Ill-advised Action

Last week brought round the n8th birthday of the Republic and found the nation in the throes of the most despotic and unjust strike ever inaugurated in this country. Thousands of citizens were prevented from enjoying the holiday by the tieup of more than 125,000 miles of railway, as other thousands had been prevented from earning the hundreds of thousands of dollars which they would have earned had it not been for the strike - and for what? That one, Eugene Debs might gain a little influence in the settlement of a dispute between a few hundred of the employees of the Pullman car company and their employer. Contrast for one moment the underlying principies of this strike with the liberty of action for which the fathers fought more than a hundred years ago, and it will at once be seen that the strike is one of the' worst possible blows to the principies of liberty, then and since held sacred. The thousands and tens of thousands of workmen who quit work at the command of President Debs had no grievance with their employers. They were not dissatisfied with their wages, hours or rules, but were called out like the Hessians of the Revolution to fight the battles of strangers in whom they were not interested. But even the cause of these strangers has not been advanced in any degree by the millions of loss and the suffering entailed upon the strikers and their families. Besides the direct loss to themselves, they have demoralized commerce, made travel unsafe and wantonly destroyed millions of dollars of property of persons and corporations who were in no possible way responsible for the troubles between Mr. Pullman and his men. The idea that any body of men is justified in thecommission of such acts, at the command of any individual outside of governmental authority, is monstrous. It is contrary to the spirit of our institutions and cannot fail to react upon those who thus allow their action to be controlled. The great body of American citizens is always in pathy with labor in its demands for reasonable and just compensation for its services and its aspirations for what is higher and better, but in the present strike those engaged in it have gone beyond what that sentiment will approve or tolérate. Men have the right to quit work, but when they have walked out they have no right to assault and brutally use others who wish to work, nor have they the right to destroy property of any kind. The doing of these unlawful things places upon government, obligations which it is sworn to perform and which it dare not shrink. That the laws can and will be enforced admits of no doubt.