The record-union., 1894-06-30

vice for them in the way of the delivering
OF material or the transportation of their
goods, shall perform that service, regard
less of the relation which they themselves
may sustain to the labor employed by
them.
This principle once abandoned, puts
the entire regulation of transportation ia
the hands of the American Railway
Union. and in utter disregard of the
rights of production or the rights of COM
merce. To yield to it means the abandon
ment of every civilized notion of national
justice.
The principle involved in this contro-
versy is as broad and as deep as the
foundations on which society rests. Fur
ther than this, the triumph of the policy
sought to be established by the American
Railway Union puts the entire railway
system of the United States in the hands
OF the employees of the smallest factory in
the country as an aid to the coercion of
any demand as to the rate of wages or the
hours of labor. or any other subject of
controversy between the employer and
the employed.
The labor employed in the production
of journals in this country is organized,
as it has the right to be. Suppose, how
ever. the boycott should be declared upon
single mercantile establishment by an
organization of clerks employed therein.
Would the Typographical Union feel
called upon to strike because the paper
continues contract with that mercantile
establishment for advertising? Or, sup
pose strike occurs in newspaper office.
Would the American Railway Union feel
called upon to demand that no express
car be run upon the tracks of American
railroads carrying the issues of the paper
having contention with It's typograph-
| ical force? 1t is within the bounds OF
sober probability that this policy, once
successfully established, will extend it.
self to individuals obnoxious to labor or
CARNATIONS and railroads with such
freight or such persons as may have in
CURED its displeasure.
In that event all the railway traffic
will be under the direction and control.
not of Governments, not of States, not of
communities, not of society, but of a
single labor organization, which by rea-
son of intimate relation with this great
factor of civilized life clutches it by the
throat and declares that it shall be sub
servient to the purposes of conserving
the rate of wages in the smallest factory
In the country, and party to every con-
troversy which may arise between en-
ployers and employed in all the activities
OF life.
To recur more specifically to the exist
ing controversy, the railroads are under
contract with the Pullman Car Company
to move its cars over their lines. The car
company has right to the enforcement
of these contracts. When society denies
it that right, then the obligations of a
contract are impaired and the provisions
of the Constitution of the United States
are overthrown by single labor organ
izaIion, and the protection of the Govern
ment is Withdrawn from individual citi-
zens of the country. To defend this is to
defend the most monstrous attempt at
the usurpation of power ever sought to
be established in any civilized commu-
nifty.
| When labor organizations q ogate to
themselves the right to place the prop
erty. of another in jeopardy, they aban-
don all civilized conceptions of the rights
of citizens and substitute force for law
and violence for peace and safety.
Labor has a right and it is its duty to
organize for self-protection against op-
position and wrong.
| 1t has right to the legitimate exercise
of the power growing out of such organ.
! iZation and the resultant concert of ac-
ton.
1t has the right to the legitimate and
proper exercise of its power in the con-
servation OF the rate of wages.
| All these are legitimate objects, but the
possession of power is accompanied by
responsibility for its proper exercise. 1t
| is bound by every consideration of re-
spect for the rights of individuals and the
public, which binds the consciences of all
men.
| 1t has no right to make persons, having
no power to adjust it's differences with
the other persons. parties to a contro-
versy in which they have no part.
| The railways of the United States are
not parties to the controversy between
|
tempt to force them to become parties
to such contest, and to infiict upon them
| financial injury because of their refusal,
| is an outrage which cannot be too
strongly characterized.
| 1t deprives them of their natural right
to observe the obligations OF contracts
they have entered into for transportation
! of property and persons.
1t deprives them of the legitimate rev.
enues of their business, and is no more
defensible nor honorable than would be
the action of him who thrusts an inno-
cent bystander between himself and his
antagonist in mortal combat
| The Southern Pacific Company has
! been criticised because it would not cut
out the cars it had entered into contract
to haul, and run its trains without such
cars.
This criticism will be INDUCED only by
those who are incapable of comprehend
ing the true nature of the issue involved
1t would be far more reasonable on the
part of public journals and of public sem
iment to demand that it adopt this policy
rather than abandon it. The triumph of
the American Railway Union in this case
would be the Inauguration of a new
factor in transportation which would put
all transportation in the hands of an or
ganization for the settlement of the most
petty controversy between an employer
and his employees.
1t would permit the carriage of goods,
merchandise and the products of the
country only on condition that the rela-
lation between every employer in the
country and the labor employed by him
was amicable and harmonious,