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Show THE CITIZEN ' 5 In view of the high cost of living it may be justified. Perhaps form of govrnment, a government by direct action and not by. the ballot. the workers usually would be prompted by a spirit of justice in making their demands, but the tendency would be the other way if they should obtain control of the government. BLACK SWORD OF DAMOCLES The railway workers are seeking to strengthen their position by. inACK of the race riots,' their furies and follies, is; the whole negro, government ownership and, through Representative Sims, have troduced in Congress a bill which would give ownership of the railquestion, which once again rises to torment the United States,. roads to the government and control of the government to the railBack of the madness of Washington and Chicago is the irrepressible desire of the negro to realize the freedom. which was won for him, at way workers. The bill was prepared by Glenn E. Plumb of Chicago, counsel for Gettysburg and Appomatox. the railroad brotherhoods. If it becomes a law the railways will be So long as the negro was uneducated, so long as he could fnot operated by fifteen directors five to be chosen by the President to move as a mass, so long as there was no element of unity,. so long. represent the public ; five to be elected by the operating officials and as there was none of that element which the socialists call class, five by the classified employes. consciousness, the negroes could express their feelings and assert their rights only as individuals. And just so long could they be denied The champions of the plan hold out to the public the inducement of lower rates without making it clear how lower rates are to their rights, lynched by white mobs and defied the privilege of right4e obtained if wages are to be maintained at a high level and ing their wrongs by the ballot. The will of the. mob seemed good to those whites whose intelliare to be divided between the management and the workers. Apparently there would always be a tendency on the part of the gence and moral structure never raised them above the level of mob management and the workers to divide as little as possible with the thought and mob desire. They reckoned not of a day of accounting. That seemed some far off eventuality of which they, need take no public. We read the buildings of extensions are to be at the expense of note. A new order is near for the 10,000,000 negroes and they appre-ciat- e the communities benefited, in proportion to benefit. This in itself it. They feel their strength and in their power they are no more shows which way the wind blows. Extensions into new territories are not profitable at first; therefore the public will be permitted to averse to mob rule than is the white. We read that even in the south the negroes are purchasing arms for defense. pay for them. During the war German agents tried to stir the negroes to reThe bill, however, at least makes a pretense of providing for lower rates. It provides that there shall be an automatic reduction bellion and succeeded, at least, in giving the worst elements among of rates when the employes share of surplus is more than 5 per cent the negroes a desire for change and revenge. Following the war the of the gross operating revenue. The protection to the public is by doctrines of Bolshevism began to spread among the .black as among the white workmen. Some of these doctrines are insidiously appealno means manifest, because there is no sure guarantee that the surbecause they promise that the negro shall be in every way thp. plus would ever be permitted to rise above the point indicated. ing There would be such a guarantee, perhaps, if the public were per- equal of the white when Bolshevism has triumphed. The black mitted to control the directorate, but the bill gives control to the worker shall join in the dictatorship of the proletariat. The black officials and the employes, whose interests, for the most part, would worker listens and is impressed, because he is told of negroes ruling be indenticle. The officials would support the workers for political in Russia beside Lenine and Trotzky. Occasionally spokesmen for the negro refer with pride and exultainfluence, positions and salaries and the workers would support the tion to the 100,000 blacks trained as soldiers in the war. It is an' officials for jobs and wages. they say, which might be mobilized for war against the whites It is true that the transportation workers were becoming more army, if the emergency should arise. and more a factor in politics before the government took control of Wild talk and wilder dreams, but to be .. expected in a world in' the railroads and it can be argued with force that they will continue ferment. Why should not the negro, partly educated and trained. to to be a political factor whether the roads are returned to the private mass action, dream of throwing off the old wrongs? They are owners or retained by the government. Their influence under private more hateful than ever because they are harped upon by black milownership, however, would be indirect and, therefore, less potent in lions conscious of a new solidarity. And so the virus spreads north, subordinating the public interests to class interests. south, east and west. of Federation American of the Frank Labor, Morrison, Secretary In the south the unseeing, those who wear the masks of states that if labors plan for operation of the railways is successful it can imagine no remedy save the old one. The old crime will be applied to all industries. must never be left to the courts ; hangings and burnings must conlooks is forward Bolshevism. is It socialism it This not merely ; tinue. That is the only cure, they say. But wiser men hear with class. a of of not but to control, government by only industry, increasing alarm the iteration of such teachings. They begin to In Russia the Bolsheviki argued that their rule was just because realize that in the new order of affairs it may be safer to concede 98 per cent of the people belonged to the working class. In our many things hitherto denied! If the free ballot will help, then will ' jfountry the percentage is equally high or higher, but here, as in Rusthey concede the free ballot. And they will work to stop lynching, sia, the class that is seeking to dominate is not the general working to give strength and endurance to a reign of law. And while they class, including farmers and all who work with their hands or heads or dream of these things their dreams are troubled by a spectre. Is it both, but simply an organized minority of manual laborers. too late ? they ask themselves. Can the problem ever be solved, can If we are to turn the republic over to any class we might find negro discontent and hatred ever be wiped away, by simply conceding labor tyranny no more onerous than plutocratic or aristocratic legal rights? Will not the fetters of social inequality continue to tyranny, but Americans founded their government and gave it the goad even when the shackles of legal inequality are removed? For the present, we take it, there can be no question of social the form it has for the very purpose of escaping class rule. They abolished a ruling class of foreigners and provided very explicitly in equality. The whites will not listen, to it. Even if they imagine it as a remote possibility they cannot think of it as tolerable in the their constitutions against class legislation. The labor proposal is not consistent with a government of the present. Neither rioting nor fighting can achieve that for the .black of today. If it is possible it must come from moral advancepeople, by the people and for the people. In the first place, its people slow and painful toiling up the slopes to the heights of civiobvious purpose is to rule by a means extraneous to the ballot. It ment, by lization. seeks to govern by direct action, by threats of strikes and political inThe nation itself, however, must assure the negro justifi&grEhej timidation. If the railway workers, the steel, oil, coal and the metal mining workers made themselves the link between government and old opposition cries of the. bloody shirt, black domination have lost their magic. In the days of reconstruc- industry representative government would be superceded by a soviet B - . i the-profit- s . " i Ku-Klux-is- m, . Carpet-lyvggjpfli- di . |