OCR Text |
Show THREATEN ED BREAD RIOTS. The nows from San Francisco indicates indi-cates trouble in tho western metropolis. metropo-lis. Tho labor question is a serious one all over the country, and is especially so in San Francisco, where riot and Yioleuco have been threatened threat-ened for several months past. Some time ago a citizens' committee was organized to devise meana and raise funds for the unemployed poor. A free labor exebange waa talked of or really organized, but it did not result in remedying the evil. It could not supply work when there was none. The object that of bringing together tboae who wanted to hire and those who desired to work, without the ex pense of the customary agents was a worthy one, and that is all that can be said in favor of the free labor ex ohange ache me. The trouble in San Francisco, if it doee not extend throughout California, ia that there ia a surplus of labor. Who is responsible respon-sible for this Btate of affairs matters little now. The bone and muscle are there and necessarily idle, for the reason that labor cannot be found for them. The unfortunate workingmen should and muat be provided for, but it can only be by charity. In threatening threat-ening violence they only injure their cause by alienating whatever sympathy sym-pathy for them might otherwise exist in the community. The chief occupation of the unemployed un-employed men for many weeks has been tho holding of meetings meet-ings and listening to the un-wiie un-wiie counsels of such imprudent, impru-dent, hot hooded and ignorant demagogues as Dennis Kearney, the agitator. The papers have been crowded with accounts of these assemblings, assem-blings, but so far as, we have seen no one of the leading speakers has taken sane, calm, or considerate view of tliO situation. Ho plan for relief has been suggested aave tho desperate one of resorting to force. A warm feeling of pity for their and condition had beon engendered in the community, but every one of their frequent assemblages assem-blages haa had tho tflect of estranging popular sympathy to a greater or less extent according an tho meetings were more or leas threatening in character. When a man, no matter how pressing press-ing hia nesds, throws offthe reitrainle which aociety has placed upon him as ono of its members, and aeta forth Bhouting"brt!ad or blood," he becomes an outlaw, turning agaiust tteciely and placing himself beyond tho line inside of which his circumstances : would domand and recoivo feeling and charitable recognition. Tho unfortunate unemployed working-men working-men of San Francisco are tboir worst enemies when they heed tho words of the Kearneys. Such men cannot give good advico, and those who observe their counsels only do themselves and their cause injury. They had better throw off those unwiee counselors, and quietly and lawfully trust to the community for that aid which is far more likely to be exteuded without coercion than by menace or opan vio lence. We should be sorry to learn that tho poor workingmen had been guilty of any violence ; for that course could only result in bringing upon them greater burdens than those already borne by them. |