The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1894-08-03
FIGURES OF INTEREST.


statistics on railroad traffic in the
| United States which throw a good
deal of light upon the great strike
The last report of the Pullman
Company shows that it generally
has about 5000 cars in operation.
and the railways which are under
contract to use these cars have
over 10000 miles of track. The
company carries about five million
passengers yearly. The American
roads carry, however, about 600,-
100000 passengers annually, not
to speak of S00,000,000 tons of
freight These figures show that
less than one per cent. of the pas
senger traffic of the United States
is in Pullman cars, so that the
strikers undertook to stop the
freight and passenger business of
the railroads from New York to
San Francisco because a few, a
very few, of their number had
grievance against a company which
carried no freight at all, and only
an Insignificant percentage of the
passengers. Nothing can put in
clearer light the glazing nature of
the strikers acts, and the danger
to society if firm stand is not
made against the tyranny of or
ganized labor. The widespread
sympathy with the strikers is
easy enough to understand. 1t
is due to a feeling that working
men do not get fair play, and that
the railroads in particular are
greedy and soulless corporations.
This feeling blinds the judgment
and betrays people into a sympa-
thy with injustice, folly and crime,
as the railroad strike well illus
trates. The issue between the rail
roads and the strikers in this case,
was very unhappily chosen by the
latter. They did everything posi-
bic to put the railroads in the right
and themselves in the wrong. They
not only practically demanded the
right to control the management
of the transportation business of
the country, but arrogated to them
selves functions which are assigned
by the Constitution to Congress.
A perception of this truth proba-
bly, dictated the decided telegram
which Senator Davis lately sent to
a branch of the American Railway
Union of Duluth. The Union had
requested him to support resolu-
tion of Senator Kyle's, which pro-
posed that no United States war
rants should issue against persons
obstructing trains, unless that part |
of the train was INSTRUCTED con-
tanning the United States mails.
Senator Davis telegram was as
follows:
al have received your telegram. /
will not support Senator Kyle's reso-
luton. 1t is against your own real |
welfare. 1t is also a blow at the Sc
curity, peace and rights of millions of
people who never harmed you or your
associates. My duty to the Constitu-
tirn and the laws forbids me to sus-
tain a resolution to legalize lawless-
ness. The same duty rests upon your
self and your associates. The power |
to regulate commerce among the sew
eral States is vested by the Constitu-
ton in Congress. Your associates
have usurped that power by force at |
Hammond and other places, and have |
destroyed commerce between the
States in those particular instances.
You are rapidly approaching the overt
act of levying war against the United
States, and you will find the definition
of that act in the Constitution. /
trust that wiser thoughts will regain
control. You might as well ask me to
vote to dissolve this Government.
&C. X. DAVIS"