The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-08-31
The Wasted Opportunities OF Grover C.

ago that Mr.. GROVER CLEVELAND, Their
President OF the United States, fixed
his attention upon certain doings in
and about Chicago. There was strike
of railroad men in progress, in support
of a boycott that had been declared
against the Pullman Company at the
instance of some of its dissatisfied car
pentcrs, and a condition OF lawlessness
prevailed Railroad property was being
burned, violence and outrage were rife,
all State and local authority was set
at naught or defied and mob-rule was
in full sway.
The railroads whose property was
being destroyed whose business was
paralyzed and whose appeals for pro-
lection fell upon the dull ears of a vicious
and impotent authority, were several
in number. They were at the mercy
Of a mob whose worst passions were
unclaimed and which was led and domi-
mated by modern statesmen and recog-
nized leaders of the voting masses like
DEBs and SOVEREIGN These two were
as valiant and as patriotic as any Of
their kind that the nineteenth century
produced, but they lacked due appre-
citation of their opportunities and their
own inherent powers. They lacked
the twentieth century method, just as,
we fear, the Hon. GROVER CLEVELAND,
frowning at them from the National Capt.
tai, lacked the twentieth century sensi-
tiveness to his own political welfare.
What DEBs and SOVEREIGN would
have done. in the light Of these more
sophisticated times, would have been
to delegate the conduct Of the rioting
and numbering and burning to their
lieutenants and go themselves to Wash
ington and demand audience at the White
House. 1t is not difficult to imagine
the manner OF their reception by a
twentieth century Mr.. CLEVELAND,
keenly alive to their political possibili-
ties and animated by a subtle apprecia-
ton of their relation to the vote of or
ganized labor. We can see the horny
hand of toll crushed in grasp as good
again and the incisor-canine-t ricuspid-
disclosure of honest SYM
pathy, the outward and visible sign of
a heart ever ready to bleed for toll
when organized Then the pressure
of the bell, the appearance of the faith
full CoRTELYoU, and the swift despatch
of Geographic summonses to the guilty
myrmidons Of capital to appear and
plead at the improvised bar.
How easy now to follow, from their
vocations to Washington, the
stunned and Inundated r. r.
CABLE, c, f. PERKINS, 7. B. BLACKSTONE,
JOHN KING, NJ. j. CARPENTER, NJ. ID.
WooDFoRD, o, u. ASHLEY, A. b.
STICKNEY, SrrYvEsANT FISH, JOHN
NEWELL and $. Fl H. CLARK, Every
detail of their arrangement is familiar.
The thunder of the angry Presidents
awful voice as he confronts them with
their own ignominy as employers of
labor and hurls into their awakened
the depravity of their am
bition to control their own property
and enjoy the privileges and liberties
guaranteed to them by the Constitution
of the United States. It is almost posi-
BILE TO see his heavy and menacing hand
shaken under STICKNEY's nose as the
question reverberates through the
dramatically arranged bedchamber:
What would you say, sir, if | should
take my soldiers out to Cook county
and seize your roads and operate them
myself in the interests of the third party
to this outrage, the public? What
would you say to that, sir?" And the
almost inaudible reply of the unfortu-
nate STICKNEY: well, Mr.. President
if tho Democratic party is willing to
assume that responsibility, the sooner
you take and operate our roads the bet
teri" Then the creation OF tribunal
to try the unhappy prototypes of plu-
tocracy, to ignore the anarchy, bedlam,
riot and murder, and to find the plaintiff
guilty and award him heavy damages!
What an opportunity Mr.. CLEVELAND
threw away Think of the applause
Of the whole American public, suffering
for lack of railroads to ride on, and
rising in an irrepressibIe clamor of ap-
probation Of the man who had squelched
The Constitution, recognized" riot and |
outlawry, and rebuked the pretensions
)f property to statutory rights! Think |
" the overwhelming banking up of
ballots for another term in the White
House; the self-intrenchment in the af-
ections Of the emotional and ever CRATE
III masses Of the American people,
How primitive, coarse and unremuner-
tive in comDnriann uoe tho ,,o+hoeJ -