Year: 1877

Baltimore which has IN evil fame for col
lisions of this nature, appears to have been
equalled by busy and peaceable Pittsburg.
This news, like that of yesterday, indicates
that if there is anything that can certainly
aggravate the danger with which city
is menaced by violent and riotous
assembly OF its rougher elements it is the
attempt to preserve peace and restore order
with regiments of militia where fear and
individual irritation equally induce the in
discriminate use of deadly weapons. 1t is
noticeable that here, as before, the railroad
men, the presumed sources of oil the diff
Guilty, have no relation to the disturbance.
Some wild propositions are made at Wash
ington, it will be seen, as to calling out vol
unteers-propositions which probably en-
anate from men who would like contracts.


In its present aspect the trouble is very
serious. Railway traffic is paralyzed on
two of the great lines that connect the West
ern cities with the Atlantic seaboard, and
seriously embarrassed on a third. There
are disorder and revolt in five States, and
there have been Destructive and incendiary
assaults on property that exhibit how readily
the Communistic impulse comes up in all
disputes between labor and capital. Up
ward Of thirty persons have been shot in
the streets of single city and twenty
in another, and insurrection stands
face to face with authority and defies
its power, utterly inadequate to en-
force the law. This state of things
gives us glimpse of some very unpleasant
possibilities that underlie our ordinary tran
quillity. It seems to indicate that nearly
everything is better organized in, this coun-
try than the power that is nominaly author
lied to preserve order and protect property.
In the presence Of great combinations of
men the ordinary police is useless, the
militia is uncertain by natural sympathy
with the disturbers and because it fires in
spirit of panic, and ere the force of the gen.
eral government can be brought to bear the
trouble may reach such proportions
that the revolt could defy the force
of the United States for of our little
army the Indian wars and the danger on
the frontier leave a disposable remainder
too small to deal with the resistance of nil
that might make common cause with the
strikers by reason Of sympathy in their up
rising against what they call the Tyranny
of capital" Another unpleasant disclosure
is that the railway, the most important in
strument Of modern commerce, may at
any moment be lost to the traffic
of the country by dispute over
wages pushed to extremes through pas
sionate caprice or sense Of wrong on one
side, or by heartless greed on the other.


There are dangers that may readily be
exaggerated in any statement of the possi-
bilities of collision between labor and
capital, but that seem to have certain
grave reality in view of the experience of
the past few days.


Conflicts between capital and labor are
necessary consequences of the shrinkage
| that has been in progress throughout the
country. That shrinkage, the correlative Of
former imitation, had to be fully applied to
labor as well as to every other thing Of
value, and it is but natural that laborers
should oppose and resist the application by
all legitimate means. 1t is very likely that
the application has been made excess
sively in many instances; that, in
| the name of o necessary and inevi-


table reduction, the pay for useful


labor of the greatest importance has been
reduced to the starvation point. Railway
companies are the most likely to have prac-


tised this kind Of villany. They are ad-


ministrations in which there is no sympathy
81 x1,o1 1oho fOr tba III hot
corporations have no souls. 1t is not to be
supposed that institutions which have been


the centres Of the most gigantic invasions of
the rights of persons known to the age


would hesitate to trample dowIA their poor


employees if they believed them to be help


less. Engineers, .brakemen and fremen


have had ample experience of the spirit in
which their companies were disposed to
deal with them, and that experience has in
| spired their organizations for mutual sup
port and defence. These organizations are
their instructive effort to help themselves,


and have given to the disputes over wages in
| the railway interest an importance not at


tained by similar disputes in any other in
| terest These combinations are more sys-


tematic, logical and effective than any pre-


viously made by strikers. They are quite


unlike the rude devices Of mill hands, as


indeed might have been expected for rail-


way men are insensibly drilled into a con-


sciousness of method and cooperation, and


perceive more readily than any other men


the Importance of unity of action and the


means for securing it. Combination on


this scale began, we believe, with the Bro


therhood of Engineers ; and when it was


discovered that all the engineers in the en-


ploy of any given company were under
oath to leave their engines at certain


hour it was seen how completely great
| extension of that brotherhood must cripple
any company that got into dispute with it.
Dat if 70 a nion of on inaers Ia addod fha