The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-07-10
TO RAILROAD MEN ON STRIKE.

10 know what KIND OF a mead they are
bowling down to. We are not abiding
to the personality of the man, his rep
utation or his motives. We mean his
qualifications for the work which he
has undertaken, and without which the
abject submission to his orders, which
some otherwise intelligent people ex-
hfbit, is the very extreme of folly and
liable to lead his dupes to the very
extreme of ruin.
AS a specimen of his capabilities to
cope with a great public question and
to WELD supreme power in great cri-
sis like the present, we direct attention
to his letter to President Cleveland,
which it appears Mr.. Sovereign was
foolish enough to endorse. We ask
sensible men to read it carefully and
note how much insufferable rubbish it
contains. 1t appeared in full in Sun
days Herald.
To begin with, the corporate ty-
ranny' of which he speaks cannot
mean the attitude of the railway COM
panies toward their employees, because
there was no complaint on either side
when Mr. Debs undertook to make war
upon those companies. He and those
who followed him were the aggressors.
The tyranny was that he sought to
The tyranny" was that which he
sought to exercise against the corpor-
ations and against the public.
Next, the Pullman company did not
and do not now refuse to give a hear
ing to their employees. They refuse to
let Mr.. Debs or any other would-be die
tator of capital as we'll as labor, con-
| troll or direct their business. They are
ready to treat with the men who have
a grievance against them, but with no
person or order with whom or which
they have no business relations.
The statement that the national or
the state authorities were invoked to
| "coerce and intimidate peaceable peo-
ple,'' is an impudent falsehood the I'M
person in his senses who has watched
the progress of the strike against the
railroads, the assaults upon person and
property, and the diabolical destruction
which has ragged ever since the strike
was ordered.
The intimation that because troops
have been used to protect life and
property against the assaults of fire
bugs, train wreckers, Infatuated mobs,
and the worst elements of society that
have gathered and taken advantage of
the opportunities offered for pillage and
plumber, that is evidence that ''the gov
eminent is soon to be declared a mill
tary despotism,'' shows that Debs has
lost what common sense ne ever had
and is fit only for a common anarchist.
Now look at his style of reasoning.
His argument is that because the rail-
railroad companies sometimes discrim-
mate as to the use of Pullmans cars
on their trains, therefore their employ
ees may do the same without the con-
sent of their employers! Also that it is
equally criminal for the companies to
attach and detach Pullman cars on
their trains, as for their employees to
| do so against the will of the companies!
Is that idiocy, or anarchism, or both?
What he means by "detaching a
Pullman car with the will of a railway
train while it is in transit" we do not
undertake to explain. 1t is about as
rational as his whole communication.
| But the point we wish men who have
been guided by his folly to see is, that
Debs actually takes the ground that
there is no more criminality in rail-
road men removing and interfering
with railroad property without the con-
sent of the owners, than for the own
ers of that property to handle it. And
that is the kind of maniac railroad men
are yielding their manhood to.
Debs says there is not an instance
on record wherein the military power
has been employed to protect the work
ing people; and he pirates like a stump
orator about life, liberty and the pur-
suit of happiness" When the facts are
that the troops are now employed by the
government in the protection of work
! ingmen, whom the cowardly mobs
which Debs has invoked have attacked
to prevent their working. And those
mobs thus endeavored to prevent the
exercise Of the right to life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness which the
non-strikers should have in common
with the rest.
When Debs pledges the power of the
respective organizations for the main
tenance of peace and good order, at the
very time that the men lei loose
through his foolery are burning cars,
beating and trampling upon men will
ing to work, playing havoc generally
and destroying millions of dollars
worth of property, he is simply show
ing that he does not understand what
he is talking about or is trying to
fool the public by reckless boastings
of a power he does not possess.
His appeal to liberty-loving people
to aid in a cause which denies liberty
to workingmen who do not choose to
submit to his dictum and become
slaves to the order of which he is the