Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1902-10-13


themselves and their families to
starve. We ask the people to con-
slider the inconsistent conduct of these
men whose argument is that they are
the sole conservators Of public morals
and public justice.
Again, these men, so conspicuous
for their lack of good manners, de-
nounced their late employees as organ
ized w-breakers, and demanded that
the President send into their district
federal soldiers to enforce their views
by Furnishing this lawlessness with
the bayonet, and unless he would do
their bidding in this respect, they said
this government would be "a con-
temptible failure"
We note that these callers for troops
brush aside the cobwebs Of the law
by ignoring so much as the existence
of the judiciary, to say nothing of its
majesty and its power, and that but
q few years ago they were villifying
six and half millions Of their fellow
men, who never asked the government
for soldier, as contemners Of courts,
decriers of the law and anarchists.
But 1t is an undisputed fact that
these same operators have for years
been prosecuting their trade in flu
grant violation Of the law Of Pennsyl-
vania which forbids the combination
of the business of mining and trans
portation by one and the same person
or corporation,--a law founded on the
soundest grounds Of public policy; and
1t is equally unquestionable that they
are operating in open defiance Of the
so-called Sherman act, which is lev
elled at precisely this class of trusts.
And since their conference with the
President, these combined law-break-
ers are said to have called on him to
direct his Attorney General to begin
proceedings against the miners for
their disobedience Of this same Sher-
man law.
Upon such a state Of things in the
dawning of the new century, comment
is beggared. A combine insults the
head of its government for not sending
troops to put down another combine
Habitual breakers of law stigmatize
their government as "a contemplate
failure" for not using the military
arm to put down lesser offenders, IL
offenders at all
The results Of the intervening week
have abundantly verified the false
hood and insincerity of the coal oper-
ators farrago of insult and boorishness
at the White House.
The Governor of Pennsylvania took
them at their word. He sent all the
troops at his command into the dis
affected district. They have been
there several days; they are posted in
every point of vantage, and are in
complete control of the mining situa-
tion. The civil power is dumb, and
/ m rtinI a iIc fnv e+t tnI-
lers for law and courts announced at
the outset that they would turn all
offenders over to the military arm to
be dealt with. There has been no dis
order or disturbance to speak Of
not near as much as should be expect
ed from hordes of Eastern Europeans
strangers alike to our laws and law
abiding spirit, whom these same oper-
ators have imported hither in like de-
fiance of another law,--that against
the immigration of persons under con.
tracts to labor Bishop Fallows, who
has traversed the region with the
object only of learning the facts, says
there is no turbulence there. And YET
these men have in the interval mined
no coal, as they promised they would
If military protection were furnished
them; apparently they are making nc
move towards mining coal. Instead
they seem about to claim that the
Pennsylvania militia are not sufficient
in number to put down an insurrectior
which does not exist, or to afford pro
lection to laborers who do not wan
1t; and this claim they will make the
basis of formal demand for fedora
soldiers.
Meanwhile the operators can sci
their accumulated stocks of coal n,
prices enormously lucrative to them
but prohibitive to the poor consume,
and oppressive even to the well-to-do
The public as factor in the problem
Is ignored, while Its chief maglstrat,
Is laughed at for his endeavor to dt
something to relieve the distress o.
his people.
Mr.. Roosevelt pocketed the insul
thus put upon him. The man wh,
has exhorted the young to live