| Show POWDERLY AND GOULD LABOR AND CAPITAL IN the conflict between jay gould and the knights of labor the shrewd capitalist has come out ahead but though powderly has been checkmated check mated he stands high in the estimation of the public while his more crafty opponent has gained nothing in reputation by the contest that the chief of the kul knights gats was deceived by the railway kin king g is very clear tu to those who have watched edthe the progress of the dispute and have read react the correspondence between the parties which has been f furnished ur is hed T t to the press jay gould does doea in not a ot I 1 look well in the liht light li ht which pow daily has s turned upon him but practically he be has the advantage both in the issue of the struggle gle and in verbal controversy tro versy what can be understood from the letter which the master workman has addressed to the master capitalist but that the knights will combine against the latter personally and if they do is not the rich man entitled to the protection of the law Is he not clearly right in declaring that in such an onslaught the contest will not be between the knights and aad himself but bat between anem and the laws of the land we have no great admiration for the scheming plutocrat who has scraped raped up so much wealth by taking advantage of others but we cannot sh shut at our eyes eyes to the fact that in this controversy there is a powerful weakness in the midst of so much numerical strenz strength th and a solidity of ground under the little littler great wall street speculator that makes him well nigh impregnable the strike was very wrong to begin with even powderly has to admit that it was a reckless and unjustifiable movement all that has bas grown out of ia it although there way may have been breaches of good faith on the part of me magnates since toe the oe ginning of the outbreak is fairly c chargeable argel bleto to the needless strike the violer ce that has ensued is unjustifiable the brutal attack of the deputies and the loss ox of life that followed form an incident that is deplorable plo rable and for which the individuals engaged in the tragedy tragedy must and wi will III be held personally ay responsible but the begin of lawlessness was on the side of the knights they commenced the violence and the shameful conduct of the shooting deputies though not justified by anything that occurred was incited by the overt acts of the strikers in the first place if mobs had bad not endeavored to prevents prevent the regular conduct of business on the railroads the unfortunate occurrences that have resulted in death and misery would not have taken place here is the ane weak point in the ade controversy ersy on the side 0 of the knights of labor labor la in the correspondence and eions of the knights there is a great deal of striking rhetoric but a lack of practical policy that is quite painful ua take Pow derlys letter to gould and it will be seen that while it abounds in covert threats and references to thea power of the organization it does not state in any deti definite nite manner what gould is expected to do or abstain from doing he is a required to end the strike but how he is threatened wibb some terrible retribution if he does not but what so in the document denouncing hire him that was previously fulminated it was a piece ot fine ph renzy of florid rhetoric but it contained not a sentence of practical advice or information in jay goulds reply to Pow derlys letter there is a benned denned position and it is strong and consistent in reference to the lion in this respect it puts powder if lys a manifesto quite in ia the shade it is singular how inconsistent is public opinion in many instances ali AL th the blame of the labor troubles of the past few weeks is laid on the small shoulders hould ers of one little man and why because he is so enormously rich and has gained his money and stocks and bunds bonds by the exercise of an exceptional brain he has been successful cessa ua where others have failed they have tried to accomplish what he has been able to achieve and have either been unable to effect it or have on only y advanced part of the way on the road to his eminence of wealth his methods are not very different to many of theirs but he is shrewder has greater foresight more nerve in some things and Is not squeamish as to consequences he is perhaps not any more unscrupulous than thousands of smaller speculators who pass uncensured by the masses yet he is assailed on every hand the poor working man looks upon him as the cause of low wages the socialist thinks his millions ough guyhtto tto be divided for the general benefit schemers who spend their lives in scrambling for cash curse him because he has triumphed where they have been discomfited congressmen loin join in n the yelps of the crowd and one of them tem lawler of illinois thinks that hanging jay gould to a lamp post ost all of the labor troubles ties in this country all this is the most miserable kind of trash and displays a lack of common sense that is truly deplorable in the race tor gold and the gre greed edlor for wealth which is almost universal what is to be the goal and the final limiti limit s a man to be applauded who makes a million and another abathe who by similar means gains a hundred millions if the methods of the moneygrubber money grubber are to be blamed are they not as censurable in the small successes as in tile the greater under the existing conditions of society it is the boldest species of hypocrisy or the most venomous kind of envy or the shallowest lowest sort of inconsistency which assails jay gould because of his accumulations and of money he is no worse and no better than hordes of coldhearted cold hearted and selfish monopolists and employers of labor who pass without comment or figure as respected leaders in the great business world the rights of property are to be held as secure under abe laws of civilized nations as the rights of life and liberty the rights of labor should be as sacred as any every workman has the right to hold bold his bis abilities at a certain figure but he has not the right to use force td tc compel an employer to give him that to hinder his neighbor from laboring at af lower wages working people have the right to combine for tile the purpose of obtaining just or a share in the profits of their toll toil but they have no right to pr prevent event others from working when th they ey refuse to labor nor to stop bustness business destroy property prop eity or intimidate or commit violence against the capitalists the interests of employers and the e employed aloyed are mutual if this was thoroughly I 1 y appreciated appreciate ed and acted upon much trouble might be avoided A great deal of the difficulty that arises is through the failure of capitalists to understand that labor is human it is not animal nor mechanical men and women as workers roust must not be classed with beasts of burden useful merely tor for what they can perform at the least possible costs cost nor as machines that are set boing going to yield the greatest profits an and worked till the they y are worn out employers have social duties to perform they are con connected necked with their employed emp loyes by the ties that bind society they are all men and women affected by everything that tends to tile the general welfare the progress af of the masses is tor for the benefit of the advanced classes employers would gain fain by creating in the employed an interest in the business in which they are engaged in different ca capacities the tendencies at present u unless n s in rare exceptions are in the opposite direction the workman wants to make as much out of the master as he can at the least labor and the employer seeks to extract the greatest possible service at the least possible outlay there is no reciprocity on the contrary there is a perpetual conflict and this in tile the end is detrimental boboth to both parties and so to society and unless something is introduced trod to establish a unity of interests between capital and labor there will come a clash which will shake the world it is the great question of the hour the knights of labor are engaged in a grand work the intent intention loft of the organization tiou is excellent but it is liable to be turned into an en engine I 1 ine of revolution under wise reguel regulation tion it can be made a power for good in the hands of rash and aspiring demagogues it may be used to uproot existing exis ti ng institutions sti and spread anarchy and ruin its recent exhibition of numerical strength is significant of its possibilities but it has been a failure in ln results and shows a lack of definite resent present purposes that is a mark of inherent terent weakness money can be raised no ho doubt on the call of the master workman to help the strikers at st louis but what will be accomplished by feeding the men who have left their work it if their places are tilled filled by others and nd nothing permanent is effected we think powderly has shown himself to be a man of considerable ability and character and that his sympathies we on the side ot of right unit and equity but his threats amount to nothing and the absence of a defined object and a settled issue place him at a disadvantage in the contest with the shrewdest and most successful financier of the age |
