Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1894 — Strike is at an end. [ARTICLE]

Strike is at an end.

TRAINS AT CHICAGO NOW RUNNING AS USUAL. From Evory Direction Come Reports of Men Returning to Work, and Both Passenger and Freight Traffic Resuming Normal Condition.—For Arbitration. Trouble Is Over. The great railway strike is at ar end. In Chicago. Trains on all roads are moving. Passenger trains are again on time, and freight traffic is rapidly becoming regular. The railroad companies have called a halt in the importation of new men to take the places of strikers. They claim to have manned all the important vacancies with competent men, and that the operation of the various reads is rapidly assuming normal smoothness, it is said by the general managers that there are now enough applicants for w-ork in Chicago to supply remaining vacancies, and that no necessity exists for bringing in more men from other labor centers. On some of the roads it is pretty well known, though “officially” denied, that in the employment of men the strikers are b.-ing discriminated against. On other roads a more generous spirit prevails and the old men are given the preference, though without exception The companies say they will stand by the new men who came forward at the risk o' their lives (as they believed and took the pluces of the strikers. In the scramble among former employes to get back their jobs some amusing incidents crop out. The president of one of the largest corporations was running through the excuses piled upon his desk from employes explaining how it happened that they had not reported for duty the last two or three weeks, and found th'at out of 135 commiyncnions, thirty-two related to births in the family and the consequent train of sickness and misfortune. On comparing notes it was learned that the employing officials on every other road were overwhelmed with similar excuses, which led them to the conclusion that strikes have an extraordistimulating effect on population statistics. The epidemic of sickness in the families of strikers who want to get back to work is widespread and include s relatives of all degrees, from wives, children, mothers and fathers to thirty-.econd cou.ins by marriage or adoption. Quiet Everywhere.

Reports from all over the country indicate that the greatest labor disturbance which has ever occurred in this or in any other country is at an end, and it may bo said to the credit of the authorities that the trouble was suppressed with comparatively little bloodshed. Happily the struggle between the armed representatives of order and those engaged in defying law, destroying property and obstructing- the operation of the railroads centering in the great town of Illinois did not materialize to any groat extent. For those not disposed to reason the presence ot an army of 10,00 u men in Chicago had a quieting effect, as the troopers had orders to shoot to kill, when law breakers set out to burn and pillage the property of the railroad companies. Undoubtedly their presence did much to keep the turbulent in subjection. And it must be confessed that the regulars bore themselves like brave suldiers in refraining from shooting when provocation to do so was very strong. Cleveland tor Arbitration. It is reported from Washington that the President will appoint a commission, by the authority given him by the arbitration act of 1818, to investigate the iabor troubles at Chicago and elsewhere and report to the President and Congress. This determination on the part of the President was arrived at alter an interview with SecretaryTreasurer Hayes of the Knights of Labor, McGuire and French of ttie Executive Committee, and Mr. Schconfaber, who were introduced to the President by Senator Kyle, and who came bearing credentials from the American Bailway Union, the Pullman employes, and several labor organizations. After discussing the various features of the situation for more than an hour the President promise i that if the leaders would return to Chicago and use their influence toward restoring peace and order he would appoint the commission as soon as tho disturbances had ceased to such an extent as to render a careful, thoughtful investigation possible^

SPIRIT OF THE STRIKE. To Countenance Buch an Uprising: Would Be Dangerous to the Country. Just when the bituminous coal miners’ strike had been settled and it be- ! gan to look us if there wai some hope of the railroads being able to earn enough to keep them out of the bands i of receivers, the wheels on every road from the eastern slope of the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific coast were either actually stopped, or active preparations were under way to bring them to a standstill. Never wai the action of the railroad officials more important, never were the principles invohed more vi al. The annual traffic re enue of the railroids of the United ! States amounts to considerably more than a thousand million dollars: it was proposed to stop this revenue and in so doing to cripple or destroy every business enterprise throughout the count y which is dependent upon the railroads for transportion, while a few hot-headed labor * leaders settled a question of difference which ha I arisen wholly outside of the management of th? railroad companies th-mselves. It was absolutely of no consequence whatever whether the position taken by Mr. Puitman, or the Pullman Palace ; Car Company, was right or wrong; that question was in no way involved. To raise it to the dignity of a moment s j consideration is to concede that the leaders of an v labor organization have a right to stop the turning of the | wheels on 150,000 miles of railroad, while they settled a dispute with the manufacturer of axle grease without the liberal use of which it is, of cOurte, unsafe to move trains. Or they might pick a qua- rel with a car wheel manufacturer and then insist that all the wheels made by the concern should be taken off and replaced by others, before the trains would be allowed to run again. Indeed, these I propositions would be more reasonable j than the recent demand made, for there are numerous manufacturers of axle j and of car wheels, but with the exception of one other .company whoso car* are fully employed on a few lines, | the e are no sleeping or palace cars except those made by the Pullman Company. A prominent railway president stated the matter very tersely ! when he said: | The spirit of the strike, as I under it and It, is, by closing up the railroads and detaining travelers all over the country wherever they may be, to create a public opinion which will compel the manufacturing company to secure work and do It. no matter what the low may. With the i relations between the manufacturing comI pany and their employes the railway com- ! panies hare nothing- to do, and it la. none •f their business. That Is a matter which

ought to be adjusted by the parties lames dlateiy concerned. Hat precisely how stopping thousands of people on the arid plains of Arisons, and In the super-heated belt of the North<rest, many of them women and children, many of them travelers hastening to the bedsides of dying mothers. wives or children, many of them Invalids who may lose their lives by the exposure. Is to compel a manufacturing Company to find contracts to build cars and then build them. Is just one of those problems which the railway mind Is unable to grasp It la impossible to contemplate the i action of the many thousands of railway employes in blindly following the mandates of an irresp >nsible loalor, without a feeling of wonder and astonishment, to say nothing of disappointment and humiliation, which it inspire*. The only explanation that can be given is that they have done so because they are blind. But this fact only augments the duty devolving upon the managers of the railroads in resisting the influence of those who arrogantly assume the position of .-supremo dictators, and also in opening the eves of the poor, delude:! fellows who follow them. There is no middle ground for the railroad manager. To parley with, or in any way to recognize for a moment, the leaders of such a strike, would be a movement fraught with the greatest danger to the prosperity not 3 of the railroads throughout the country but, also, ts the country itself.