The Roanoke daily times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1895-1897, 1896-10-24
ADDRESS To RAILWAY EMPLOYEES,


Employees know this, and however calling
the yoke, they submit. They can do moth
ing else. Managers are no longer an
noyed with committees. Agreements
have been arbitrarily abrogated and men
reduced to slavish conditions. No doubt
some of these employees will deny these
statements. Their jobs will depend upon
their doing so. Corporation hirelinrs
will do likewise, but the facts nre OF
Pixies Peak proportions and defy success
fully contradiction. Not long since the
employees of the Plant system, at Snyan.
nah, Ga, repudiated and denounced the
American Railway Union. The company
prepared the statement and compelled
the employees to sign it under pain of dis.
missal. We have the documents to prove
the assertion. Can corporate despotism
go farther or the AMUSEMENT of employees
he sunk lower?
The election OF Mckinley means the
perpetuation of government by injunction,
the supremacy of corporations, and the
helpless, hopeless subsection of employees.
1t will not he confined to railroad corpor-
| ations in its enslaving operations. All
other corporations, trusts and combines
will claim it's benefcent protection. and
therefore all workingmen, especially
those who are organized, are profoundly
concerned in this issue.
EN-President Harrison and Bourke
Cochran, both corporation attorneys,
strenuously defended government by in
junction in their New York speeches. 1t
is worth millions of dollars to railroad
companies, and all comes out of the peck
cts of employees.
American railroads consist largely of
British gold and American labor. Gov
eminent by injunction crowns the former
King, and makes the latter his subject
The platform upon which William j.
Bryan stands is pledged to abolish this
despotic nsurpation OF judicial power,
and restore to railway employees their law
full right to resist reduction and injustice
by the lawful means provided by their
organizations.
The railway corporations are united
and have massed all their tremendous
powers to crush him. This in itself is
indisputable proof that he is the friend
of workingmcn. In saying this, the gem
uine keynote OF the railroad campaign
has. been struck. 1t startles like alarm
bells ut night. There is no installing
the issue. Its gravity cannot be over-es-
timated. 1t involves the very existence
of organized labor, the buwark and de-
Tense of workingmen against corporate ty-
ranny, which, if swept away, leaves them
shoru of every vestige of power, and to-
tally mt the mercy of corporate capital
The one federal judge who has proven
himself to be UNNECESSARILY above the
corrupting influences of corporations,
who has earned the confidence and graft
tude of all railway employees for his nm
yielding defense of their rights. upon
whose fair name there is no scar or blem-
ish, Henry c. Caldwell has declared that
the nomination of William j. Bryan is
the greatest since Lincoln. We heartily
concur in the declaration of this honest,
fearless and distinguished jurist.
In view of ...all of these facts-facts of
tremendous import which cannot be sue
cessfully controverted-we pledge our
united and unwavering support to Will
liam j. Bryan for President, and appeal
to railway employees and all workingInen
TO join with us in rebuking corporate ty-
! ranny which attempts to wrest the sacred
right of suffrage from employees, in abol-
ishinG government by Injunction and in
securing and maintaining every right of
citizenship vouchsafed by the consttu-
ton of our country.
EUGENE V. DEBS,
JAMES HOGAN,
SYLVESTER KELIHER,
r. NJ. GOODWIN,
NJ. j. ELLIOTT,
WILLIAM T.. BURNS,
Board Of directors American Railway
Union.