The record-union., 1894-08-11
AS SEEN IN EUROPE.
How the Fame of the United
States Has Been Injured
European Anarchists Are Joyful, Like
Those at Home-Every Throne in
Europe Has Been strengthened by
the Late Assault Upon the Govern
ment in This Country.

lENSsular correspondents RECORD-U NIoN.l
LONDON, July 13.-All Europe is af-
fected by the situation in the United
States that has grown out of the original
petty strike of the Pullman employees.
American news is given first place in all
newspapers published in all languages,
and loaded leaders try to interpret or to
make use of the sensational flashes from
the Atlantic cable. In railway cars, in
the streets, in clubs, and everywhere
where men and women come together
comment is made on the events that
mark the progress of things in "the
States.' The slow-moVing, deliberate
European is thoroughly shaken, and his
opinions, so variously expressed, show
that lille the old countries can boast of
their freedom from such catastrophies (so-
ciologieally they are disasters), they, too,
intellectually are affected by what has
occurred in the New World. No strikes
Lave followed here or on the continent;
workmen have not been aroused to imi-
tate their enyied American fellow-crafts-
men, but ideas have been modified, and
the opinions ana politics and the political
hopes and creeds OF thousands of indi-
Viduals have been shaken or strength
ened. Morally, the American strike has
been seriously felt here, and the effect
will be more enduring perhaps than in
our own country, where optimism is IN
the air and recovery from all backs
quick and easy.
AS a phenomenon of government al
most exclusively is the matter treated,
whether IN the newspapers or in private
conversation. II is reasoned that the
causes and the circumstantial justifica-
~ Ila OF
1or US Americans TO settle among our
selves. With that they refuse expressly
ana repeatedly and with q singular
nnanimity TO have anything TO do. The
EUeH19Iq StQ3lddTQ Of July 9th, however,
expressed another reason often spoken
IN conversation for not discussing the
merits of the strike, w hen it declared that
Inc extreme violence OF the strikers and
the extent of the moral support of public
opinion reported Dy the American corre-
spondents, made the strike a secondary
matter. as compared with the broader
question Of the ability of certain form
of government TO govern.
Discussion has not been quite fair. 1t
has not been free Of malice, and the papers
representing established interests have
not hesitated to make the American
news texts TO point retrogressive morals
with. But IL seems truly TO appear under
all opinion that the majority of men are
moved by genuine fear. Not entirely
Is this alarm Tor the security OF property,
Tor those who have no share in threat
ened interests shared the feeling OF un-
easiness. Intelligent men who live by
thought agree that justice was severely
threatened, law was trampled upon, and
that democracy was committing suicide
early in life. To withstand such rea-
soners is not easy under the circum-
stances. and foreigners make the Ameri-
-. -
blasted'' table-talk. Imagine having
tnis put to you in broad English by a
bloody Britisher:o
Il say. don't you know, l always
thought the majority ruled over there,
DON'T you know, and thatin the States
every man had a voter"
THAT is so,n | replied.
"Ahi ! and aren't the working classes
IN the majority?n
Pretty nearly" 1 supposed, though
the next move was clearly to be check
mate.
"Ahl don't you know, we over here
cannot understand why the bloody
chaps don't vote their policy into ex-
lstence. l say, it looks as though uni
yersal suffrage isn't very useful after all,
now, don't It? Eh? Your classes are
more intelligent than ours, and yet they
would rather smash things than vote
things, don't you think now 2''
So he drops his eyeglass and looks as
though good thrashing would do him
good, don't you know.
That our people should prefer to act as a
mob, rather than as a majority, is a boint
often raised by foreigners. They cannot
understand why so large a class as union
workingmen, well-organized, intelligent,
and with q form of government long
striven for all over the world, should
turn from the mediums of legislation to
xfgoldnRd lil-c a n J.
Y ou may explain that they do use the
Legislatures, but the answer is that in
their efforts made this winter and during
recent years in the different States and
In the National Legislature for class leg
islation, there has appeared the same
recklessness OF consequences, the same
mob acteriStlcs-dlsregard of equity
of sound finance, want Of deliberation,
thought, and reflection, and some passion
and tetishiSm.
Every throne in Europe has been
strengthened by the means chosen by
labor to execute its will and the incapac-
ity tor failure, at least OF the Government
promptly to restrain strikers from vio-
lenee and crimes. An army officer re-
marked that the resort to violence by
strikers never could succeed IN the long
-run. For he added, their disorgani-
cation and their consequent ability to
appear and disappear in several places
Buccessively, as they did in Chicago, will
be made a study by military men, to the
end that amethod Of maneuvering to de-
feat the skirmishers will be developed"
The success OF the Chicago strikers in
their guerilla warfare interested Euro
pean observers, but it has merely taught
ihe police and Government the necessity
OF preparing to cope with such modes of
contest in great cities. Foreseen. the
trained forces of any Government are
considered capable of meeting and de-
1eating street lighters. Thus none of the
ugly fears that have been aroused by the
strike come from the brief success of the
mob.
More significant is the doubt that has
spread abroad in the adequacy of the
democratic concessions to the people and
ia the ability of the republican form of
government to govern-that is to COM
pei all mon to achieve their ends in an
orderly, legal way, without resort to vio-.
lence. Conservative lroyalist and i'm
perial organs are jeering at the liberal
papers, asking whether the universal
suffrage demanded in Germany and Eng
land, and the equal suffrage teach and
every man one and only one vote striven
for IN England, is to satisfy the people
These Tory sheets can say with seeming
Justice that the subject is unit TO have
The ballot, since he still in America
goes behind and beyond It 10 carry out
his will. The liberal papers are either
silent or are apologizing. There is no at
tempt anywhere on the part of any organ
worth considering to justify force.
The snarchistic papers of Paris are
happy. for they say that anarchy is the
only solution for sociological and indus
trial problems. But the liberal papers
are eating humble pie. They say that
'.the people" in America have not yet
learned to use the ballot; that the exist
ence everywhere in America of 'sboss''
rnla shows this. by recalling the organi-