| Show THE RAILROAD STRIKERS The news this morning from the striking strik-ing railroad employes is of a serious and alarming character The telegrams from St Louis tells us that LieutenantColonel Walbridge in response to a call for troops from Governor Mannaduke has started for Sedalia with two hundred and fifty of the militia with ball cartridges in their belts and trailing Gatling guns In Kansas there is as yet no call on the militia and it is gratifying to know that there will probably be no necessity for asking the Governorfto order them out it being feared that the presence of the military among the strikers may have an I irritating effect and lead to an armed i conflict between the strikers and troops and so an armistice for four days has been agreed upon and the troops are fifteen miles fret Sedalia A reduction of wages among employes whose salaries are meagre at best is a dangerous experiment in hard times The danger arises from the want of any sympathy sym-pathy between employers and employes High salaried and supcrnumerous officials arc retained and while they as well as section hands yard men shopmen trail j hands and the vast retinue it takes to run a railroad are subjected < 1 cYiie horizontal cut to them it is i merely the temporary loss of i < Te luxuries but to the rank and fiJ Ir it is a taking away from the supply of daily bread i gLabor unions have much to do with the i j discontent of the working classes in dull I times and they to enforce the full pay or no pay rule whether business interests can II give it without loss and complete failure or not Here again an entienie cordiak could often be arrived at if mutual respect and mutual dependence were understood as they should be Labor and capital are alike sterile without the union and cooperation coop-eration of each with the other j they arc interdependent and fall without the support sup-port essential to both The strike on the Missouri Pacific is itself it-self a momentous one and is already far greater than the great strike of 77 was at the some stage of its existence The strike of 77 was the spark that fired the powder trains with which the whole country seemed to be laid The disastrous consequences of that strike followed as it was by a wild saturnalia manned and ofliceied by the worst elements that society can produce are recurring to the minds of all today I and the question naturally arises are the street scenes of Baltimore and Pittsburg to be g one through again as well as the i uit1HJ t r lmcy o s rile as there was in 1877 But if it shall happen it will most likely be as universal in its spread and more disastrous in its consequences than that great strike on account ac-count of the presence in most of the large cities of the country of well organized organ-ized and numerous societies such as Communists Com-munists Socialists Nihilists etc How strange it is that men should cling so te naciously to the idea that the evils of social I so-cial systems can be cured by a complete destruction of existing institutions 1 Even Hertzen in the last years of his life which were spent in Switzerland in writing writ-ing to his Italian friend and biographer acknowledged the incompetency of Nihilistic Ni-hilistic and kindred organizations to correct cor-rect or even cope with the evils and inconsistencies in-consistencies of governments in modern times The burning of the Alexandrian library by Omar was not a cure for the currors of philosophy and the conflict of religious ideas no more arc are strikes and riots a panacea for business depressions and I hard times To suggest their cure is more difficult than to see their evils |
