Year: 1877

THE DUTY OF THE HOUR.


The present duty of all good citizens is very
plain. No discussion of the relations between
labor and capital is at all pertinent to the i'm
mediate crisis. The question of the highest
Importance, the one that Overshadows all Others
is whether we shall have order or chaos.
Whatever the strikers on the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad may have aimed at accomplishing, one
thing is certain they have succeeded III set
ting on foot a great demonstration against the
peace and good order of the whole coun-
try. That it is mischievous and dan
gerOuS, the reports of the destruction OF prop
erty and loss of life very clearly demonstrate.
That 1t can serve none but a damaging pur-
pose to those concerned in il, hardly needs be
pointed out to any thoughtful person, and
lacks only the lapse of few hours to prove.
The present duty is only to be cool and firm.
One fact will be generally recognized, that
this is not so much revolt of honest
labor against the tyranny of capital, as the
outbreak of idleness and vice which seize upon
the opportunity of disturbance OF the normal
relations between employers and employees to
inaugurate riot and anarchy, and make occa-
sion for plumber. The makers of mischief are,
in the first place, the demagOgues who under
take to represent the interests OF labOrlng
men without ever dong an honest days work
from years end to years end, and in the
second place, the vagabOnd class who embrace
this opportunity for excitement and plllagc.
These fellows will almost, with the writing
of these lines have had their brief day OF 1t.
such great and sudden ebulhtions of eXcIte-
mcnt and anger exhaust themselves Of Their
own force.


We are in the midst of what it Is reasonable
to hope is a final readjustment of relations
growing out of at least sixteen years of un-
natural conditions of social and business life.
We were wrong in supposing that with the alb
sorption of our volunteer army into the ranks
of citizens we were done with the war. We
are only lust winding up that great affair
with what we may confidently hope is the last
convulsiOn attending the settling down into
conditions of permanence and slow growing
prosperity This is the comforting feature OF
the present situation: that it offers an end to
the multitude of difficulties uns0lved III the
problem of eventual release from the entailed
disorders of a great war and an inflated cur
rency. Enlightened intelligence has already,
with some difficulty, but with admirable phil
osophy, cast up its books, charged over Its
losses and adapted itself to the changed con-
dltions. The unintelligent and unreasOnlng
masses are reaching the same result through
greater hardship perhaps, and with bltterer
struggles with the inevitable, but all the same
they are reaching it, and coming to fairer
understanding and a better holding ground.


The present disturbance of course must he
ouelled; the riot put down. Otherwise rs the
most angry Of the rioters must see, there is no
safety for life nor security for property. To-
dav the whole logic of the situation is tlat
certain number of men interrupt the business
and disturb the order and peace of the whole
country because they are unwilling to
have the employers of labor secure the
commodity they seek in an open and
overstOcked market. The common sense
of mankind is against the position of the
strikers. They are but strengthened for the
moment bv the accession of all the vicious and
bad elements in the community, which takes
the opportunity of the conflict for social erup-
ton and disorder. BY the same token, too,
they are weakened in the end, for the
better sense of society and the instinct OF
self-prese1vation are sure to rise up against
them. The troubles of this business seems
thick to-day, bat the people are sovereign, and
common sense is sovereign of the people, and
tbe philosopher can see the solution of all the
difficulty in the simple fact that we live III a
Republic, and are a Democracy.