The times., 1898-10-14
The Murder of the Miners.

The Murder of the Miners.
Those who consider what was the
primary cause of the appalling tragedy
in Illinois, in which a number of hard
working men with large families de-
pendent on them were ruthlessly killed,
must agree with Governor Tanner as to
the responsibility of the mine owners.
Here was a strike with all the usual
accompaniments. A body of men
whose toll is almost the severest
known to the human race-men
who rarely catch a glimpse of Gods
sunshine, and who are doomed TO
physical disabilities and an early death
by their underground life; honest men
they are, preferring this severe labor
for small pay in order TO keep alive
their wives and children, to an easier
criminal career-striking for a few
more pennies day. On the other hand,
men of wealth who may be right in af-
firming their inability TO pay more to
their wretched hirelings. The strike is
foolish, perhaps, but it Is the only test
of the truth of the employers conten-
ton. The latter may starve the poor
devils into submission, and no one has
a right to object. They have a legal
right to get other men in the place of
the strikers, and, perhaps, a moral
right, if they employ other men in the
same neighborhood or within easy
reach.
But 1t is forbidden by every law of
God, and should be by every law of the
State. that these employers should de-
liberately take steps which they know
must lead to the killing of the toll worn,
ignorant men, the fathers of families
that must be left destitute in a world
where there is only misery for the
women and little children who are
poor and fatherless. 1t was with this
knowledge that the mine owners hired
armed men of a private institution to
do what the instinct of humanity re-
strains the regularly constituted author
tiles from doing. If the laws Of man
permit this, the laws of God, of moral
ity, do not, and the statutes mock our
boasted civilization. Yet there Is worse
to come. In Alabama a class of con-
firmed and incurable negro criminals
is condemned to the same labor that the
honest poor of Virden perform to sup
port their families. Commonly there
are five thousand such criminals at
Birmingham, and when their terms of
sentence expire, they remain in the
neighborhood, terror to the commu-
nifty. The employers at Virden send to
Alabama for lot of these desperate
characters to take the places of the
strikers. Warned by Governor Tan
ner that this is an assault on the civ
! iliZation of the State, menace to the
peace and to the lives and property of
the people; warned that 1t must lead to
bloodshed. they bring the criminals in
| to deprive honest, hard-working men
with families, of their only chance to
earn bread. This great outrage, this
| dire wrong to the whole State, and es-
pecially cruel to the poor is done with
the aid of Winchesters in the cowardly
hands of the Pinkertons-and there are
many dead men in the squalid homes
at Virden and many widows and or
phan doomed to bitter tears and star
walton. Governor Tanner is thoroughly
TlSnl. w nelHeT leBdllS VI uOl, iIioTdlly
these mine owners are circulating mur-
derers, worthy of the penalty prescrib-
ed for that crime.
AS far as the responsibility of the
employers is concerned, 1t does not mat
ter what is proved against the miners.
To drive them into vagabondage, to de-
prive them of their sole means of sup
cot t,, l,a
circumstances that must surely lead to
bloodshed, and in doing 1t they assailed
the dearest right of the State. which
is the people in their organized capac-
ity. This is the right to protect itself
| from destruction, from deterioration.