The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1896-10-01

directed to pin Mckinley badges and
buttons on the conductors and drivers.
Mr.. Spindler has been in the employ
of the company three and half years.
His only offense was that he would not
wear a Mckinley button. 1T Is safe
to say" said MIR. Splndler, that more
than three -fourths of the street rail-
way employees in Chicago are for Bry-
an, yet they are compelled to join the
Mckinley clubs and wear Mckinley
badges or lose their jobs. / know what
/ am saying when / assert that three
fourths of the members of the street
railway Mckinley clubs, and so-called
sound money clubs, will vote for Bry-
an. They say they are compelled to
| submit to coercion on account of their
families, but when they get behind the
Australian ballot-box curtain they will
avenge the wrong"
| 1t has also come to the knowledge of
the labor organizations in Chicago that
a number of the railway corporations
have detectives employed whose busi-
ness 1t is to circulate among employees
and spot those who are talking for
Bryan and free silver. Whenever an
employe becomes spotted" by this Sc
cret political inquisition charges are
trumped up against him and he Is in
formed that his services are dispensed
with. In this way the corporations
hope to avoid charges of direct coer-
cion. Yet such is the reign of espion-
age and terrorism practiced by the cor
porate allies of Mckinley and Wall
street that thousands of employees are
forced to stihe their convictions, Join
Mckinley clubs and wear Mckinley
badges for fear that starvation to their
wives and babies may be offered as a
brutal alternative. They will avenge
the insult of monopolistic tyranny
when November comes.
A delegation of Chicago railway en-
ployes called at National Democratic
headquarters and Informed National
Committeeman Johnson that they had
been ordered to get ready and go tC
Canton tonight with the Mckinley rail-
way employees excursion on pain of be.
ing discharged in case of refusal. They
further claim that more than fifty Bry.
an men at work or the company were
thus forced to go to Canton.
And all of this Is free America, too
Such methods of coercion and intimi
datlon as here described, subtle ant
insidious, are more wicked and heart
less than II these corportlons SHOULD
|
I employees to go to the polls and vot
l for Mckinley at the peril of their lives
/, The spirit of American manhood woult
revolt and oppose physical resistanc
: on an equal footing to such an attemp
3 at coercion as that. But II is a thou
r sand times more difficult to resist tha
more subtle and inhuman species of in
I timidation that throttles the wives an
Z children of laboring men with hunge
n and cold and homeless wandering,
they do not assent to the conditions o
political serfdom imposed. But IL thi
kind of coercion Is more wicked It
more effective in arousing popular In
dignation against those who resort I
e 1t. An accounting will be had in du
= time. These guilty corporations ar
j laying up wrath against the day G
!, wrath. The time will come when thos
$ who would set up system of SLAYER
r here immeasurable worse than tina
. from which the blacks of the sout
e were liberated, at such an immens
= cost of blood and treasure, will
d brought to a strict accountability fc
:. their wicked and criminally selfs
= actions.