NEW YORK AGITATED.
The Excitement in the Great City—“The Dangerous Classes” Carefully
Watched—Getting Ready for Contingencies—Numerous Regiments of
Militia Ordered Out—No Strikes but Serious Apprehensions Felt—The
Internationals Active—A Great Communistic Meeting in Tompkins
Square—What They Demanded of Society—Gay Times at the Armories—Ready
Warriors without Foes to Face—Escaped the Danger.
In New York, as elsewhere in the country, there was a deep rooted and
widespread hostility toward the leading managers of the great railway
lines. Nor was this feeling confined only to railroad managers. In the
great metropolis are hundreds of wealthy manufacturing companies, which
have been gradually forcing down the wages of their employes, until it
was no longer possible for them to live. As to the railroad managers,
people very generally believed that they had conducted the business
intrusted to them too much for their own private advantage. But this
afforded no excuse for destroying property and stopping trains by mobs.
The conviction was universal that the four trunk railways from the
seaboard to the West had seriously crippled themselves by carrying on a
cut-throat war against each other in regard to the rates of freights and
fares, especially the former, and that this was the chief immediate
reason why they found themselves obliged to diminish the wages of
employes down to the mere living point, if not below it. But even if the
railway managers were highly censurable for these facts, their conduct
afforded no justification for riots that ended in incendiarism,
bloodshed, and robbery in a number of cities.
The sudden reduction of the wages of the railway employes, combined with
the fact that even at the new rates they could only get work part of the
time, fell heavily upon a vast number of honest, hardworking men; but
even this was no ground for riots or violence of any kind, which always
aggravate the evils they are designed to cure.
The city was full of men who were out of employment or working at low
wages. Tens of thousands of them were very poor, and the families of
many were suffering for lack of daily food.
It was a time for cool, calm reflection on all sides. The poor, who were
suffering, showed excellent sense in refraining from threats to
retaliate on those who were better off, or who, perchance, refused to
hire them at the price they demanded. Less prudence and justice were
shown by the wealthy and well-to-do classes who talked too much about
shooting down every one who did not think as they did, or act to suit
them.
It was not a good time for people to lose their heads.
It was not surprising therefore that the startling events occurring
elsewhere, should cause the people of New York no little uneasiness, by
a reflex influence on the vast hive of human beings who were scarcely
able to obtain a bit of bread to appease their gnawing hunger.
A careful canvass of the feelings and views of the employes of the New
York Central and Hudson River Railroad Companies, made on Sunday, the
22nd of July, 1877, revealed the fact, that there was a decided
disposition to join in a strike. Great dissatisfaction was caused by the
ten per cent. reduction of wages on the roads, which went into effect on
the first of July. The reduction applied to the wages of all employes
except those whose pay would be lowered by it to less then ten per cent.
an hour, a dollar a day, or thirty dollars a month. A hope was
entertained that a compromise would ultimately be made with Mr.
Vanderbilt, by which the reduction would be modified in regard to the
engineers. In such an event, of course, there would be no trouble. At
any rate the strike would not commence at the New York end of the line.
The New York Central was looked to for a beginning. The Hudson River and
Harlem men were dissatisfied enough to strike, but the New York Central
men must do the striking. An employe of the Harlem, about this time,
ridiculed the idea of any attempt at a strike anywhere on either of the
three roads. The Company was evidently prepared to spend millions rather
than yield, while the employes were too much disorganized to carry on a
concerted or effective action. “With the National and State Governments
against us,” he said, “and the troops and militia called out to defend
rich corporations, there are no chances for us poor men. Under any
circumstances,” he continued, “a strike on the Harlem road would be
futile, as it ‘ran nowhere,’ and it didn’t make any difference whether
the trains connected or not.”
A reduction of the wages of the engineers and firemen made a short time
before, was accepted with great dissatisfaction by some of the men on
the Morris and Essex Division of the Delaware and Lackawanna Railroad. A
further reduction would cause trouble, but the Company had not intimated
a desire or intention to cut down the wages any lower.
On the New Jersey Southern, everything was running smoothly, and the men
seemed disposed to accept what the officials were able to pay them.
One of the most intelligent engineers on the Erie declared that the
engineers had received no instructions whatever from the officers of the
Brotherhood, regarding the attitude they were expected to maintain
during the present difficulties.
Mayor Ely, of New York, held two conferences with the Police
Commissioners the evening of the 23rd, proceedings of which were kept
secret. It is now known however, that the conference had reference to
the proper preparations for any possible breach of peace in that city,
consequent upon railroad riots.
The National Guardsmen of New York looked for orders all day Monday, the
23rd, however, nothing was heard from Albany, and at the several
armories all was dark and silent, and General Shaler was at his home in
Jersey City. It was deemed best, in case of a call, to summons the
larger regiments, and regiments, too, the members of which would not
have any close feeling for the rioters. The first call was for the
Seventh, Eighth, Twenty-second, Seventy-first and Twelfth.
At the arsenal, Colonel Wylie’s aids were in readiness to prepare
supplies and ammunition in such quantities as might be called for. The
opinion of the officers seems to be that the troops ordered out at
Buffalo and Rochester would be ample for all emergencies likely to arise
along the western part of the Erie line.
The departure of the Twenty-third Regiment, National Guards of the State
of New York, from Brooklyn, for Hornellsville, created considerable
commotion, both in that city and New York.
An effort to force a strike among the cabinet-makers of New York and
vicinity was not very successful.
One prominent manufacturer reduced the rates of his employes who work at
“piece work,” seven and a half per cent., last Autumn. During the Spring
the rates were increased, but recently a reduction was again made. The
workmen employed in the manufactories, excited by the strikers on the
railroads, became greatly dissatisfied, and nearly three hundred of them
resolved that they would work no longer, unless they were given an
increase of twenty-five per cent. on the rates being paid them.
Accordingly these men struck. Mr. Herman, the proprietor, was in Europe,
and his manager, Mr. Lippert, told the strikers he could do nothing
until he heard from his principal. This was not satisfactory to all
parties, and a meeting of about one hundred and fifty of the workmen was
held at Harmony Hall, in Essex street, to consider the situation.
Meanwhile a large number of workmen, principally carvers and machine
men, returned to work, determined to wait for an answer from Mr.
Hermann. The meeting at Harmony Hall appointed committees to wait on
workmen at the various establishments in New York, Brooklyn, and
Williamsburg, to induce them to join in the movement. Later a meeting of
the strikers was held at Harmony Hall to receive the reports of
committees, which showed that but little success had attended their
efforts, the men at work in nearly every instance refusing to strike.
On Tuesday evening, July 24th, “The Bread Winners League,” an
organization of laboring men, met in New York, and adopted a series of
resolutions, in which they set forth that while labor is the foundation
of national prosperity, and represents two-thirds of the population of
the United States, it was powerless in the protection of its rights and
interests. Flattered by the two political parties, it had been betrayed
by both, and legislative and executive power had been employed in either
for the perpetuation of official patronage and enormous salaries, or the
creation and maintenance of railroad and other corporate monopolies.
They condemned, as well as lamented, the destruction of life and
property, but believed that officers of gigantic railroad corporations
were responsible for the acts deplored, by their oppressive and unjust
conduct toward their employes.
They believed that the last reduction of ten per cent., simultaneously
made through every section of the Union, indicated a combination among
railroad companies to pauperize labor, since they made no reduction
whatever in the fares of passengers, nor did they lessen the enormous
compensation enjoyed by their chief officers. That the lives and comfort
of travellers depended upon the intelligence and fidelity of engineers
and brakemen, and the exposure and danger connected with their duties
entitled them especially to public sympathy.
They further declared, that if the industrial and laboring classes
desire to protect their just interests and political independence, they
must be emancipated from party vassalage, and secure direct and honest
representations in the councils of the nation. State and municipal
authorities were in conspiracy and union with monopolies; even the
judiciary were under their influence. The instruments of corporations
notoriously become the Judges of the country or the leaders of political
organizations. Augustus Schell, Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall, was the
treasurer of the New York Central Railroad, and its accredited counsel
was a member of the Republican General Committee. The Directors, who, by
negligence or crime, steal the earnings of the poor from savings banks,
and render life insurance companies bankrupt, invariably escape
punishment, and under existing laws and their administration afforded no
adequate protection for either depositors or the insured.
They regretted that some of the newspapers of New York insisted that the
industrial classes should refrain from any expression of opinion on the
subjects then virtually affecting the rights and interests of labor.
Such a sentiment subjugated labor to capital, and provoked hostility and
distrust, and by reflecting on the intelligence, integrity and
patriotism of workingmen, deserved and should receive their united
condemnation.
A company of about two hundred and fifty men and boys assembled in front
of the Seventh Regiment armory, at Tompkins Market, at about ten o’clock
on the night of the 24th. They commenced to jeer and shout at the
members of the regiment, and a sergeant, in uniform, attempting to pass
through the crowd, was rather roughly handled. He retreated to the
barracks and procured a suit of citizens’ clothes. At the time he was
attacked he was going for powder to load the guns that had been placed
in position in the armory during the day. Captain McCullogh, of the
Seventeenth Precinct, with a platoon of men, succeeded in dispersing the
mob. There were no arrests made.
Some time later the mob gathered, about fifty strong, at the corner of
Third street and the Bowery. It was thought that they intended to break
into the Dry Dock Savings Bank. On the approach of the police they were
again dispersed without any great trouble.
A committee of engineers of the Long Island Railroad, had a conference
with E. B. Hindsdale, the General Manager, in reference to the proposed
ten per cent. reduction of their wages. The meeting was of quite an
amicable character. On the part of themselves, and the employes
generally of the Company, the engineers remonstrated against any further
cutting down of the present rates of compensation. The engineers also
expressed their dissatisfaction at the irregular way in which their
salaries had been paid. They had not been paid for the previous month,
and they complained that two months frequently elapsed before they got
the money due them. The conference resulted in nothing of a very
positive nature, but it was understood that the ten per cent. reduction
would not take effect for the present and that the Company would
endeavor to make arrangements providing in future for a fixed day in
every month upon which to pay the engineers and other employes.
Alfred K. Fisk, the General Superintendent of the road, said that
whatever difficulties existed between the Company and its employes, were
sure to be settled in a manner satisfactory to all parties.
On the 24th, President Martin, of the Park Department, called upon Mayor
Ely, to consult him relative to a request made by a committee of
laborers to hold a mass meeting in Tompkins Square, on Wednesday
evening, the 25th. It was understood that this gathering had been
arranged for the purpose of expressing sympathy with the strikers.
Police Commissioner Smith was also present at the consultation. The
Mayor said he had no objection to the assemblage, as he anticipated that
it would pass off in a peaceable and orderly manner. Mr. Smith stated
that he would make all necessary preparations so as to prevent any
disturbance upon that occasion. Mayor Ely was under the impression that
the trouble would be over in a very short time, and no danger whatever
need be apprehended in the city.
A very large assemblage of workingmen, sympathizers with the railroad
strikers, met at the German Assembly Rooms, in the Bowery, the evening
of the 24th. The place was noted as the resort of the disturbing element
in the city; the Communists having held frequent meetings there. At the
meeting that evening there were some three hundred people present,
mostly Germans, who gathered for the purpose of giving expression to
their sentiments on the pending troubles on the lines of our railroads.
These assembly rooms were kept by a brother of Alderman Sauer. They were
also the headquarters of the Liquor Dealers’ Association of the city,
who hold meetings about once a week if emergencies require them to come
together.
Justus Schwab was one of the leaders in the movement. There were no
leaders from other societies present. It was comparatively a spontaneous
demonstration on behalf of the suffering men on the lines of the
railroads. Schwab declared that if anybody talked about a man with a
family living on seventy cents a day he was a damned fool. “Whoever says
so,” to use Mr. Schwab’s expressive language, “I knock his brains out
right away.”
He thought the strikers perfectly right.
As to his own financial condition, Mr. Schwab was in doubt whether he
was worth much money or not.
As to those who sympathized in the movement of the strikers, there were
many respectable men. They did not want any fights. They wanted the
railroad men to have their rights. That was all. With seventy cents a
day to live on they must starve or steal.
The audience was at times inclined to be disorderly, but the officers
suppressed indications of a tumult. David Conroy was elected Chairman,
and J. E. Hall, Secretary.
Mr. Conroy, who belongs to the Horseshoers’ Union, on taking the chair,
said they were called upon to perform a duty to their suffering brethren
of the West. It was a struggle between exacting capital and impoverished
labor. Thomas A. Scott, of Pennsylvania, had reduced the wages of his
poor employes ten per cent. That man said, that ninety cents a day was
enough to support a man and his family. Mr. Hayes did not represent the
working classes of America. Let no man obey the mandates issued by him.
He was not President by the voice of the people, but by chicanery and
fraud. Therefore the people should not obey his proclamations. If he
attempted to call out seventy-five thousand men, they would all enlist,
and then let the President take care that he did not have to leave
Washington as Louis Philippe left France in 1844.
Speakers were nominated for the mass meeting on Wednesday night, and the
following were choosen: Mr. Cashman, of the Tailors’ Union, McLander
Thompson, and Mr. Winters to speak in English; Mr. Alexander Jonas, Otto
Wallstein, editor of the _Arbeiter Stimme_, and Justus Schwab to speak
in German, and Demorest, the Paris Communist, to make a French address.
Wednesday, July 26th, was a day fraught with anxiety to the people of
New York. The great demonstration of the Internationalists was to take
place in the evening, and what the result might be, no one could
foretell. The Tompkins Square meeting, was a theme in everyone’s mouth.
All knew that the request of the restless and semi-communistic classes
to improve the occasion and hold a public meeting in the densest quarter
of New York, had been acceded to by the Park and Police Commissioners.
The relative importance of New York to the rest of the Union could have
received no better testimonial than the telegraphic dispatches which
flashed into the city from every point of the compass, saying, in
effect, “If New York gives way before the mob, when will this thing
end?” “We are all looking to Wednesday night in New York, to know
whether this strike is a spasmodic affair, or a rebellion from
underneath.” “The immense population of New York is looked to by all the
disorderly elements for a final outbreak. Can it be prevented? Why do
your Police Commissioners allow such a meeting at this crisis?”
Such were the contents of despatches received by merchants and other
business and professional people in New York, and they attested the
power of such a city for good or evil upon the whole country. Smaller
cities trembled in apprehension of New York’s vast population rising up
against law and property: but in that city, as a general rule, the heads
of men were not turned. Nobody left town. Although the trains were
embarrassed on all sides of New York, the Paris-like life of the city
was illustrated, as every day in the week, by the presence of children
out of doors, and carts and omnibuses were running to and fro. The
beautiful Wednesday morning broke upon a bay as lively with shipping, as
full of ferry boats, and as streaming with national flags as at any time
in the history of the metropolis of the Western Hemisphere. Some
thousands of daily visitors to New York, who came in late at the
ferries, bantered each other when they landed, and ascended to Broadway.
They looked about them and said, “There is no look of riot here.” But
others, more timid, responded, “The mornings are never riotous. We must
wait until night to find our destiny out.”
Even in Wall street, that seat of gamblers, lofty or low, the general
inquiry was, “What will happen at Tompkins Square to-night?” Men
answered this question according to their temperaments, and it was
noticable that the ordinary business American did not bother himself
about prevention, trusting to luck that every offense against the law
would redress itself. Yet the stock market tumbled underneath. Bluff was
the game in that quarter of the town, and he would be a cheap man who
effected to shrink before the possibilities of a communistic mass
meeting.
At night, the lights began to gleam and glimmer in the quadrangle of
tall brick tenements surrounding Tompkins Square. The windows were all
up. Out of them hung women and children, and, in some instances, men,
viewing with eager interest the gathering of the crowds below. The
enthusiasm was not very great, but now and then, in guttural German
accents, or the more melifluous tones of “Old Ireland,” came expressions
laudatory of the workingmen’s cause. From none of the houses were any
banners exhibited, and the tops of the adjacent buildings presented no
signs of life whatever. But the sidewalks everywhere were crowded with
infantile treasures, adolescent youth of both sexes, and mature and
indifferent people of all ages and of all nationalities. It was
generally remarked that a more peaceable assemblage of people had never
come together.
The hurrying hundreds gathered in the naked, sandy square before dark. A
few societies marched in with red ribbons at their buttonholes, but the
trade societies generally kept away. So did the tramps and bummers. A
genial public opinion, the outcrop of the out-of-door hearty society,
protected New York from all forms of dead-beats and bummerism. The
working people were particular about their company.
On the gates and bars about Tompkins Square were posters printed in
large letters, which admonished the assembling crowds to stand still
where they were, and think before going further in the troubles around
them. An hour’s work may cost millions of money and hundreds of lives.
All the lives lost will not be on one side only, and the money will come
back on the people to be paid out of the taxes to be imposed on all.
Powder burns more than one hand when it is used.
Keep on the side of law, and keep the law on the side of laborers. If
they wanted to right their wrongs, they must keep in the path of right.
There was a great deal of talk about capital being the enemy of labor.
That was not true. Capital and labor must work together. The capitalist
and the laborer were partners in business, and it required good faith on
both sides to make business profitable. Neither can prosper alone.
They should beware of men who talk violence, riots and bloodshed. Such
were their worst enemies. All the expenses, and losses, and damages will
be paid by the city or State, and only add so much more to taxes. Every
workingman who talks about riots is preparing to lay more taxes on his
own shoulders. Times were hard. Would they make them harder? The best
way was to go to work, keep the wheels moving in all branches of
business, and avoid everything that makes an unfriendly feeling with
those who have all the risks of the business, both for themselves and
for workingmen.
Turn away from bad advisers, and, above all, “_Don’t unchain the
tiger._”
The meeting proved to be a very orderly and a very decent one. Mr. John
Swinton, who is in point of education and culture entitled to the rank
of leader of the New York Communists, made a speech characteristic of
the man and the occasion. He said that gazing over a sea of honest and
intelligent faces, gave him assurance that he was addressing no mob.
“You are,” said he, “as good as Henry Ward Beecher’s congregation, and I
think the comparison is rather in your favor. I think the Police
Commissioners did well and wisely in permitting this meeting to take
place, and Mayor Ely has won imperishable laurels by saying there was no
power in the constitution to prevent a meeting like this from taking
place. I speak to you in presence of eight thousand rifles and eight
hundred clubs that cover you. And now (here the speaker raised his voice
to its loudest tones) what is this social volcano that has brought us
here together,—this power that has one hundred thousand Americans and
one billion dollars within its grasp?”
“On one side,” continued the speaker, “we see the movement of workingmen
anxious only to restore the rate of wages to which they are justly
entitled; put back to where it was before the 1st of July; and on the
other hand we see the steady and relentless disposition on the part of
capital to cut men’s wages down so low as to make life a choice between
starvation and suicide. Glory to the militia who refused to fire on the
strikers. (Great applause.) Glory to the Sixteenth Pennsylvania, that
refused to be the accomplices of the murderers of the innocent men,
women and children at Pittsburgh.
There were perhaps ten or twelve thousand persons present. The
declarations coming from this meeting, were drawn by the ablest
representatives of the Commune in the country, and are therefore to be
regarded as the authoritative utterances of that element in America. For
this reason they are reproduced here. They read as follows:
1. That the Workingmen’s Party of the city and county of New York tender
their heartfelt sympathies to the railroad men now on a strike in
different localities in the country.
2. That we consider all legalized charter corporations, such as
railroad, banking, mining, manufacturing, gas, etc., under the present
system of operation, as the most despotic and heartless enemies of the
working classes. That their acts of tyranny and oppression have been the
cause of demoralizing thousands of honest workingmen, thereby driving
them to acts of madness, desperation and crime that they would not
otherwise have been guilty of had they been justly dealt by.
3. That as these chartered companies have been the primal cause of their
employes’ miseries and of their consequences, we hold them morally
responsible for all acts of violence that proceed from and are the
legitimate results of their tyranny and oppression.
4. That we view with alarm the growing influence and power of these
corporations over the legislation of the State and nation, and believe
if that influence continues, the executive, judicial and legislative
branches of the government will become totally demoralized, the rights
of the masses destroyed, and, instead of the voice of the people, the
power of the almighty dollar will become absolute and supreme.
5. That we do earnestly request and advise all the working classes
throughout the country to unite as speedily as possible for the purpose
of forming a political party, based on the natural rights of labor. Let
us make common cause against a common enemy. That nothing short of a
political revolution, through the ballot box, on the part of the working
classes will remedy the evils under which they suffer. That it is the
purpose of the Workingmen’s Party to confiscate, through legislation,
the unjustly gotten wealth of these legalized and chartered corporation
theives that are backed by the Shylocks and moneyed syndicates of Europe
and this country. That we love law and order, peace and tranquility,
justice and righteousness above all else, and deprecate, anything and
everything that will pervert them, and that we are ever ready to give
our lives in defence of the inherited rights of man.
The meeting also moved an address to the President of the United States,
which, because of the part this element is attempting to act in American
politics, we place here in order all may know the spirit and purpose of
the Internationalists.
To RUTHERFORD B. HAYES, President of the United States:
SIR:—We, the workingmen of the City of New York, in mass meeting
assembled, acting from a sense of duty, and prompted by true feelings of
humanity and a sincere desire for peace and harmony in society, do
earnestly and respectfully call your attention to the serious condition
of affairs now existing and which have existed for some time past,
between the operatives and the officials of the mining and railroad
corporations in several States of the Union. The crimson tide of the
life blood of citizens, soldiers and hardy workmen, have already mingled
in sanguinary strife. The heavens have been lit up with the lurid glare
of incendiary fires that have reduced to ashes millions of property. Men
have fallen beneath deadly blows dealt by unseen and unknown hands,
until it seems that if evil days had fallen upon us as a nation. Three
millions of the bone and sinew of the country converted into wandering
vagabonds, and a large portion of those employed on the verge of
starvation. Do these evils, that have assumed such magnitude and
proportions as to necessitate the issuance of a proclamation on your
part to preserve the peace, come within the scope or jurisdiction of
national legislation? Whatever may be the cause of these evils, the only
remedy applied so far has been the hangman’s rope and soldier’s bullet.
Think you, Mr. President, these are effectual and permanent remedies
that will insure henceforth peace and good order in society? We think
not. Whatever cause produces these antagonistic relations between
employer and employe must be sought out and removed.
We address you, Mr. President, because you are one having great power
and authority conferred upon you by the Constitution. You are
Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the United States, and during
the recess of Congress they are at your absolute disposition. Need we
suggest to you the wisdom of extreme caution in the exercise of your
national military power, lest the breach of the peace be widened, class
feeling intensified and public safety more endangered? We think, Mr.
President, that the situation of affairs is of such an important and
alarming character that they justify on your part the immediate calling
of an extra session of Congress. These terrible occurrences and
disturbances between the employers and employes of mining and railroad
companies that have startled and shocked the community of late, involve,
as you well know, what is termed the relations between labor and
capital. Many are of the opinion that any interference or action on the
part of the government to adjust these relations are contrary and
inimicable to the genius and spirit of modern civilization and
republican institutions; that the function of the government is simply
to prevent any violent collisions in society resulting from the
antagonistic relations of these two elements performing such important
functions in the affairs of human society, and that throughout the
history of the world so far have been eternally at sword’s points with
each other.
LABOR IGNORED IN LEGISLATION.
Those who take this view of the matter seem to overlook the great fact
that legislation has always dealt with at least one of these
factors—namely, capital; and has almost entirely ignored the
other—namely labor; which is, in our opinion, the primal cause of the
present difficulties. Had legislation afforded the same opportunities
and guaranteed the same rights and privileges to labor that it has to
capital, these evil days would not have befallen us. When railroad kings
can build palaces to live in costing millions, and others die
bequeathing hundreds of millions to their children, and boast while
living that they never troubled themselves about the election of
representatives, but bought them up after they were elected, and used
them as a means to enrich themselves at the expense of their employes
and the general public, it seems about time to consider whether or not
legislation cannot confer some justice and rights upon labor as well as
privileges to capital.
We have always considered that law should be the synonym of justice. Has
not Congress the power under the constitution to govern and control, for
the benefit of the whole people, the highways, and water-courses of the
nation, and regulate its internal commerce and trade? Is there any
constitutional law that prohibits the State or general government from
controlling or supervising the mineral resources of the nation? Should
not also the telegraph system be connected with our postal department?
and last, but not least, a government monetary system established that
would supersede the present individual corporate banking institutions,
that are nothing more nor less than parasites on the body politic. All
of these chartered institutions exist by a system of dividends of
profits that proceed directly from the laboring classes. In their
efforts to make those dividends, the blood and marrow are extracted from
labor, until finally, maddened and desperate by the exacting tyranny of
capital, rendered ignorant and brutish by poverty, it resorts to brute
force and violence to redress its wrongs. It cannot be expected that men
acting under the impetus of starvation should act wisely or well, or
adhere to moral principle. The very individuals who are most loud in
their denunciation of the acts of the strikers, placed in their
situation, might do, possibly, if they had the courage, far worse.
We, as a class, view with alarm the growth and power of these gigantic
corporations. Wielding thousands of millions of dollars capital as a
power they are fast demoralizing and corrupting the executive, judicial
and legislative branches of the governments of both State and nation;
and the rights of labor and the liberties of the common people, if we
continue on in this course, will soon be swept away, (and here let us
state that W. M. Evarts, a member of your Cabinet, has recommended as a
measure of political reform in this State the restriction of suffrage on
a basis of a moneyed qualification, thereby offering a direct insult to
every workingman in this State); and when they are gone, the revolution
commences, and the emancipation of the white wages slaves of the North
will cost the Republic more blood and treasure than ever the
emancipation of the black chattel slaves of the South did, and God knows
that cost enough.
We look to you, Mr. President, to be vigilant in respect to our
interests and welfare, for the prosperity and perpetuity of this nation
rests upon the principal of justice to labor. Class legislation is the
ruin and eventual downfall of any nation. Hoping you will reply to us
through the columns of the public press, expressing somewhat your views
upon the situation,
We remain with great respect,
B. KAUFMAN,
G. WONTER,
A. WALSTER,
J. SCHWAB,
E. HALL,
LEANDER THOMPSON,
On behalf of the workingmen of the city of New York.
While the socialists were thus giving expression to opinions, at
Tompkins Square, another class of workingmen had assembly at Battery
Park, in vast numbers, and took part in an open air meeting which was
held there, under the direction of Reverend William H. Acres. After a
short discussion on a text from the Bible, Mr. Acres addressed the
workingmen present as to their duty in this present crisis.
He began his remarks by deprecating, in the strongest language, the
present contest between capital and labor, saying it would ultimately
recoil upon the shoulders of the workingmen, who almost invariably had
to suffer the brunt of such battles. He believed that the strike was a
foolhardy proceeding, that it was exceedingly ill-timed, and had already
caused the shedding of a great deal of innocent blood, and might yet,
for all that then could be said, cause the whole country to swim in
rivers of gore. Men, he said, had entered the strike, some with the best
of reasons, and some without any reason at all, but merely to give loose
rein to the unruly passions within them. As far as these latter were
concerned he felt convinced that the entire blame for the loss of life
already occasioned, as well as the immense destruction of property that
had been made, was solely attributed to their lawlessness, and he
regretted that these offenders could not readily be called to account
for their misdeeds. Mr. Acres then, in very feeling language, implored
his auditors not to suffer themselves to be inveigled into any falsely
styled sympathy with the present strike, and besought them to keep away
from meetings gotten up during the present agitation. These, meetings,
he said, were only forces which certain unprincipled men were using as a
means to foist themselves upon notice in order that they might make
political capital out of it. The projectors of the meeting which at that
moment was convening in Tompkins Square, were not, according to his
idea, honest and sincere men. He believed their object was to foment
discord and dissatisfaction among the workingmen of New York, and to
gain a wide recognition of their abominably communistic doctrine, and he
begged that all there, honest workingmen, would not give the slightest
countenance to the movement.
Mr. Acres then made a very fervent prayer, during which he implored
Heaven to protect the city of New York from the power of the ruthless
men that were seeking to destroy its peace, that it would kindly extend
Its all-powerful aid to the police and help them to maintain order and
quiet, and that it would soon cause the present difficulties to melt
away like snow before the beams of the sun.
The wisdom of the course pursued by the Mayor and Police Commissioners
of New York, granting permission to hold a meeting was signally
vindicated by the results of the Tompkins Square gathering.
From the beginning to the end of the meeting there was not the slightest
exhibition of a dangerous purpose on the part of the people, and
incendiary remarks, whether in English or German, fell upon the ear
stillborn. The orators had apparently lost heart. The stands were
thronged by many boys, and there was an utter want of the vim and snap
that characterizes an ordinary political meeting. It is not likely that
all this result was due to the fact known to every person on the ground,
that while not a policemen showed his uniform in the crowd, or invited
the slightest antagonism, five hundred sturdy men, armed to the teeth,
were within ear-shot, ready to sweep down on the instant, at any point
where a disturbance might occur, and nearly a thousand more were in
reserve waiting with ready hands to preserve peace and maintain the fair
name of the metropolis. The utmost good nature prevailed, the sidewalks
of the square rang with the cries of hucksters, women and children lined
the steps of the adjacent houses, or innocently elbowed their way among
the multitude, and faces generally wore anything but the expression of
excitement or anxiety which might be expected to attach to the occasion.
Of the ten or twelve thousand thus assembled, probably not more than
three thousand were actively identified with the trades unions and
International societies, and many of the former openly expressed their
condemnation of the attempt of a few men to create further trouble and
distress at this time. The bulk of the crowd was composed of people who
curiously desired to see what was going on, and took good care to be
sufficiently near the highways to make an early exit in case of a
demonstration by the police or military. The beer-sellers of the
neighborhood were evidently the only part of the community benefited by
this “great” meeting, while the surgeons at the several stations, who
doubtless expected an abundance of work, quickly folded away their
probes and sticking plaster and laid down to pleasant dreams.
This meeting over, New York became quiet. About the armories the
militia-men were enjoying life in a very agreeable manner. In two days
afterwards the soldiers were dismissed, and the great Metropolis was
restored to its wanted condition, happy in having escaped domestic
convulsion during the great strikes.