers and their sympathizers, and
without waiting for orders had fired on
their assailants. A pitched battle fol
lowed, in which nine men were killed and
forty more or less wounded.
THE PITTsBURG RIOTS.
The passions of the Pennsylvania rail
road strikers at Pittsburg took the fire
from the. fighting in Baltimore, and the
events that followed in Pittsburg were
what served to keep red the memory OF
the strike of n
The Pittsburg strikers had proved them
selves too powerful for the police to cope
with, and on the 2lst the first division of
the Pennsylvania State Guard from Phil
adelphia reached the city, the great pro.
portion of them being boys of from 20 to %
years. At o'clock in the afternoon they
had their first taste of grim war, for at
that hour they undertook to clear a mob OF
roughs and strikers that had gathered at
Twenty-eighth street. They were stoned
mercilessly and finally fred on their assail
ants. Sixteen of the mob were killed and
many wounded, and the rest transforms
into demons, burning with fever Of de-
structiveness and lost to all sense of re,
straint or of danger. They broke into gun
shops and 5000 of them came back to the
battle strongly armed. Those who had
no shotguns or rifles had clubs and stones
BY midnight there were 10000 of them
They attacked a roundhouse in which the
young guardsmen, to the number of 500
had iutrenched themselves
Three or four pieces of ordnance were
trained on the besieged. The mex
perienced gunners were shot down one
after another, with still others always to
take their places. Exasperated by the
failure of the cannon to dislodge the
guardsmen. the strikers undertook t
roast alive the men in the roundhouse.
Oil cars were set on fire and pushed to
ward the building, but fell short of theiI
destination; buildings in the vicinity
were fired; the torch was applied indis
criminately to freight cars and to private
property, and the hremen were driven of
when they attempted to quench the
flames. The night was lit UP all about the
roundhouse with a sea of fame, and
the position of the besieged became des
perate. The heat was unbearable, sparks
were flying everywhere, and it began to
look as If the strikers would have theil
way and the guardsmen would be roasted
out A car loaded with coke and drencheC
with kerosene and sent flying down the
track as far as the men dared 90 within
range from the guardsmen's muskets
That, too, fell short of its destination
and, while the strikers withdrew to study
new methods, the military, at o'clock il
the morning, took advantage of the lull
left the building and retreated, under fire
across the Allegheny river, where they
disbanded.
BLOOD AND DESTRUCTION.
The success of the strikers only whettei
their appetite, and the scenes that fol
lowed all that Sunday would tit the de
scription Dickens wrote in "Barnaby
Ridge" of the No Popery" riots. The
mob devoted itself first, to burning rail
road property, and during the day some
1000 freight cars were destroyed to
gether with nearly every railroad build
ing in Pittsburg, including the union de
pot, the total loss to the railroads beins
in the neighborhood of S1O,000,0 1000 Ali
day men, women and children car
ried booty from the plundered freight
cars through the streets of the city
AT night the madmen who had been
carrying nm their work of,destruction for
twenty-four hours without rest, renew &c
their strength with liquor Drug stores
and saloons were broken open and looted
and work was begun on the destruction
OF other private property for the SAKE
of robbery and joy of destruction
This aroused the citizens, who ha(
hitherto make no effort to stoT
the lawlessness, and by Mon
day morning private companies wer,
organized for protection, and with thu
assistance OF the police the rioters spent
with their two nights and one day oil
lawlessness, were dispersed In all
twenty-five strikers and three MALTA
men were killed during the riots
Lesser riots followed IN Hornellsyille
Buffalo, Columbus, Ohio: Reading, Pa
Fort Wayne, Chicago, st. Louis, Louis
vile, Toledo and many other cities, espe
cially in the west. A riot which tool
place in Chicago on July 20 re
suited in the killing of twenty men III
battle between the strikers and a force O.
300 police officers. Even the san Fran
cisco hOOdlums caught the fever an(
brought about bloody fight on the 26th
Fears of riots in this city aroused by
mass meeting held in Tompkins souar,
on the 18th and at Cooper Union on thu
10Th to express sympathy with the strik
ers were not realized. The condition o.
the whole country was at a crisis OF
July26, but the strikers had reached
the hight Of their powers and endurance
public feeling was turning against them
and suddenly they wayered and gavt
way. BY July u the entire countr,
was safe from the gravest danger through
which it had passed since the battle o.
| Gettysburg was fought. Nearly all the
strikers returned to work at their forme
wages.
The miners strikes and riots in the Goa
regions followed at once, however, and b,
Aug. l, Scranton, Pa, had become
storm center around which there wer
nearly $4,000 striking miners, desperate