The record-union., 1897-11-21
SHOULD WORDEN HANG 2
VIEWS OF A NORTHERN CALI
FORNIA JOURNAL.
An Admission and a Dissent-Why
the Demand for Hanging
is Pressed.


AS one of the incidents of the great
| railway strike in the summer of 1891,
/ 5. d. Worden with number of other
/ strikers, blew up a trestle on the South
ern Pacific road near Sacramento with
/ dynamite. AS a result train was
! thrown into the slough and the engi-
| neer and several soldiers were killed.
} The crime was traced to WOrden, and
/ he was tried at large expense 10 the
| State. convicted of murder, and SEN
! fenced to be hanged. His attorneys APP
| pealed the case to the Supreme Court
and were not successful there. They
appealed to Budd for executive Glenn
| ency and failed. They then, following
| the example of Durrants counsel, ap-
piled for writ of habeaS corpus to the
| Federal Courts and on being refused
appealed to the Supreme Court of the
United States In due course of time
| the same decision Will be handed down
/ by that tribunal as came in the Dur
| rant case. In a few weeks at most,
| Worden must face the hangman and
| expiate his crime upon the gallows un-
| less something now unforeseen and ex-
| ceedingly improbable shall happen.
| The STANDARD" was one of the few
papers on this coast which did not en-
| courage to strike or take the part of
| the strikers The men who struck
against the Southern Pacific Company
| in '94 did it out of sympathy with the
| strikers in Pullman's car shops near
Chicago. The American Railway Union
| was foolish enough to order the rail-
| road to stop hauling the Pullman Sleep
| ing and dining cars. The railroad being
under contract to the Pullman Com
pany to haul its cars, could not side
| track them, and it would not have done
| so even If it had not been bound by
| contract. The demand was unreasona-
| bic, and against the interests of the
public. The road was paying its en-
| ployeS good wages and treating them
well. They had no personal grievance
against the company, and in every
sense of the term the strike was inde-
| fensible. The American Railway Union
| could have shown the sympathy of its
| members with the striking car work.
ers at Pullman by feeding and clothing
| them while they maintained their
strike against Pullman's tyranny, but
they went to extremes. They struck at
| their friend. The strike failed after it
had cost the people of this coast fully
| ten million dollars and caused the
death of a score of innocent people.
Worden was arrested, tried, convicted,
| sentenced. Should he be hanged?
recent number of the Sacramento
| Record Union contains a strong ar
gument against the execution of Wor-
| den.
After showing that the first requisite
of our civilization is order, and that the
| Gov ae,34o IcrJy
a redress of grievances, the editor says:
1T is not little astonishing that the
American Railway Union rebellion at
tracted and held the encouragement
and sympathy of the masses of our
people. A cowardly poltroon, exercis-
ing for the time the office of Governor,
vacated the executive office by his alb
sence from the Capital and covered in
his home at Pasadena Holding the
chief command of the National Guard
Of the State, he plead inability to reach
the Capital and his duty. The Mayor
| of the city, with demagogic cunning,
plead his inability to do anything, while
the Sheriff of the county took little
pains to conceal his qualification at the
saturnaHa of lawlessness which was
prevailing. With but one exception,
|
the strikers to believe in the high JUS
| tice Of their cause as full justification
of any lawless method. In the individ
ual thought crystalizes into aetion; in
public opinion, encouragement to law
lessness crystallizes into sedition and
murder The blowing up of the trestle
by Worden and his associates was the
logical outcome of the encouragement
| <4-bin oil hi
ness of governmental authority and the
open and avowed sympathy Of public
| journals created.
/ "Worden was simply the ignorant,
brutal, drunken tool of the time and it's
revolutionary spirit His diabolical act
was the crystallization of the lawless
| career entered upon by the American
Railway Union and the more indefensi-
| BILE lawlessness of its encouragement
in popular sentiment. Society arose
en- masse to say that the forcible deten-
ton of trains. the killing of locomo-
tives, the social disorder, the treason
able sedition of the time were both
right and expedient. Worden and his
accomplices interpreted all these things
on their own plane of ignorance and
violence. The law was silent It's chief
| executive was in hiding The pulpit
| was silent The press as rule TO-
mented the strife, and Worden, taking
| all of these things as the unmistakabe
| indications of the commendation of
/ lawlessness acted in accordance with
| his own murderous nature. The intelli-
gences above his own hissed him on to
deeds of violence as the owner of
fierce dog might direct the ferocity of
his brute to attack the passer-by.
Who were Worden's associates in
crime? He offered time and time again
to the attorney for the prosecution TO
| turn States evidence and give the
| names of all who had been associated
| with him. Not one of them has been
/ convicted; and yet he had associates.
THE same public opinion which en-
couraged Worden in his murderous
purpose now demands his execution.
The same administration of law, whose
! silence constituted an encoura cement
| to the defiance of all law now rise, in
the impotent and contemplate simula-
tion of majesty, demanding Worden's
/ life. as a measure of justice and legal
vengeance, and this pitiful, lame and
| impotent conclusion is the only after
math of the great railroad strike.
IF lawless man had turned a mad
/ dened bull into the streets Of the city
/ which in its blind and ignorant rage