The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1894-07-13
A SPECIES OF BLACKMAU.

In commenting upon the Pullman
boycott Harper's Weekly in thought
full editorial covering different phases
of the trouble says:
1t is not easy for community
trained in the spirit of obedience to
law and of respect for the rights of
it's members to understand the princi-
pies on which the American Railway
Union is acting. The union has been
informed by certain men, who former
ly worked for the Pullman company,
but have left it's service, that they
want to return to it's work at higher
wages than it is willing to pay. The
union at once sends a committee to
order the Pullman company to open
it's shops, now closed for want of or
ders, and to employ those men at
wages satisfactory to themselves
under threat that otherwise the
union will embarraSS and cOnfOund
the transportation business of thirty
millions of people, and inflict inesti-
mable inconvenience and loss upon
the whole travelling community.
Like the union itself, several of the
large organizations formed ''to i'm
prove the condition of labor are
really controlled by few reckless
demagOgueS, who meet in secret and
deliberate whether or not they shall
join this conspiracy to eXtOrt terms
from a particular company for set of
men who want its wages, by injuring
the nation. The argument in favor
OF the boycott in plain words, is
this: THE labor organizations are
able to make life intOlerable in the
United States. Let them show their
power, and public opinion will require
all employers of labor to submit to
dictation
1t is not necessary to discuss such
position. The power to do harm be-
longs to every man. The more COM
plicated our social organization be-
comes, the greater is the opportunity
for small number OF people to throw
it into disorder. In the simplest of
savage communities any man may be-
come an assassin. But it is only in
the complex system Of society in which
the Interchange of services is constant
and essential, that very few men,
engaged in some one union, but indies
pensible employment, can, by sudden
desertion of their post, bring annoy
ance or even disaster to multitudes.
But the cOmmOn-SenSe of mankind
recognizes the use of this power to do
harm, as a means of eXtOrting by
threats and advantages or profits of
any kind, as the baSeSt of crimes.
The brigand who demands ransom for
his prisoner, with mutilation or death
as the alternative; the police captain
who sells for money his power to ar
rest the dealers in vice and crime the
newsmonger who gathers scandal in
order that he may be paid for sup
pressing it-thOSe are the types of
blackmailerS whom all the world
loathes. The boycott ordered by the
railway union is morally no better
than any of these acts. 1t is an at
tempt at blackmail on the largest
scale 1t undertakes by duress to
compel the community to interfere in
a business of which it has no knOwl-
edge and in which it has no rights; to
interfere not to enforce it's convictions
of right, but to relieve itself from dis
treSS by disregarding all considera-
tiOns of justice and duty. If the at
tempt could succeed, all hope for such
an adjustment for the relations of
labor and capital as will be consistent
with social order must be abandoned.
A community which can be terrOriZed
by such a conspiracy as this into en-
forcing it's DEGREES against the owners
of industries is already far on the road
towards anarchy.