The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-07-11
A Few Thoughts tor workingmen.

Workman Sovereign's diabolical or
der TO all the Knights OF Labor in the
country million of men, he says,
though OF curse he exaggerates-to
go on strike at once, will be a general
fiat and dire failure. We believe too
much in the native good sense of
American citizens to think they will
bring disaster upon themselves as in
dividuais and upon the Nation as a
unit in this frantic way. But per-
haps it may not be out of place to
suggest to those of them who live in
our own community a few general
propositions which may help them
to reach wise conclusions as to the
course which they should now pur
sue.
First and most practical of all
points. we ask them who is going to
feed them and their families if they
go on strike? 1t is useless to say they
have money saved. Thousands of
them have not; but those who have
cannot eat it, and if the beef supply
is to be stopped and no more bread is
to be baked, are the babies to 20 out
and MUNICH the paving stones? Whom
are they striking against-aIl these
poor million of men? Who but them
selves? Pullman will worry along
and get his usual three meals a day
so will Debs and Sovereign.
But, second, suppose they win.
Suppose the Pullmans are forced to
arbitrate. Suppose their six thou
sand men get all they ever askedi
Who is going to reimburse the million
men for their losses in the struggle,
the wages given up, the jobs for
feited, the savings drawn from bank
and spent, the scarcity of work for
another year until the country a
get on its feet again after the fifteen
or twenty millions of ioss-to take a
very low figure-which this strike
must cost? Will the six thousand
make all this good out of their in
creased earnings? Or would it not be
cheaper for the KNIGHTS of Labor il
there are a million of them to PEN
sion off the whole six thousand Pull
man strikers for the rest of their
natural lives2
Now, thirdly, the Pullmans could
not stand a wholesale strike of their
people for one week in a busy era.
They would lose too much. 1t would
be far cheaper 10 pay top-notch wages.
So, plainly the practical plan was TO
grin and bear the situation at a time
when Pullman would rather stop his
works than keep them going, and
hasten on the boom era, when he
would be at their mercy. Now. how
do these strikes hurry on the boom ?
What sort of a winter will we have
,ubo, 4ba roiIroa1s haoin outline ov-
penses to recoup losses, and passing
dividends which they can't pay. The
stockholders and bondholders will be
poor this fall and winter and work for
painters and decorators and ppholst-
erers and cabinetmakers, and florists
and dressmakers and t~ailors, matters
and shoemakers and milliners and
cigarInakers. and all the millions who
live on the rich will be devilisll slack.
Oh the misery of it all, to see the
workingIDan concentrating his eyes
ON the tip of mis- own nose and smash
ing his own and his fellows future!
The motive on which this appeal
for n general strike is based is that of
solidarity. But the highest form of
solidarity is patriotism. What is the
welfare OF any petty group of six
thousand when the fortunes of sixty
million are at stake? The thing to
think OF today is not higher wages for
a handful but life, progress, liberty
and union for a nation, and every n
of these things is at stake in the
present struggle.
The Parrot Talk About Arbitration.
Mayor Wanser's reply to the first
telegram of Mayor Pingree of Detroit
was sufficiently diplomatic. His
Honor said:-sYes. | am in favor OF
arbitration. But all parties must re-
pect the laws while the arbitration is
In progress"
So say we all Of us. Arbitration is
a great thing, first, where there is
anything to arbitrate; second, when