The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1894-07-02
The Pullman Strike.

II Is to DO doubted whether all the
organizations possible to civilized man
can overcome the fact that when la
borer sells his labor to an employer he
enters into contract which, in the Or
dinary course Of events, can be broken
only when the conditions Of the con-
tract are violated by one or the other,
or both Of the parties immediate to it.
Thus when workman at Pullman, Ill.
enters into an agreement with the man
agement of the Pullman Palace Car
company respecting labor and wages,
any deviation by either party from the
conditions specified in tbs agreement Is
proper subject for settlement at Pull
man, Ill, and nowhere else. II set
tlement cannot be made there. it is the
legal right of either party to withdraw
from the compact, the one to seek work
and the other to seek workers. else
where. This is both the common law
and the common sense Of the thing,
plainly stated
One year ago Eugene V. Debs an
nounced that he had organized the
labor of railroads into q body called
the American Railway union, one Of
whose fundamental principles was the
advocacy Of moral suasion aud arbitra-
tion instead Of the use of boycotts and
strikes in the settlement of wage diff
ferences. This union embolies the
manual labor performed on 50, 900
miles of American railway: and holds
subject to its will the commercial and
Industrial welfare OF nearly two thirds
of this nation. Mr. Debs has never
been elected BY the American people to
govern their destiuies in this manner.
He has received no appointment from
them to assume greater prerogative
than was held by julius Caesar, Char
)emagne or Louis the Magnificent of
France. Yet one stroke of his pen,
made because 900 car builders at
Pullman failed to agree with their EN- =
ployers as to wages, has sent into idle
ness 800, 600 men. deprived the families
of these men of 81, 500, 900 in lost wages
in one week; put check
10 the industrial movements Of
the inhabitants of twenty-five
states and caused inconvenience to ea-
silly 40, 900, 900 American citizens, and
perhaps more. In this estimate we
have not computed the losses sustained
by the railways themselves, for having
simply insisted upon their right to haul
such cars as they pleased over their own
tracks by aid of the labor which they
paid for. This aggregate undoubtedly
is enormous; and is inevitably distribu-
ted not only among the "bloated bond.
holders" and "graspiug putocrats" Of
whom the professional agitator speaks
with huency but also among the we'll
to.do and middle classes, whose small
savings are invested in railway securi-
ties, the moderate divi dond5 on which
constitute an important means OF sup
port. Neither does 1t take into account
the friction and ill-tesling that, If en-
Cenderel now and restrained during
the crisis. will sooner or later fud ven
10 the material discomfort Of all con.
cerned
In this light the strike which Mr..
Debs has ordered becomes more than a
great mistake. 1t become almos
equivalent to public crime. The or.
ganization over which he presides has
never been clothed with power to come
ietween employer and employed al
Pullman, H., or anywhere else and,
when told to stand aside, given the
delegated authority TO retaliate with o
strike that has cost as much in one
week as did the war for American in
dependence in one eventful year He
has simply usurped this function. He
bas in effect, IL not in intention, put
himself above the common law, above
the courts, above the common welfare
and has decided with extraordinary Ms.
sumption that he will make the Pull
man difference a pretext for demon
stration OF his power. Can thoughtful
labor approve his course? 1t is, in any
event, the men who work who must
pay for this great blunder. They must
pay for it in wages lost, in influence
sacrificed, in increased cost of railway
service, in crippled opportunities fol-
remunerative employment. and in the
reaction incident to trouble unneces-
sarily and improperly excited Labor
has nothing to gain and much to lose
by permitting itself to be drawn with
growing frequency into great strikes
that cost ten-fold more that they unit.
edly accomplish. 1t should shun the
men who deceive it in this manner and
study instead the peaceful and lawful
processes Of the ballot and the press.