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THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
r ATLAXTA, QA-, 5 IOITH FOBSYTM ST.
ntered at the Atlanta Poatorflce as Mail Matter of
the Second Claaa
Jims *. G*AT,
Freaid-snt and Editor
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UDI 1 WEEKLY JUCRXAL. Atlanta. Ga.
Our Navy, as It Was and is.
Id response to an inquiry from Congressman
Williams, of Illinois. Secretary Daniels has given
an interesting account ot wuai has been done dur
ing the Wilson administration to strengthen Amer
ica's sea defense. Judged by the appropriations
made, the fighting craft built or authorized, the
number of men enlisted and by general improve
ments and economies, the Wilson record on navy
development is unparalleled and unapproached.
During a little more than three years of the Wil
son administration the total appropriations for
new ships amount to $655,289,806; the total dur
ing the four years of the Taft administration
amounted to $127,747,113: and the total during
four years of the Roosevelt administration
amounted to $83,192,938.
The need of navy increases, it is true, was not
so critical six or eight years ago as it became after
the outbreak of the European war. But, as Secre
tary Daniels aptly remarks, if Republican predeces
sors had shown half as much interest in strength
ening the navy as Mr. Wilson has shown, “it would
not be necessary now, in a period of high cost of
construction, to make such large provision as the
Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth Congress have been
forced to authorize in order to make up for the lack
under both Mr. Roosevelt and Mr- Taft.” Lately
Mr. Roosevelt ha£ roared for a big navy and, until
the passage of the Preparedness bills, he criticised
with his usual recklessness the Democratic naval
policies. Yet, when he was President he advocated
the building of only one battleship a year, and in
1907 he wrote in a message to Congress.
“I do not ask that we continue to increase
our navy. I merely ask that it be maintained
at its present strength."
To show the comparative number of vessels of
various classes built and authorized in each of the
three administrations. Mr. Daniels presents the
following table:
L U
2! w H co
Dreadnaughts 6 6 9
Battle cruisers .. 4
Scout cruisers .. a
Destroyers * 23 26 32
Submarines 20 20 57
Auxiliaries 6 11 14
Gunboats 2 1
Total 55 65 121
The significance of the Wilson record lies not
only in the number of vessels already authorised
but chiefly, perhaps, in the adoption of a continuing
program of construction whereby the navy will be
upbuilt through a period of three years in accord
ance with a sustained, far-sighted plan, instead of
by piecemeal as heretofore. This means that at the
end of the three-year period there will be, in ad
dition to the one hundred and twenty-one ships for
which appropriations already have been made,
ninety more vessels, including six dreadnaughts,
two battle cruisers, six scout cruisers, thirty-seven
submarines and thirty torpedo boat destroyers.
Furthermore, the adoption of the continuing pro
gram means that the funds appropriated will Im?
spent far more efficiently and produce far better
balanced results than would be possible through
disconnected efforts and expenditures.
In the number of men as well as in number of
ships and the amount of appropriations, the navy
has been strengthened beyond precedent by the
Democratic administration. Under Mr- Roosevelt,
seventy-five hundred men were added to the navy;
under Mr- Taft, three thousand were added: in the
first two years of Mr. Wilson’s incumbency, five
thousand, eight hundred and twenty-four men were
enlisted, and the increase now authorized is
twenty-seven thousand, five hundred. Further, as
Secretary Daniels points out:
“In emergenceis the President may make
the enlistment 87,000 as against the 51.500
authorized when Wilson was inaugurated. This
will b-» a sufficient number to man all ships,
which has not been possible in this generation.
The large increase at this time was made
necessary because former administrations
failed to enlist enough men to man the small
number of ahipt they constructed. There was
no organized naval militia, no provision for a
reserve and no civilian training when Wilson
became President. Provision has been made
for these, an indispem-able adjunct to an effi
cient navy.”
By authorizing each Senator and Representative
to appoint three, instead of only one, midshipmen
to Annapolis, the Democratic Congress haw pro
vided a remedy for the shortage of officers. A
fairer and more encouraging system so“ the promo
tion of enlisted men also has been established. The
increasing popularity and efficiency of the service
is evidenced in the fact that during the past three
vears a full quota of enlistments has been main
tained, re-enlistments have advanced from fifty
two to eighty-five per cent, and the number of de
sertions has decre sed from two hundred and
sixteen to fewer than ninety a month.
While the navy has fared more liberally under
the Democratic regime than ever before, it has also
been administered more economically. By insist
ing upon competition among armor plate manufac
turers. Secretary Daniels saved the Government
THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY. AUGUST 29, 1016.
upwards of a million dollars on one or two con
tracts. Tne same policy saved more than a mil
lion dollars in the cost of projectiles. By increas
ing the capacity of the navy’s powder-making
plaut at Indian Head, he reduced the cost of pow
der from fifty-three to thirty-four cents a pound,
overhead charges included. These and divers
other economies account for the criticism which
certain interests have heaped upon Secretary Dan
iels. His record of efficient management auu sub
stantial results is his best and only needed defense.
The system of productive economy which he has
inaugurated will be carried still further by the
Government armor plate plant and projectile fac
tory for which Congress has provided-
B> strengthening the navy and assuring its
restoration to a rank second only to England's, the
Wilson administration has rendered historic serv
ice. It has given new power and new significance
to Americanism. It has deepened the security of
every interest and every home in the nation. It
has provided a first line of defense adequate to the
country’s needs and worthy of its ideals.
What the Wilson Administration
Has Done for Farm Interests,
A particularly notable feature of the Wilson
Administration is its record of service to the
country’s rural life. Never before have the re
sources of the federal Government been applied so
freely or so thoughtfully to agricultural needs. The
program of such legislation, mapped out in the
spring of 1913 and now virtually accomplished, has
touched every important phase of farm activity
from the production to the marketing of crops. Not
only has It protected and promoted the farmer’s
practical affairs; it also has enriched his social in
terests and widened the horizon of his opportunity.
Among the earlier and more important of these
measures was the Smith-Lever Agricultural Exten
sion act providing for the employment of farm dem
onstrators and specialists in each of the two thou
sand, eight hundred and fifty rural counties of the
nation. Prior to this law, the Government had
spent great sums of money in ascertaining facts
and working out methods of agricultural value, but
it had spent comparatively little in placing this
knowledge directly before the farmers and in help
ing them to put it into practice Under the Smith-
Lever act this accumulated and ever-increasing fund
of discovery is being turned to daily, definite ac
count on thousands of farms the country over. Eight
million dollars annually thus is being used, or will
be when the system is fully in operation, for im
proving the methods and increasing the output of
American agriculture; and that fund is steadily be
ing supplemented by State and county contribu
tions. The resultant gains to the country’s produc
tive resources are beyond recokonlng. It is not too
much to expect, indeed, that within a generation the
producing power of America farms will be increased
ten or twenty fold by this measure alone.
The Administration did not rest upon this
service. It went further and established, as a new
adjunct to the Department of Agriculture, an Of
fice of Markets and Rural Organization. The fund
originally appropriated for this purpose has been
increased to a million, two hundred thousand dol
lars. The bboader problems of marketing farm
products are being studied with a view to prac
tical aid. Plans already are in operation for sup
plying the producers of perishables with a market
news service, and it is announced that similar
efforts in behalf of live-stock interests will be in
augurated this year. Such assistance will be espe
cially helpful to the South where the raising of
food crops and food animals has been retarded by
the lack of adequate market facilities. The local
efforts which are being made to improve condi
tions in this respect will be encouraged and ex
pedited by federal co-operation-
Equally if not more important is the Cotton
Futures act under which proper and dependable
standards for cotton have been established, the
operation of the futures exchanges purged of ele
ments that were unjust and harmful to the cotton
grower, and the sale of cotton placed upon a
fairer and firmer basis. This measure, which
passed the Senate unanimously upon a speech by
Senator Hoke Smith, will result in saving South
ern farmers millions of dollars which formerly
went into the pockets of unscrupulous speculators.
Whatever makes for the improvement and ex
tension of public highways quickens every Impulse
of rural progress. The Federal Aid Road act
creating a fund of seventy-five million dollars for
apportionment among the States marks an epoch
in the history of American highways. To share
in this fund, a State must adopt approved meth
ods of road construction and administration. Thus
a more efficient as well as a more vigorous sys
tem of road building will be developed through
out the country. Besides receiving substantial
aid from the national treasury, the States will be
induced to spend their own appropriations for
highways more thriftily. The developments thus
assured will enhance land values, facilitate mop
marketing and add greatly to the social as well as
economic advantages of rural life.
The Administration’s crowning service to agri
cultural interests is the new Federal Farm Loan
act. which has been aptly termed “the M«gna
Charts of American farm finance.” The establish
ment of the Federal Reserve Banking and Cur
rency system was of pronounced benefit to farmers,
as to all the people, particularly in the South and
West where the great crops of cotton and grain
have to be marketed. By making these sections
independent of remote financial centers, the Fed
eral Reserve system has done away with the ten
sion and restraint which once prevailed in crop
moving seasons; furthermore, by putting an end
to panics it has safeguarded farmers along with
merchants and manufacturers and business at
large.
But for long-term credit accommodations, with
farm lands as security, a special plarf was neces
sary As President Wilson expressed it:
“The need was for machinery which would
introduce business methods into farm finance,
reduce the cost of handling farm loans,
place upon the market mortgages which would
be a safe investment for private funds, at
tract into agricultural operations a fair
share of the capital of the nation, and lead to
a reduction of interest.”
All these purposes are served by the Federal Farm
Loan act. which enables every responsible farmer
to borrow, on easy terms and at a fair rate of in
terest. liberal sums of money for improving or pur
chasing agricultural lands and for meeting normal
business needs.
As agriculture is the foundation of our indus
try and commerce and prosperity, these measures
will enrich every field of the country's affairs and
promote the broadest well-being of its people.
Creating New Wealth for South.
“The operation of a meat packing-house
in this community for twenty months has
brought about marvelous results; if it can be
duplicated in manv localities throughout the
South, the thing we have been stirving so
diversification and successful farming—will
come without further worry.”
This remark by a Moultrie, Ga., correspondent
of the Manufacturers Record strikes the keynote of
a peculiarly important problem. The simplest and
surest way to encourage the production of food
stuffs is to provide adequate facilities for their
sale. The tyranny of the one-crop system has
been due largely to the fact that cotton was the
only farm staple which, in this section, could find
a ready and extensive market. As a consequence,
appeals for diversified agriculture and stock rais
ing, logical though they were, found slow accept
ance among the very class of planters who were
in greatest need of responding- to them. In a few
short years, the packing house has done more by
example than a decade of precepts could have ac
complished. It has changed the Moultrie district,
we are told, from an all-cotton country to a diver
sified country, and is steadily changing a credit
country to a cash country-
“The farmer that has no money sells a pig
and gets it. He does business for cash. It
has increased the bank depc sits 50 per cent in
less than two years. One town that had sl,-
300,000 deposits now has over $2,000,000.
Other towns have increased in like proportion.
It has increased the value of land nearly 100
per cent. Lands that were not selling at any
price, but were held at about S3O an acre, are
now being taken up rapidly at from S4O to SBO
an acre. Hundreds of farmers are coming
into this section because they can sell what
they raise to the packing-house. It has prac
tically doubled the mercantile business and
made it nearly all cash. I have asked hun
dreds of merchants what their business was
one and two years ago and what ft is now.
and the words of one merchant give the aver
age Increase- He said: “My business in Feb
ruary of this year was 90 per cent greater than
. any previous February, my March business
was 65 per cent greater, by April business was
35 per cent greater and my May and June busi
ness has been about 25 per cent greater.”
This record can be duplicated by scores and
hundred of Southern communities. The natural
resources are abundant, and the capital required
can be raised, for the most part, by local sub
scription. In a packing house, as in any industry,
there must be business discretion and efficiency;
reckless ventures and loose management will fail.
But there is no lack of competent counsel for those
who wish to enter this field of enterprise. The
growth of packing houses promises not only to
save the South millions of dollars which now drift
to distant sections but also to create billions of new
wealth.
The Deutschland Gets Home.
Safe in Bremen, the Deutschland has stood the
crucial test of her adventure. Her trip to America
was wrapped in mystery, the enemy having no in
timation of when she would sail or arrive. But
her homeward departure was glaringly bold. Just
beyond the three-mile neutral limit, hostile cruisers
lay in wait, and the approaches to her native waters
were keenly watched and snared. But she slipped
securely beneath all dangers and rounded to the
full her strange story of sea romance.
The skill and daring of Captain Koenig and
his crew are applauded everywhere. Germans
idolize him, Americans admire him, and the Brit
ish themselves ungrudgingly admit his sportsmanly
achievement. To say, however, that the Deutsch
land’s deed is a decisive blow against the Allied
blockade is extravagant. This submarine mer
chantman has demonstrated an interesting possi
bility, but it has not established a dependable rule-
Given enough time and enough undersea freighters,
Germany might, and probably would, succeed in
regaining a large measure of commercial freedom.
But a single voyage or several voyages like that of
the Deutschland does not mean a revolution in
present conditions any more than the path of the
first pioneer meant a speedy conquest of the west
ern wilderness.
Yet. the successful voyage of this submarine
across the Atlantic and back again marks an epoch
in ocean adventure far more interesting than Jules
Verne's prophetic fancy. Had German prowess and
ingenuity been turned, in the earlier months of
the war. to this brilliant field of submarine possi
bilities instead of being perverted to the
lawlessness that sank defenseless passenger ships,
many rancors would have been prevented and re
sults of tremendous importance might have been
achieved.
Quips and Quiddities
An inspector visiting a provincial school was much
worried by the noise of the scholars in the next room.
At last, unable to bear It any longer, he opened the
door and burst in upon the class.
Seeing one boy. rather taller than the others, talking
a great deal, he caught him by the collar, carried him
to another room and banged him into a chair, saving.
“Now, sit there and be quiet!’’
A quarter of an hour later a small head appeared
around the door and a meek little voice said:
“Please, sir, you have our teacher’"
* • •
A young colored man asked permission of his em
ployer to use the telephone, as he wished to speak to
a colored girl employed at another residence. Upon
receiving consent he explained:
“You see, it’s dis way: I loves dat gal an' wants
to ask her to marry me, but 1 ain’t got de grit to ask
her ‘word out of mouth,' an’ so I wants to use de
‘phone. I'll .lest call her U P- Hello! Is dat Dinah?”
“Ye-as.”
“Dinah, you knows 1 thinks a heap of you.”
“Ye-as.”
“An’ I bin tryin’ to make you think a heap of me.”
“Ye-as.”
“I more deh thinks a heap of you. I loves you,
Dinah.”
“Now, Dinah —I—er —wants to ask you if you will
marry me?”
'•Ye-as, indeedy! Who is dis what's talkin' to me?”
♦ ♦ •
”1 never saw a more industrious woman than that
Mrs. Crum,” the teacher remarked before the Kentucky
mountain boys and girls gathered at the school din
ner table. “Why, even when I meet her on the road
she pulls her yarn and needles out of her pocket and
goes to knitting.”
Teachers manifestation of surprise brought forth
a volley of ejaculations from the children, each of
whom had mother, aunt, or cousin who was equally
ardent at wool working.
"Oh," exclaimed one little fellow, reaching the cli
max of the discussion, “I had a grandmother who was
the knittinest woman J ever knowed. She used to
take her knitting to bed with her and every few min
utes she woke up and throwed out a pair o’ socks!”
THE next time your wife, your child, a friend,
one of your employes, or a stranger you cas
ually meet does anything that gives you a
feeling of satisfaction just speak an appreciative
word to the one who has pleased you.
Most people are too sparing of appreciative
words. And most people, unhappily, are alto
gether too ready with criticism.
When things go wrong they are prompt enough
in censure. When things go right, they seldom
take the trouble to bestow praise.
What they ought to do is to behave in precisely
the opposite fashion. Fault-finding tends to create
fresh occasions for finding fault. Appreciation
helps to keep people doing the right thing in the
right way.
The truth of this has never been more sugges
tively brought out than by an investigator, William
Vernon Backus, engaged in special study of human
conduct.
As he tells the story in a little book, “Making
Happiness Epidemic,” that is a real contribution to
wise living, Mr. Backus put certain questions to
hundreds of employers and employes. To employ
ers he wrote:
“Taking it for granted that you instruct your
employes to be courteous . . . how do you
ascertain whether or not they are courteous?”
The answer to this question disclosed that as a
rule employers give no thought to the compliance
of their employes with the instruction to be cour
teous, unless they receive complaints of discourtesy.
Then the offending employe is reprimanded or dis
charged.
To employes Mr. Backus put the question:
No, pacifism has not broken down. This war
has not made Hague conferences ridiculous.
Everybody is not for preparedness and a big army
and navy. And we are not about to arm all the
little boys in school with rifles and teach the girls
to thrown hand grenades instead of bean bags.
On the contrary, every step the world is making
is toward the final abandonment of war.
If people have any sense at all they must see,
by the appalling example of carnage and cruelty
now going on in the fields of France, that war is
an expensive, absurd, revolting, maniacal, and ut
terly damned method of settling disputes between
nations. It is inconceivable that when Europe
leaves the flower Os her manhood bruised and
broken in the trenches and finds herself saddled
with a nightmare debt for many years to pay for
this orgy—it is inconceivable that she will not
have head enough to think a bit, and at the
conclusion of her thinking, be it ever so brief, to
swear by all the gods men "have ever believed in
that they will permit such gigantic folly never
again.
Europe would not listen to the pacifists. V hen
this war Is over there will be none but pacifists.
The people will then have to go to work and do,
after the war, precisely what the pacifists urged
them to do before the war: i. e. (1) Establish a
Hague court permanently; (2) back it up by a
military arm strong enough to enforce its decrees,
and (3) abolish excessive armaments for individ
ual nations.
There's no other way to do. They w>ll have to
do that. It is as sure to come as 1918. No think
er on earth ever conceived any other way than this
to insure the permanence of our civilization.
But Europe had to kill a few million folks
first and burn up several billion dollars worth of
property. Because Europe was in the grip of the
Past. It was choked by the Ghosts of dead I .^ fe>a3 -
And those Ghosts never let go without spilling
bl ° Europe had to learn in the bitter and expensive
school of experience what she could have learne
for nothing in the school of common sense.
Pacifism means Americanism, because it means
THE QUESTION OF STRIKES. 11. Strikes in the United States
BY FB.LDEMW J. H.AKXIX
WASHINGTON. Aug. 22.—The records of strikes
in the United States extends over 175
years. It is of something more than historic
interest. These thousands of strikes and lockouts are
not scattered and meaningless instances of industrial
bad feeling. They are parts of one whole, of one move
ment that carried the nation steadily along certain defi
nite lines until it brought us to the xery uncomfortable
position we occupy today. The story of American
strikes Is the explanation of the present situation, and
it is the nation’s best guide in forecasting the future.
• • •
The most erudite advocates of industrial war fare, aie
fond of tracing the story of labor troubles back to
centuries before Christ, when the washerwomen of Je
rusalem refused to wash, or the Israelites paralyzed
the Egyptian brick-making industry in protest against
an alleged insufficiency in the allowance of straw. La
bor troubles there have always been, of course, so
long as one man has worked for another, but these old
time difficulties bear no relation to the modern situa
tion. So far as we are concerned they are meaningless
and negligible.
• • •
Even the earliest American strikes have little bear
ing on the modern problem except as they show the
vastly different way in .which the position of labor is
regarded nowadays. Labor has wo n its present power
and dignity by organization and industrial war, and it
is little wonder that many men believe that both these
things are essential to the maintenance of its position
and to further progress.
• • •
Two centuries ago labor had little organization and
less power. When the New York baxers struck in 1741
they only succeeded in getting themselves convicted of
conspiracy. Sailors in New York struck in 1802 to have
their wages raised to sl4 a. month, and for the first
time in America intimidation was used to make other
men in the same trade join the strike. The leaders of
this attempt were jailed. A few years later a court de
cision declared that a combination of workmen whose
purpose is united action to raise wages is “condemned
by law." Shortly after that another decision stated that
journeymen confederating and refusing to work may be
indicted for conspiracy. It was at this period that the
terms “strikes" and "scab” came into general use.
■ • •
The situation was not encouraging to labor. Ameri
can courts were strongly under the influence of English
jurisprudence, and this was the period when judges in
England were throwing would-be strikers into jail after
lecturing them strongly •’or lawlessness and presump
tion. None the less, the first signs of the strength of
the new movement began to appear in a few minor
strikes that were partially successful in spite of the
conspiracy laws.
• • •
The state of industry in those days was so different
from what it became a few decades later that labor
had little chance. Most manufacturing was piece work
doni in little scattered shops or in the home, and when
the employers who gave out the materials and paid
the wages were hampered by strikes they could usually
send their work to some neighboring town and get it
done for the old price. There was no organization of
labor that went beyond narrow local limits.
• • ♦
The effort to unionize spread rapidly, however, and
in 1832 the merchants of Boston formed a counter
oi'ganlzation. which was one of the earliest organiza
tions of capital on record. Their platform was simple—
not to hire union labor. From that time forward the
industrial conflict developed slowly but steadily. A
far-sighted economist could have read in those begin
nings the troubles of the future, and a few of them
did read the signs of the times. But the mass of the
people refused to take the strike and lockout problem
very seriously. It took the great strikes of the sev
enties to awaken the nation.
• • •
By that time both labor and capital were compara
tively well organized. Though the organization of capi
tal did not extend much beyond the individual corpora
tion, and the number of union workmen was estimated
APPRECIATION PAYS
ax H. auihngton bkucr.
HAS PACIFIST B
“Why are you not always courteous?” .
Always, he tells us, the answers he received
were along these lines:
“It takes special effort to be polite under ad
verse conditions and the effort seemingly is nevei
p preciated. *
“Excepting in cases of complaint the employer
does not know, or at least shows no appreciation
of, the attitude of clerks toward the public.”
The cry of the modern business world is for
efficiency. Here, decidedly, is an efficiency leak
that had better be looked to.
Everybody knows that you cannot neglect a
piece of machinery if you would have it always in
good running order. You must tend to it carefully.
Especially must you keep it well oiled.
So with the human machine. It, too, needs to
be oiled. And appreciation is by all odds the best
kind of lubricant it can have.
Better far to ignore even a serious mistake than
to let a commendable deed pass without a word of
appreciation.
In the home, in the office, in the factory, in the
store —everywhere that men have dealings with
one another.* this ought to be a guiding rule of life.
Appreciation always pays the one who is appre
ciative. It makes for smoothness in personal rela
tions, it makes for efficiency, it makes for greater
effort by those who know that good work will be
apprecited.
Also it makes for that happiness of which all
men are in quest —happiness on the part of both of
the appreciator and the appreciaed.
Surely it is worth while to utilize at every op
portunity the dynamic power of appreciation.
(Copyright, 1916, by the Associated Newspapers.)
OKEN DOWN?
running a world by federation, settling quarrels by
delegates, courts, and responsible representatives,
and not by guns. And Europe is finding out by
hard knocks —which is the only way proud, stub
born and tradition-bound minds can find out any-
Americanize it. For if they don’t establish a
thing—that the only salvation for Europe is to
United States of Europe over there pretty soon
the United States of America will gobble up all
the trade, all the sturdiest population, and all the
moral force of the world.
The empire bugaboo drives these things away.
The federation idea attracts them.
This country is not hell bent for militarism.
It looked that way awhile. Shallow thinkers were
stampeded. But there’s no danger. The U. S. A.
has too much horse sense to jump into the same
ditch where Europe wallows.
The heathen rage, of course, and the people
imagine a vain thing.
The people of this country have outgrown the
poppycock and infantile bumptiousness of war, and
you can’t put a grown man back to the boy’s point
of view.
The people of this country do not intend to
make war on Mexico. The patience and forbear
ance of our present administration, characteristic
of conscious strength and intelligent purpose, is
overwhelmingly approved by a vast majority of us.
We don’t propose to send thousands of our picked
young men into a neighboring state to annex it
or gain "glory” by conquering it.
We don’t care for “glory,” thank you. All we
want is justice, order, and peace. We win fight
willingly enough to attain these, but that s all.
Not one bullet for conquest.
We are not going to “prepare” as Germany
prepared. We would prefer to suffer as France
has suffered. ,
No, the pacifists are not dreamers. They are
the most practical people; they are for federation,
which has worked, and not for militarism, which
has never worked.
They are not cowards, for they look and go
forward toward World Federation, and do not
scuttle backward toward mediaevalism.
(Copyright, 1916, by Frank Crane.)
at not much over a quarter of a million all told, class
feeling had begun to develop until the unity on both
sides was stronger than it seemed.
• • •
The great railroad strikes of 1877 were a remark
able phenomenon in many ways. The strike spirit
spread from city to city with a rapidity and a lack of
apparent reason that argued a highly disturbed state
of the public mind. The strike started in protest against
a reduction of wages on the B. and O. railroad, but in
a few days it was turning San Francisco upside down
in the shape of antl-Chinese riots. Many of the most
important eastern railroads were tied up, and there was
rioting and pitched battles between the public and the
militia in most of the big eastern cities. Lives were
lost on both sides In Baltimore and Pittsburg and Buf
falo, as well as in many smaller cities. Chicago had
big riots, and in St. Louis the police advanced on a
meeting with cannon. The general situation was com
plicated by miners’ strikes and strikes in a dozen
smaller industries.
• • •
A significant feature of the situation was the fact
that this was no general strike, but an epidemic of
more or less local troubles. The news of what was
going on in one city would reach another, or the em
ployes of one line would hear w’hat the men on another
line were doing, and with a remarkable promptness and
Ipontanelty another serious disturbance would break
out.
• • •
The lesson of the year 1877 was plain to be read,
but nd definite action to prevent a recurrence of the
calamity was taken. The importance of the disturb
ances was not under-estimated. On the contrary the
tendency was to regard them as epoch-making and
world shaking. But they were looked on like a volcanic
eruption or an earthquake rather than an economic
demonstration from which something might bo learned.
Broadly speaking, the strikes of 1877 were unsuccess
ful. >
• • •
The federal government at least recognized the prob
lem for what it was soon after, and in 1880 the bureau
of labor began to gather statistics on all strikes in the
country. This work was kept up for twenty-five years,
and the results are startling in the aggregate. In
that period there were 37,000 strikes and 1,500 lock
outs, with a high record of 3,500 strikes in a single year.
The biggest strikes of those years are in the memory
of most of us—the Homestead steel-workers strike,
when the strikers fought pitched battles with the
detectives; the Pullman strike of 1894 that tied up
all the railroads running out of Chicago and caused a
total loss to the country and the parties directly con
cerned of not far from >100,000,000. Since then we
have had the great anthracite strike that was settled
by federal mediation, the Colorado strike with its ac
companying war that is only just over, and scores on
scores of others.
• • •
The most casual review of the part that strikes
and lockouts have played in the history of American
industry shows clearly enough that our present prob
lem is not only the logical development of all that
has gone before. It could have been expected; it could
have been prophesied, not to the month or the year,
perhaps, but closely enough, that we would be con
fronted with it now, just as we can prophesjr today
with all assurance that unless we make definite pro
vision to avoid them in the future we will have other
and still more serious situations to deal with.
* * •
One point worth noting is that the older and
stronger the union concerned, the less frequent are
strikes in that trade, the more orderly is the way in
which they are conducted, and the more frequently
are the differences submitted to arbitration. But this
same strength of organization holds the potentiality of
commensurate national disaster so long as the possi
bility of the strike- exists. Sooner or later we shall
have to work out a system by which that possibility
is eliminated.
Well, it's life; we can t all be elected.
