Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1877 — A REIGN OF TERROR. [ARTICLE]

A REIGN OF TERROR.

A reign of terror exists in many of the cities of the United States which is unparalleled in American history. The strike of railroad employes announced last week as having commenced in West Virginia and Maryland among those who were connected with the Baltimore and Ohio company has extended to other lines and grown to a magnitude that appalls every good citizen and every lover of order and law in the land. Disregard of constituted authority, destruction of property, violence, rapine and bloodshed have been carried to an extent in Baltimore, Pittsburg, Buffalo and other great railroad centers that calls to remembrance the popular entitles that have rendered French revolutions, both successful and attempted, so conspicuous for lion or. Property estimated at millions of dollars' value and hundreds

of human lives have been destroyed and it is feared that the end of trouble is not reached. The local police, assisted by state militia and even federal soaljery, haw been unable either to prevent lawlessness or to arrest offenders. All this mischief has grown out of a dispute between the managers of railroad lines and the men employed to run freight trains (passenger and mail trains have not been drawn into the quarrelnor been directly interfered with, except in a few isolated eases) — firemen, engineers, conductors and crews—about the amount of work required of them and the wages they were to be paid for it. The men refused to submit to have their duties nearly doubled and their pay decreased at the same time. They stopped working by preconcerted agreement, organized to forcibly prevent others taking their .abandoned places, and menaced railroad property, threatening its destruction if their terms were not acceded to. When the-, Jocal authorities were called upon to protect the rights of the railroad companies they found themselves powerless to cope with the strikers ; the governors of West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania sent tegiments of militia to support the police, ami finally were compelled to call on the President of the United States

for detachments <yf goveintUent . troops to suppress the formidable opposition which had been discovered. Al Baltimore an attack was made bv the strikers and their sympathizers upon a train load of soldiers who were about to leave ’ the city for the acene ot disturbance ,in an up-country town. The solJ diers were hooted, insulted and finally pelted with missiles and shot ' into by the excited mob. Some of i them were killed. Their exasperl ated officers ordered them to return I the fire of their assailants. A ' score of people, among whom were | women and children, fell, some killed outright, others more or less severely woqndedr-' The wildest confusion followed. Citizens of all clauses and coi.ditions sided with the mob and bitterly denounced tlie soldiery for rashness and barbarity. Nobody dartid to move the train out of the city, and die strikers were victors. At Pittsburg, last Sunday, a conflict - occurred wbiuh was even more serious than that at Baltimore. Nearly the

whole population of the city, capitalists and professional men no less than small tradesman, artisans and day-laborers, were found heartily sympathizing with the strikers,and encouraging them with their presence and counsel. “The railroad companies,” they said, “have dis-* ■criminated unjustly against our local interests; we are glad of the strike.” Where people want trouble it meets them more than half way. They do not have to hum for it very long. When the storm broke over Pittsburg it was more terrible than nature’s storms on the mountains that sentinel her around. More than a hundred people were killed and wounded. The companies of militia organized in the city, stacked their arms and refused to shoot down their neighbors, the regiments sent down from Philadelphia,were driven back and compelled to leave the railroad property at the mercy of the mob. It was fired, torn up, and battered down, until the destruction is estimated to amount to between three and five millions of dollars in value, including buildings, cars, engines, tracks and freights. At Buffalo one man was killed and several were wounded. At Fort Wayne the strike extended to the passenger trains, and none were to have run day before yesterday. At Indianapolis the strikers were firm, but quiet. Along the Pan Handle road the train men throwed oft' hand-bills announcing their determination to strike at Logansport' at 12 o’clock, Tuesday nigdit. The extent of this movement reaches almost all over the country east of Chicago north, and south to include the lines operated by the Baltimore and Ohio company. At first it was confined to the freight train men, but afterwards in some places they were joined by those on passenger trains, those in the machine shops, ami even the operatives in other Vfnllln»nsireyjtemeut har been felt throughout the infected district, in New York city, Chicago, Omaha, San Francisco, Kansas City, and the larger towns in the Southwest. Precautionary measures upon an extensive scale have, been adopted by the public authorities of Chicago to guard against belligerent demonstrations, and tiie papers of Tuesday morning indulged in such significant language as this: Chicago cannot afford a riot. Its people have too much at stake to risk the establishment of Communistic principles. An attempt at a gathering tor unlawful purposes will not gel beyond an attempt. Col. Torrence has under hip c0mmand......2,000 men to bear upon any mob that may rise. Bolton’s battery of six guns are in readiness. There are no blank cartridges The orders are to aim low. .........There will be no parley. The riot act will serve as an epitaph, and not as a warning There will be no fuss.

Much more of like character was published, but this is enough to show the feverish apprehension felt by some of the people. But Tuesday passed without disturbance ot the peace in Chicago. The strike, however, like a mighty tidal wave of the sea, swept over the city and seethed onward to the Missouri river. Not only did the men employed by the railroad companies stop working, but the epidemic included among its victims the sailors, cigar makers, planingmill operatives, and artisans of various classes. It is a .remarkable disturbance, i When it will stop or where end, no one can foretell. It has spread with fearful celerity. What at first i seemed no more than the refusal of a special class of workmen to labor until wrongs, fancied or real, were righted, a no extraordinary or uncommon occurrence, and which was sympathized with by even the most respectable and law-observing peo* pie, in ten days has spread nearly all over the United States, until it has become almost universal among the industrial classes where they are masked in considerable numbers. It invades the coal mines of Pennsylvania and the silver mines of Nevada; it includes railroaders and sailprs; men, women and youths, with assurance of steady employment during dull times, throw down their tools, leave their benches, and join processions that march through the streets of large towns and cities menacing property and angrily demanding more work and more wages. Business of all kinds, dull I enough before, is still more de-i

pressed. ' No transportation of freight is permitted on the main lines of railroad. All is fever, ex* citeinent, nervousness and fear. From and alter the 2d day of August, The UnION will be the cheapest newspaper not only in Jasper county, but in the state also, if city weeklies are excepted. Ils specialty is the local news of the county, which will be found more complete than can be obtained from any other source. Its peculiarity is its absolute independence, ami the earnest spirit with which it advocates such measures as it believes right and proper. It is free of party and fearless of men. Twenty-five cents will pay for a copy of it sent to any address thirteen weeks, (three months); fifty cents will pay for it for twenty-six weeks', (six months); one dollar will pay for it one year. These prices include the prepayment ot postage. The terms are cash —nothing else—in advance.

On the first page of this paper is published a letter of Hon. W. IL Calkins’, which defines his opinion of the President’s order prohibiting federal officers interfering with political conventions. The letter is explicit and outspoken, and the position taken is decidedly in advance of that occupied by the Republican pressoflhis congressional district or the state. The Colonel has placed himself in antagonism to thepress ofhis party. Will his constituents sustain him? He is certainly independent and fearless; we believe he is right in the essential particulars. . Twenty-one states of the Union will hold elections this fall which will occur as follows: Alabama and Kentucky August 6th; California and Vermont September sth; Maine September 10th; Colorado, lowa and Ohio October 9th; Louisiana, MastMvehuset ts; ■ Minnonota* M 4 ssiasippi, Nevada, New Jersey. New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin November 6th.