The Texas Miner, Volume 1, Number 29, August 4, 1894 Page: 5
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THE TEXAS MiNER.
A LESSON OF THE AMER!CAN RAtLWAY UNtON STRtKE.
ANY of our very best citizens with a pessimistic turn of mind
i V l fear the ultimate effect that the great !iberty we enjoy in
this country, will at some time prove to be a weakness that may
sap the foundations of our government. They do not fear
foreign complications, or think it possibte that any foreign nation
wit) ever attempt to overturn our republican form of govern-
ment. but they say when this country becomes densly populated,
when the line between capital and labor becomes stronger than
it is now, there will come a time that the poor and vicious
classes will so far outnumber those who have an interest in a
stable government, that then will come anarchy, then will come
the period where there will be no protection for property, the
time that might wit) make right, and that "they shall take who
have the power, and they shall keep who can." These good
honest people, who have such fears ever present with them, seem
to loose sight of the fact, that although enormous fortunes have
been and are being acquired more rapidly in this country in
business undertakings than history gives any account of, yet at
the same time, there is no country in the world where small for-
tunes and owners of small amounts of property are so numerous
in proportion to the population as in this country, and it is a fact
that cannot be truthfully denied, that in no nation in the world is
there as large a proportion of homes owned by different individu-
als in which the owners reside, as in our own beloved country.
There is no nation in the world that has in proportion to its popu-
lation so many small capitalists; look at the deposits in our sav-
ings institutions, that now reaches the huge sum of nearly four
billions of dollars. Travel for months and even years through
our wonderful domain, and in every town, in every hamlet, you
see ' homes" that are owned by those whom the roof covers.
Our farms, numbered by millions, are largely o.vned by the peo-
ple, who, by "the sweat of their brow earn then* bread."
If our pessimist friends wilt only calmly look over the situation
as it is they will see that there is as lictie danger of interna)
troubles, as there is that our government may be destroyed by-
foreign foes. We have just had an object lesson in the late
American Railway union strike that we can congratulate ourselves
upon- -thousands and thousands of working men had been worked
up to a great state of excitement and desperation, through the
efforts of aspiring and designing men, and by the influence that
thev had obtained through organization under the pretence that
the working men must organize for self-protection against capital
that furnished the means of labor, precipitated a more general
wide-spread suspension of labor than this country has ever
experienced. The hot-headed, short-sighted man that brought
this state of things to pass raised a whirlwind that was beyond
his control, and then came the era that these men who had vol-
untarily quit work, made up their minds that by force and by
violation of law and order, that they would not allow any other
men to work in their place and stead. Here at this point was
the opportunity of the lazy, idle, vicious, thieves, thugs and
incendiaries that always congregate where dense population cen-
ters, and under color of protecting labor's rights, began to pillage,
burn and destroy.
Some of our officials, whose duty it is to protect the commu-
nity, proved weak and utterly incapacitated for their position;
some others proved themselves to be of the same class as the
rabble, and then came the time when United States government
put forth its strong hand to stay the riots. As soon as the United
States troops came at the different poins riot and arson ceased,
good citizens breathed freer, rioters slunk out of sight and order
came out of chaos. Now, this was not from the show of over-
whelming force, for the whole United States army only consists
of about 20,000 officers and men, but it was because the rioters
and law-breakers knew that a very large proportion of the seventy
millions of people that compose the United States of America
were law-abiding, liberty-loving people, and that they would fight
for the government they loved and would be sure to conquer.
Parties may be formed, intense excitement created in order to
obtain supremacy, but when it goes so far that disorder arises
and consequent danger, then the good citizens say "thus far shalt
thou go and no farther"—and danger disappears.
READ PLA!N, HORSE SENSE.
T N a speech made in New- York city by Congressman Bryan of
I Nebraska on free coinage of silver, in order to plainly illus^
trate the demonetization of silver, said: Suppose wheat and oats
were the medium of exchange and were legal tender in the pay-
ment of debts, and suppose that the wheat crop was steadily de-
dling in the amount raised year by year and had been doing so
for thirty years or more- and the oat crop was steadily increasing,
and that the demand for wheat and oats for the purpose of mak-
ing exchanges was largely increasing, then if the people who
owned all the wheat wanted to have oats demonetized and not
continue oats as a legal tender, what would be the effect on the
price and value of wheat ? Would it be worth more ? Would it
buy more property? Would it make the laboring man work
more days to pay his debts and interest? Would it depress the
value of oats ? There is no person so stupid but what will
answer these questions in the aiifirmative. Well, that is exactly
what has happend in regard to gold and silver. Gold barons
have succeeded in demonetizing silver, and their gold and their
debts are worth more, and the owners of property and the debtor
classes are poorer in consequence. And any one that claims
otherwise is himself deceived, or trying to deceive you, most
likely the latter. You, our readers, in this matter are just as
good and able financiers as anyone; you know what fills your
pocketbook or depletes it, and the creditor well knows, that re-
ducing the volume of legal tender money makes his debt more
valuable to him in property—in labor. And you know that
your property and your labor becomes less valuable as the volume
of legal tender money decreases. All the goldbugs, monome-
talists, Clevelands, John Shermans and'all that ilk cannot make
us believe otherwise, and readers, don't let them make you believe
otherwise. And then let us act on our beliefs, and vote for no
man that is not in favor of the free coinage of silver at a ratio
of 16 to 1.
COMPLETE FAtLURE.
HT^HERE was a sort of panicky feeling among the lordly walking
1 delegates and austere grand master workmen and other high
and mighty individuals of a similar calling who have been so
much in evidence during the last fortnight. Every mother's son
of them appeared to be looking for some convenient and willing
substitute to whom he could resign his Wellington boots and
retire from public gaze. They were all anxious to talk for pub-
lication; and each was anxious to throw the odium of defeat on
some other fellow, and to tell how, if his advice had been followed
in the beginning, the results would have been far different. Some
; thought Dictator Debs had been guilty of gross mismanagement,
and some maligned Samuel Oompers, while others held that
Grand Master Sovereign was a traitor. Again there were some
who maintained a semi-defiant air and wisely wagged their heads,
saying that the end was not yet; that all this talk of surrender
and defeat was only a clever ruse to throw the uninitiated off
their guard.
Among the semi-defiant fellows was the Vice Grand Regent of
the Amalgamated Association of Beer Pump Repairers, who
declared his 400 followers were out on a strike to stay until
j ordered back by Debs. The supreme master of the International
Union of Coremakers took a similar stand, though each of these
great men had excuses to offer by the score as to why he had
fallen into the trap set by Debs, and how the whole thing had
been sprung prematurely.—[Chicago Tribune.
Now will follow the retribution, and the poor deluded followers
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McAdams, Walter B. The Texas Miner, Volume 1, Number 29, August 4, 1894, newspaper, August 4, 1894; Thurber, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth200476/m1/5/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Tarleton State University.