The Nation.

[Number 1089

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purpose whatever, to. engage openly in the

work of destroying a man's business
extorting ransom from him to prevent its destruction, orto
fill his lifewith terror by
threats or denunciations, we cannot in -practice putany
limits to its power. Outside
thelawand
the Constitution thereare no
metes or bounds to the exercise of power, and
no possibility of tracing them. The Comtitution says tbat
man shall be deprived of life,
.
liberty, or property except bydue process of
Idw, andthat
even when -convicted of an
offence by due process of law, cruel or unusual punishmentshall not be inflicted, nor
excessive fines be imposed on him. It is
these provisions which make theUnited States
a free. country, and a more afAractive residence than Russia or Turkey. . They do not
say that a man may occasionally have his property-taken away from him, or have excessive
k e s inflicted on him now and then, or that he
may be kicked and cuffed on such conditions as
. trades unions may fromtime to time prescribe.
They say that nothing of the kind shall ever
take place, on any pretext what,soever.
Nor do they allow even judges or 'juries to
- intlict what penalties they please, or inflict
any penaltywithout
proof of legal guilt.
Everybody who is charged by the law with
the duty of doing anything unpleasgnt to any
citizen, has '+e extent of his power and
the conditions under which it may be exercised strictly defined. There is no discretion
left in the matter to anybody.
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When we get outside the law, and begin to

allow ever so little intimidation or coercion to
be pactised by either
individuals
or orgamzations for purposes of their own, we
begin a descent atthe
bottom of which
is,. arson, pillage, and
is anarchy-that
murder, revolvers, rifles, and bombs. Grant
. that intimidation may be practised in order
. to compel a manto do something whichhe
does not wish to do, by his rivals, or enemies,
or employees, andthe
amount andkind
of intimidation become'at once dependent on
the resistance hemay
offer, orthe greed
or unscrupulousness of his persecutors. If
distributing abusive handbills- about him
mi11 not suffice, he must have his customers
frightened into leaving him,
and
his provisions
stopped. If this will not do, he must be cudgelled, and his furniture
and
machinery
smashed, and his factory burnt. If the police
enable him
to disregard all these things, the
police must be shot or blown up. We see
illustrations of all these stages of descent in
the strikes of the past few weeks. Intimidation in-the hands of themore intelligent
-st.rikers. consists in attempts to destroy the
business of those who refuse to employ them
'
on their own terms, by trying to divert custom
from them, or, in other words, by simple
"boycott." In thenextgrade
it takes the
form of assault and battery and the smashifig of machinery andfurniture ; in the
.
next state, it consists in riotous and armed
assemblages declaring war against 'the whole
social organization:
It is mere folly to
suppose that we caninthis
country, have
a little lawlessness, or have lawlessness for
special occasions and no others. It is something from which communfties must abstain

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altogether i f they do not mean to drink deep

of it.
Alabama has had no troublewith boycotting
yet, but if this crime is attempted in that State
there will be no question about its receiviug
proper punishment. The last Legislature
passed the follo-wing " act to encourage industry the+Stateof Alabama":
" Any person mho shall, by force or threats of
violence to person or property, prevent or seek
to prevent any person, ikm,
corporation
gaged in any lawful business, who shall in
manner disturb, interfere with, or prevent the
peaceful exercise of any lawful .industfy,. business, or calling, by any other person mthm the
State of Alabama shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and on co&iction must be fined not less
than $dl
more than $500, and may
be
imprisoned the county jail or sentenced to hard
labor for the county or not more than twelve
months."
No State has yet been heard of which has not
upon its statute-book provisions which fully
cover the crime of boycotting.

.Bradstreet's' collection of

statistics of the
eight-hour movement shows that thetotal number of workmen engaged in it in ill parts of
the country is 335,000. The demand for
shorter hours has been conceded to 150,000
without a strike andto 35,000 after striking, leaving 140,000 still on strike or defeated. The trades. in whichthe movement
bas been most successful are those connected
with house building, agricllltural-implement
makers, 'furniture making, and machinery
building. These are trades not
subject
to foreign competition. In those which
are subject to such competition, either in the
way of exportation of the domestic product or
of importation of the foreign, the movement
has met ivith,little success. In some cases the
employers have yielded in consequence of contracts on hand which must be filled, but have
notified the men that they shall return to ten
hours when the contracts are completed, or
close the works. The whole movement is
in fact experimental. Tn, those branches of
industry which yield sufficient profit'to warrant
an increase of wages-for that is what shorter
time most commonly signifies-the increase
will be granted. In others it will not be
granted, or, if granted temporarily, it mill be
withdrawn hereafter. While a &reat deal
of loss always attends such experiments, there is nothing to be urged against
them so long
as
the rights of neither
party are invaded and the law is not violated.
The principal part of the loss proceeds from the
stoppage of machinery. A deduction of 30 per
cent. from the producing power pf the Pullman Car Works, for example, means much
more to the community than a reduction of
one-fifth of the laboring force. But this is no
valid argument to be addressed to a man who
prefers not to work more than eight hours out
of twenty-four.

be as silly and inaccurateas any of them.

When that affair blew over, liowever, he at
once recovered his wits, and the " secret circu:z
lar" which was printed on .Monday is really
full of "horse sense." To be sure, there is nothing in it which would not be mere platitude
in the mouth of any man but a Enight of Labor; but, coming from a Knight, afterall
that has happened andthe exhibitions the
Knights have been making of themselves,
it has an air of almost superhuman wisdom.
That it should be ngcessary, however, to give
the Knights such simple, homely advice,
Sounding so like the address of the Superintendent of a Sunday-school to troublesome
boys, shows what a huge job of edu6ation Mr.
Povderly has ufdertaken._ We wish him all
success in it, but must strenuously oppose the
suggestion of one of the Curtin Committee that
he should be allowed to revise the Constitution
of the United States. The pretensions of the
Knights have been sadly lowered since then.

The events of thepastfortnighthave

damaged other champions of labor besidesMr.
Powderly. Martin Irons has vanished from
the proud position he held for a few weeks.
He evidently dislikes manual labor as much as '
anybody, however, and does not mean, glorious
though it be, to do any more of it than hecan
now
going to d e
help. H e says he is
vote himself ,to '' lecturing and organization."
He received very large sums of money during
the strike, of which no account was probablyrendered to anybody, and he will perhaps work
out theamount
in denunciarions of capital.
Another great fall is that of O'Donnell. H e
appeared on the surface as a street ricter only
six weeks ago, and then had a short period of
great power and glory, in~whichhe threatened
to suspend all means of conveyance inthis
city, and hurled defiance at the G r y d Jury
and in fact the whole- American people, and
repeated poetry about the state of hisheart,
m d c a k e d a sheaf 'of greenbacks under his
wm. Now he is deposed as a traitor, and has
been deprived of allhis honors. E e is probably
comfortably provided for, but if &e had torely
on regular industry of any kind, the best thing
he could get would probably,be the drivership
of a bobtail car. There is nothing the cause of
Labor needs so much as distrust of the gift of
the gab ; and now that the funds of labor organizations are growing, there will be terrible
competition for the handling of them'among
the restless; windy demagogues who hate
honest toil, in all the shops in thecountqr.

The " private understandings " between the

Enights of Labor and their employers generally fill so large a space in the " grievances "
of the day, and lead to so much confusion and
Loss of time, $hat it, would seem as though
a rule should be promulgated by Mr.
Powderly or some other competent authority,
When Master-Workman Powderly is sensi- that in cases .of negotiation, arbitration, and
ble, he is very sensible: but when he is foolish, settlement everything should be reduced to
committees appointed
he can be as foolish as any fool in the country. writing, andthatthe
His motto seems to be to throw energy into to consider labor troubles of any kind
everything-good, bad, or -indifferent. In whatsoever should refuse to consider
theearlypart of the Southwestern strike, he anything not recorded in black and
When Mr. Powderly found
that
talked like a philosopher; but when he found white,
the strikers would notobey him; and thatthey the Enights at St. Louis would' not obey his
had to be humored, he shhowed that he could orders after-his conference with Jay Could, he
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