The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1894-05-30
WEDNESDAY. MAY so. 1894.
A CONDITION. NOT ATHEoRY.

If we are to take the illogical but
fearfully persistent craze of multitudes
of people to march to Washington
merely as a symptom of a terribly fla
grant disease that affects the body poll
tic. no lover of his country can contem-
plate it without the deepest concern.
At first it was treated as new phase
of the tramp infection. and that the
hobos, as they are vulgarly termed,
ceased to be individual trsmps, but had
organized themselves and were breaking
out in the shape OF organized bodies.
But this view of the trouble soon gave
way to a more serious one. The move
ment became too widespread and too
prevalent to be classed ss q mere varia-
ton in the programme of ordinary vag-
abondage. The Eruption made its APP
pearance in too many widely separated
places and with too rapidly increasing
momentum not to cause people who re-
fleet to see that there was a deep and
serious underlying cause for this tremen-
dous manifestation of discomfort and
unrest.
As il the evidence of popular imps-
thence should be marked by the most
astonishing contradictions, simultane-
ously with this great movement of the
unemployed to reach Washington to pre-
sent themselves TO congress as concrete
and living petition for remedial legisla-
ton, we find that all over the country
A.. i Ii.
are inaugurated. One great portion OF
the laboring people are trudgng their
way through untold hardships and SUI
fering to Washington to procure legisla-
ton that will give the millions OF unem'
ployed work by which they can earn
enough to keep body and soul together,
while another immense division of the
labor class who are employed, go out on
strike for higher wages than they are
getting. This would seem an irrecon-
cilable anomaly if it were not for the fact
that the tremendous importation of
alien laborers into this country during
the fifteen or twenty years. reign of the
predatory rich had not inundated the
fields of labor with an overwhelming re-
dundancy OF operatives for any but the
most flush times.
But this anomaly not only leads us
face to face with actual domestic war in
the great populous manufacturing and
mining states, but gives more acute nc-
cent to the depth and extent of the dan
ger that lies underneath all these mani
festations OF discomfort The present is
not disease to be treated lightly. 1t is
seated and threatens to become chronic
The wsest legislation is required at this
time more urgently than it was ever re-
quired before. Not even in those dark
days that preceded the opening of our
civil war WAS more earnest, honest and
intelligent thought required to steer our
country through the great crisis that
confronted it. The pin esded men who
think that this movement can be
stemmed by the enforcement OF an ordi-
nance to "keep off thu grass" remind
us of an incident which President Lin
coin related to US in the White House
in 1864. He said that hen the war
had actually broken out he was over
whelmed with crowds of great men who
came to Washington to show him how
the war could be stopped. Among these
was Tom Corwin, Why" said he,
'just furnish me with train to go to
Richmond, and will see Davis and the
others and fix this thing up at once. Z"
"All right" replied the urbsne Lincoln.
Nobody wants to stop it more than l
do. | will give you the train" Cor
wins train started out, and when it
came to the Confederate lines the great
peacemaker got on top of a car and
shouted to the command that be was
going to Richmond to atop this "durned
foolishness." He got his reply in the
shape OF volley OF musketry, and
quickly ordered the engineer to reverse
his machine. The train returned to
Washington, but Black Tom had press
ing business elsewhere.
The very first thing congress should
do would be to pass law suspending
labor immigration to the United States
country over the uncertainty about
tariff legislation should be relieved at
once. No measure-howeve impoltic
it might be-could work one-hundredth
part of the injury which is now caused
by the uncertainty that hangs over the
country. Immediate steps should be
taken to form monetary union with all
the American states, and an act passed
providing for the free coinage OF silver
to 80 into effect ct once, or at least just
% soon IS a monetary union can be