UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 
 Class 
 
 Book 
 
 Volume 
 
 33\,2>e 
 
 
 V x 
 
 Ja 09-20M 
 
 
 \ 
 
THE STORY OF THE STRIKE 
 
 AN EXPLANATION OF 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF 
 LAWLESSNESS OUT OF 
 A LABOR 
 
 ISSUE 
 
 C 
 
 ,v 
 
 i 
 
 0 
 
This Article appeared in the St Louis Mirror 
 of June XIV., M CM} That edition of the paper 
 was exhausted in two days , Demand Jor the 
 article has caused its reproduction in this form. 
 Its only merit is that it is the only fair representa¬ 
 tion by any publication of the conditions which have 
 kept St. Louis unpleasantly before the country 
 during six weeks of turmoil and tragedy. 
 

 THE STORY OF THE STRIKE. 
 
 ^SJL^SJL 
 
 T HE strike in St. Louis has but one merit. It is a 
 big thing and it implies a big town. When that 
 has been said all has been said. 
 
 The detail story of the strike, however, is not creditable 
 to the city, or to anyone in authority in the city, or in the 
 State of Missouri. 
 
 In the first place the demands made by the employes of 
 the road were extravagant and tyrannical. The employes 
 practically demanded the right to employ or discharge all 
 the servants of the company, on the cars or in the power 
 houses. There was no question whatever concerning 
 wages. 
 
 It is a matter of fact that, of the more than 3,000 em¬ 
 ployes, who made a demand that no self-respecting man 
 could accede to, not four men in ten approved the strike. 
 The strike was brought on by Mr. W. D. Mahon, whose 
 business it is to make strikes. The men in the street 
 railway Union voted to strike, simply because each was 
 afraid that a vote against a strike would make him tabu by 
 the others. 
 
 The Transit Company employed men to take the place 
 of the strikers. Sympathizers with the strikers, and, in 
 
 1 
 
some instances, strikers themselves, have blown up cars 
 and conduits, cut the wires, shot, stoned, slugged and 
 maltreated the new employes and passengers, stripped 
 women naked in the streets for riding in the cars, obstruct¬ 
 ed the tracks and assassinated policemen. 
 
 J* 
 
 The strike has degenerated into a riot, and the riot is 
 spread more or less over the entire city. Business has 
 been paralyzed in every line. Many people have been 
 forced to leave the city. Thousands have been deterred 
 from coming here. Citizens have been terrorized. In 
 some parts of the city the necessaries of life are riot sold' 
 
 to people who patronize the cars, Anarchy prevails, to all 
 
 u. 
 
 intents and purposes. 
 
 More men have been killed and wounded during the 
 strike than in most of the lesser battles in the Philippines. 
 The city is disgraced before this country and-the world, as 
 a community incapable of maintaining Law and Order. 
 Prominent citizens are under arms shooting down rioting 
 strikers. The situation, in an American city of 700,000 
 people, has not been duplicated save on four or five 
 occasions, in the draft riot, in New York, the Baltimore 
 riot, the Cincinnati Berners riot and the New Orleans 
 lynching of the Mafia. The state of anarchy, of a more or 
 less acute order, has existed for five weeks. And, writing 
 2 
 
on April 12th, the indications are that the situation will 
 grow worse before it grows better. 
 
 Why does such a condition exist in a city that has 
 always borne an excellent reputation for order, a city, 
 indeed, which has been supposed to be incapable of any 
 excitement, because of its intense lassitudinous conserva¬ 
 tism? 
 
 Jt 
 
 Conditions exist because of bad government. The 
 Transit Company, a consolidation of all the street railways 
 of the city, except one, is a Trust. The Trust was created 
 by the Democratic Legislature and approved by the Demo¬ 
 cratic Governor. That Trust took about $30,000,000 of 
 actual property and watered it up to $90,000,000, and the 
 capitalists in it have pocketed big profits on the deal. That 
 Trust was authorized by Democratic politicians elected upon 
 a rabid anti-trust platform. It was passed by buying legis¬ 
 lators. It was signed by the Governor only after such 
 maneuvres as indicated that some one got a “large wad of 
 money” for securing the signature. The signature was 
 said to have cost $50,000. 
 
 Furthermore, the Trust consolidation was accomplished 
 through a dicker whereby the Trust lobbyists secured votes 
 for a measure enabling an enormous increase of the police 
 force and an enormous increase of the police pay. The 
 Trust passed the bill to enable the Democrats to turn the 
 
St. Louis police force into a machine. The Democrats 
 passed the Trust bill in return. The people of the City of 
 St. Louis had no voice in the making of the law which 
 created the Trust. The people of St. Louis had no voice 
 in the making of the law which taxed them $600,000 per 
 year extra for a police force. The police force membership 
 was enrolled in the Jefferson Club as a sort of Tammany 
 Hall. The Democrats, denouncing trusts, organized the 
 Railway Trust. Then the Railway Trust helped the 
 Democrats organize the Jefferson Club Police Force Trust, 
 and finally the Railway Trust helped the Democrats pass a 
 law similar to the Goebel law in Kentucky to disfranchise 
 the majority party in St. Louis and put the election machin¬ 
 ery irrevocably in the hands of the minority. 
 
 & 
 
 As soon as all the street railways were consolidated into 
 a Trust it was inevitable that there would be a strike. The 
 Trust threatened the usual economies. The employes 
 began to organize. The men of the different roads, there¬ 
 tofore loyal to the heads of the different roads, saw that 
 they were made the servants of one gigantic combination of 
 capitalists. If capitalists could combine, why not labor? If 
 the capitalists could tie up the whole city in unescapable 
 coils of rail and prevent the construction of competing 
 lines, why could not the employes combine to protect their 
 own interests and, if necessary, tie up the capitalists? A 
 4 
 
strike was begun early in the year, but the President of the 
 Jefferson Club effected a settlement. That settlement gave 
 him great fame among the workingmen. It was the thing 
 that was going to elect him World’s Fair Mayor of St. 
 Louis. 
 
 The Transit Company, after accepting the settlement, 
 set to work to weed out the men who had been conspicuous 
 in organizing the employes—at least the street railway 
 men’s Union charges such action against the Company. 
 Besides, Mr. Baumhoff, the general superintendent, was 
 understood to be desirous of getting new men, and in 
 particular of getting rid of all employes professing a certain 
 religious faith. To tell the truth, the men’s main grievance 
 is Baumhoff. He assumed general superintendency 
 after the first threatened strike was averted and 
 
 he, it is claimed, broke faith with the Union. 
 
 The street railway union, the vast majority of its member¬ 
 ship being opposed to a strike, acting under the instigation 
 of an outsider, not an employe of any St. Louis road, Mr. 
 W. D. Mahon, promptly made a demand that the Transit 
 — Company employ none but Union men, that it suspend 
 from its service any or all men suspended from the Union, 
 that the Company suspend or discharge no man or men 
 without submitting the action to the Union. The Company 
 refused to accept the terms and the strike was on. The 
 Labor Trust was pitted against the Capital Trust. And the 
 
 5 
 
chief sufferers were people identified with neither Trust, 
 the traveling public, the retail stores, the merchants gener¬ 
 ally. The Company put new men on the cars to run them. 
 Then began the lawlessness. Men were shot and assaulted. 
 Property belonging to the Company was destroyed. Women 
 were denuded. 
 
 The police did not do their duty on the first days of the 
 strike. They did not arrest men for assailing the Com¬ 
 pany^ new employes. They did not disperse mobs. They 
 did not touch wire-cutters or track-obstructors. The 
 
 i 
 
 President of the Police Board, instead of enforcing the law, 
 came forward to arbitrate matters for the strikers. He 
 appeared before the officers of the Transit Company as a 
 special pleader for the strikers. He published statements 
 in the papers eulogizing the fine qualities of the strike lead¬ 
 ers. The lawless element took their cue therefrom. Was 
 not the President of the Police Board also President of the 
 Jefferson Club? With the head of the police force with 
 them as their special pleader, might they not do as they 
 pleased? With the President of the Jefferson Club pleading 
 for them, might they not assume that the Transit Company 
 would surrender its contention rather than incur the enmity 
 of an organization that had “fixed things” to get control of 
 municipal affairs? With the President of the Jefferson 
 Club on their side, might not the strikers know that he 
 
would do nothing against their sympathizers that would 
 lose him votes? In the earlier days of the strike, had not 
 the rioters and obstructionists seen that the police only 
 made a pretense of protecting the Company’s new 
 employes and property? Is it any wonder that.the lawless 
 elements grew more bold in their actions against the Com¬ 
 pany’s men and property? 
 
 S 
 
 The general public, at first, simply shrugged its 
 shoulders over the situation. The public knew that the 
 Railway Trust had been organized by bribery and fraud and 
 that the organization had netted the projectors millions upon 
 millions of dollars. The public knew that the millions 
 were represented chiefly by franchises for which the com¬ 
 panies consolidating had paid little or nothing, that the 
 wealth the capitalists were pocketing was chiefly founded 
 upon public property, that the public service under the 
 Trust dispensation was atrocious, that the indications wtre 
 that many employes were discharged, that the Trust 
 had control of the organizations of both political parties in 
 the city, and that the Trust could take care of itself. The 
 public at large was simply disgusted at the politics which 
 •r denounced Trusts and organized one, at the politics which 
 uses the Trusts money and brains to jam through an 
 infamous election bill and a police bill to transform the 
 police force into a political machine. The public became 
 
 7 
 
further disgusted when it became evident that the politi¬ 
 cians were playing the strike for their own benefit. 
 President Hawes was trying to pose as the friend of the 
 strikers and at the same time pretending to protect the 
 interest of the Railway Trust. He had fallen between 
 two stools, as a result of his attempt to straddle the issue. 
 
 The police force was increased under an emergency call, 
 but the increase did not diminish rioting. The slugging 
 and shooting and stripping became more general. A cry 
 went up for the militia. The shrimp Governor said nay. He 
 said that certain politicians opposed to him were fomenting 
 disorder, in order to defeat his partisans here at the 
 primaries. He implied that his enemies were prolonging 
 the strike in order to make his lieutenant, Mr. Hawes, 
 proceed against the strikers, and thereby lose votes. Also 
 his factional enemies were trying to bring about a condition 
 that would force him to call out the militia. If he called 
 ~~ out the militia it would hurt him with the labor vote. It 
 would show that he still believed in “Gatling guns against 
 Debs anarchists,” as he said in a letter to the MIRROR in 
 1894. Then along came a primary election and every 
 policeman was taken from duty in protecting cars and 
 passengers to serve at the polls, for the policemen were all 
 members of the Jefferson Club, and if they were not on 
 hand at the primaries the enemies of Hawes and Stephens 
 would carry the day. Then Mr. Hawes went to Kansas 
 
 8 
 
City, as President of the Jefferson Club, to attend a con¬ 
 vention. That left the Police Department without a head, 
 for the Chief of Police had been, and now is, under the 
 orders of the President of the Board of Police Commis¬ 
 sioners and the Jefferson Club. The lawlessness might 
 continue uninterrupted for all anyone cared, so long as the 
 political interests of Mr. Governor Stephens were not 
 neglected. 
 
 Then ex-Governor Stone, another Democratic leader, 
 came forward. A notorious railway lobbyist had exposed 
 Stone, who was fighting the lobby in politics, as a gum¬ 
 shoe lobbyist who “sucked eggs but hid the shells . 11 It was 
 necessary that Stone should be brought to the front, as the 
 friend of the workingman, for he is National Committee¬ 
 man for Missouri. A Citizens Committee had been formed 
 with a view to arbitrating the trouble between the Company 
 and the strikers. That Citizens Committee had succeeded in 
 getting the company to agree to take back 1,000 employes 
 at once, 500 later, and as many more as might be found 
 available,provided that none of the men who had been guilty 
 of lawless acts should be reinstated. The company agreed 
 to make no distinction in future against Union men. The 
 company agreed, in future, to arbitrate all its differences 
 with its employes. This proposition, under all the circum¬ 
 stances, was a surrender by the Company to the employes t an 
 
 9 
 
agreement to recognize the Union , a step toward the gradual 
 re-employment of the greater number oj the strikers , a con¬ 
 siderable recession from the original declarations of the Company 
 that it would not deal with the Union at all. When the Citizens 
 Committee had secured this much from the Company, it was 
 understood that the Grievance Committee of the Union 
 would accept it. Then appeared Governor Stone to make 
 a political play. He wouldn’t deal with the Citizens Com¬ 
 mittee. He waved that body out of the affair altogether. 
 Why? Because it the strikers accepted the terms it would 
 be the Citizens Committee that would get the credit for 
 settling the strike, and not ex-Governor William J. Stone, 
 who desired the kudos that it might aid him in his cam¬ 
 paign for selection as delegate-at-large to the National 
 Democratic Convention, that it might obliterate from the 
 minds of the masses the exposure of the fact that he, the 
 great anti-railroad and anti-trust, anti-lobbyist agitator, 
 rode on railroad passes while agitating against railroads, 
 worked in the Legislature for Trusts, and lobbied secretly 
 while fighting the lobby. Stone had his way. The Citizens 
 Committee disappeared from view. The Transit Company 
 sent its proposal to the Governor and that proposal was lost 
 for a day and a half. The strikers did not receive the pro¬ 
 posal in time. When it came before them, belated, the 
 Company had employed more non-Union men and could 
 not discharge them to make room for the 1,500 men it 
 10 
 
agreed to re-employ. Why did the Company’s proposal fail 
 to reach the strikers? If it had reached them the strike 
 would have been settled. I shall not state the explanation 
 rumored about town to account for the failure to settle 
 the strike on the proposal which got side-tracked in ex- 
 Governor Stone’s office. The ex-Governor’s explanation is 
 vague and confused and confusing. The salient fact is, 
 that the proposal went astray, and, as a result, the 
 negotiations for a settlement of the strike were declared 
 “off.” 
 
 The Mayor of St. Louis, when the strike began,crawled 
 into his hole and pulled the hole in after him. An ex-officio 
 member of the Police Board, he did not attend its meetings. 
 He is a Republican. The Board is Democratic as to all the 
 other members. The Mayor didn’t want to be present and 
 vote to use the police against strikers. At the same time 
 he wanted to make it clear that he was not in any way re¬ 
 sponsible for the failure of the Board to maintain the peace. 
 And, anyhow, what could he, a minority of one, do against 
 the other four members of the Board, all Democrats? He 
 “unloaded” on his associates quite cleverly, but, in doing 
 so, he evaded his plain duty as a city and quasi State officer. 
 He enacted a grand “jolly” for the benefit of the mob, and 
 also for the benefit of the Law and Order element. He 
 made no apoeal for the Law and Order, however. He said 
 
 11 
 
nothing. If the police earned execration for assisting the 
 rioters masquerading as workingmen, the Mayor was not 
 responsible. If the police earned execration for not sup¬ 
 pressing riot, he could not be blamed, for he was only one 
 man against four. But the fine dodge has not worked. 
 The public is aware of Mr. Ziegenhein. It knows him for 
 a tricky coward, for a selfish and sneaking schemer, for a 
 man who prefers to permit disorder rather than to imperil 
 his politicial chances by doing his plain duty. As Mayor 
 of the city he did not even have the gumption to issue a 
 peace proclamation, until riot had been checked by a 
 volley of “buck.” He poses now as the man who vetoed 
 the city ordinance which created the railway franchise 
 under which the big consolidation was effected. But the 
 ordinance he vetoed was passed over his head, and the 
 public well knows that, if he had wanted to do so, he had 
 the power to prevent the passage over his veto. The Mayor 
 of St. Louis has not been in evidence since the present tur¬ 
 bulence began. He has let things drift, hoping that all 
 the evil political results would fall upon the party opposed 
 to his own. He has made no attempt, as head of the City 
 Government, to suppress the disorder. He claims that the 
 duty devolved upon the State o fficials, but he is a member 
 of the Board of Police Commissioners, established by the 
 State, and he has not done his duty as a Police Commis¬ 
 sioner. The Mayor of St. Louis is simply an unspeakable 
 12 
 
dodger, demagogue and clown, and is as responsible as the 
 Democratic State officers, to a large extent, for the state of 
 civil war which exists in this community. 
 
 Under the law the Police Board has authority to com¬ 
 mand the Sheriff’s assistance to put down disorder. The 
 Police Board is Democratic. The Sheriff is a Republican. 
 Here was a chance to “unload” responsibility on the 
 Sheriff. He was ordered to assist with a posse comitatus . 
 The Sheriff responded. The posse comitatus was sum¬ 
 moned. There are about sixteen hundred men serving on 
 the posse. The Sheriff has got that many men to serve. 
 The Police Board couldn’t get 500 men extra to serve. 
 The Sheriff has got in his service some of the very best 
 citizens in town, in fact, the greater number of his appoint¬ 
 ees are men who have no interest in anything but the pre¬ 
 vention of riot. The posse has done some shooting. The 
 mobocrats are loudly vocal in denunciation thereof. Now 
 comes the political play in evidence. The workingman 
 was shot down like a dog. Who did it? The Police Board 
 is ready with its cry, “We didn’t doit. It was done by 
 the Sheriff. The Sheriff is a Republican. We are Demo¬ 
 crats. We are not in favor of slaughtering the working¬ 
 man simply for demanding an amelioration of his condi¬ 
 tion.” This is the way the Democrats “unload” on the 
 
 13 
 
one man who did his duty when called upon. In “unload¬ 
 ing” the responsibility for the killings by the posse , the 
 Police Board plainly lies. The Sheriff is serving under the 
 Police Board. The Police Board is willing to call upon 
 the Sheriff to kill people, but it evades the responsibility of 
 putting the riot guns in the hands of the Sheriff’s deputies. 
 The Police Board dodges its responsibility and makes its 
 play to the mob vote, but none the less the Police Board 
 has killed men for the Transit Company. And why 
 shouldn’t the Police Board kill men for the Transit Com¬ 
 pany, for it is rumored about town that one or more mem¬ 
 bers of the police Board are “carried” by the Transit 
 Company management on the books of the concern for 
 substantially large subscriptions to the bonds and stock both 
 of the St. Louis Transit Company and the United Railway 
 Company. The story is generally current that certain 
 members of the Police Board were “fixed for life” in con¬ 
 sideration of their services in getting the Trust bill through 
 the Legislature. It is, therefore, very probable that the 
 Police Board, while posing as sympathetic with the strikers 
 is, in fact, financially interested in the company, and, in so 
 far as it can do so, is “knifing” the strikers while pretend¬ 
 ing to help them. The Police Board member or members 
 who were “fixed” by the Transit Company are serving the 
 Company by ordering out the posse comitatus , and, at the 
 same time, fooling the friends of organized labor, by de- 
 14 
 
nouncing or favoring the denunciation of the posse men 
 who have shot the strikers. 
 
 The writer of this article was in the posse barracks, 
 Sunday afternoon, when the posse killed four men. The 
 railway men undoubtedly precipitated the trouble. They 
 jeered the posse guard in front of the barracks. They at¬ 
 tempted to pull a conductor off a car that was passing. 
 Several of them resisted attempts to arrest them. A shot 
 was fired, stones were thrown. Then the posse began 
 pumping buckshot at the strikers. The result was deplor¬ 
 able, but it was natural. The police, if they had done their 
 duty, would not have permitted strikers, returning from a 
 picnic, in the present state of public unrest, to pass by the 
 posse barracks. The leaders of the parade should not have 
 led the men past the barracks to jeer at the posse . The 
 parade might as well have taken another route. It was 
 sheer idiocy of bravado that brought the strikers and the 
 vosse together. The strikers appeared to seek out the 
 posse, not the posse the strikers. The police who did not 
 deflect the parade, and the leaders who insisted on a dem¬ 
 onstration before the barracks, were responsible for the 
 death of three poor fellows, who, probably, did nothing to 
 provoke the shooting. The scene in the barracks was 
 thrilling. When the first shot was fired, the writer of this 
 article realized for the first time, that “the hunting of men 
 
 15 
 
is the greatest game sport in the world.” The way the 
 posse rushed to its guns, the sharp, metallic, clattering 
 chorus of the filling magazines, the dash for the street of 
 those ready armed, and the evident impatience of those who 
 were held back to fall in line, showed that the posse men 
 were more than half glad “the music had begun.” But 
 for the coolness of the leaders there had been one hundred 
 men shot on Washington avenue, instead of four. The 
 posse will shoot, and shoot fast. And the men who did the 
 shooting are not “hoboes,” or “escaped convicts,” or 
 “tramps willing to do anything at $2 per day,” or “scabs.” 
 They are business and professional men of standing in the 
 community. Some of them had gotten the men at whom 
 they shot the places with the railway company which they 
 had given up to strike. Much as one might approve of 
 stern suppression of violence deliberately perpetrated before 
 the eyes of men sworn and armed to prevent it, it was 
 impossible to fail to surrender to a surge of pity for the poor 
 fellows brought into the barracks, soaked in rain, pale and 
 trembling, in their railway uniforms. They were not 
 criminals. They felt that they were being outraged by 
 janizaries of capital for doing no more than demanding 
 their rights. Not one of them arrested would ever stand a 
 show of getting back his place. Many of them had fami¬ 
 lies that might starve as a result of the strike. But when 
 the prisoners were searched, a dozen revolvers, many wire- 
 16 
 
cutters and brass “knucks” were found in their pockets. 
 They were all strikers, not “outsiders.” And the three 
 dead men were a ghastly testimony to the fatuity of 
 their leaders and the lack of foresight upon the part of 
 the Mayor and the police in permitting a parade past the 
 posse barracks. 
 
 The disgrace, the tragedy, the horror of the situation in 
 St. Louis is all due to politics. Politics formed the Trust. 
 Politics has kept the police from strong measures of re¬ 
 pression. Politics postponed the resistance of disorder till 
 too late an hour. Politics prevented a settlement of the 
 strike upon a reasonable basis. Politics forced private citi¬ 
 zens to slay workingmen. Politics induced the strike, 
 through the impression that the politicians in power would 
 either help the strikers, by refusing to protect the cars, or 
 would force the Company, in consideration of favors in 
 future to be granted or refused, to accept terms. Politics 
 made the men who tried to “arbitrate” for the strikers, dc 
 nothing but pose as advocates of the strike. Mr. Hawes, 
 as “arbitrator,” was a strike advocate, when he should 
 have been enforcing the law. Ex-Governor Stone ob¬ 
 structed the settlement of the strike at the moment when 
 settlement was near. And W. D. Mahon, the rank out¬ 
 sider, has projected himself into national prominence by 
 starting a strike, the net results of which, so far, are more 
 
 17 
 
than a dozen dead, a hospitalful of wounded, the outrageous 
 treatment of women, paralyzed business, and three thou¬ 
 sand men out of employment in which they were, until his 
 eruption upon the scene, happy and moderately contented, 
 save for the tyranny and bad faith of BaumhofE. BaumhoflE, 
 too, is in politics, a Republican boss. The politics of 
 the Police Board has permitted disorder to grow, instead 
 of stamping it out at first. The politics of an ignoramus- 
 smart-aleck-muddle-beaded Mayor has permitted the Police 
 Board to play unlimited politics. 
 
 & 
 
 But worst politics of all politics are those of Missouri’s 
 pismire Governor. He is the man who made the Trust 
 possible. He is the man who controls the Police 
 Board. He is the man who justifies the withdrawal of the 
 police from peace-preservation to run primaries and puts 
 his Police Board’s political duty to carry primaries and 
 attend conventions above the body’s sworn duty to maintain 
 the law. He is the man who convinces the Chief of Police, 
 after that official has called tor the militia, the militia is 
 not needed. He is the man who would not call out the 
 militia because the papers and people of this city had 
 treated him so badly. He is the man who figures on the 
 cost of calling out the militia, when the conditions which 
 demand the militia are costing the law-abiding people of 
 St. Louis more money per day than the State of Missouri 
 18 
 
has spent upon the militia in fifteen years. He is the man 
 who advocated Gatling guns against Debs in Chicago in 
 1894. He is the man who has made a combination to 
 make himself and the State’s greatest Trust lobbyist dele¬ 
 gates to Kansas City to nominate Mr. Bryan. He is the 
 man who is most responsible, after W. D. Mahon, for all 
 the disorder and wounds and death and violation of women 
 of the past five weeks. 
 
 The strike of the railway men is lost. The politicians 
 lost it for the men. The strike was a blunder, because it 
 was phased upon a demand that was, originally, unjust. 
 The men were right in demanding that they should not be 
 discharged for membership in the Union, but they went 
 too far in demanding that the employing company should 
 employ only men satisfactory to the employes. The 
 demands of the strikers passed the limit of insistence upon 
 their own rights and invaded the rights of others not to be¬ 
 long to a Union. The strike was a further mistake in 
 failing to accept the compromise offered by the Company, 
 which recognized the rights of its men to belong to a Union. 
 The strike has been a mistake chiefly because it has been 
 directed by a man from outside the city, having no relations 
 with the Company and having no regard for the interests of 
 the old servants of the Company who were coerced into the 
 strike. The strike has hurt the cause of organized labor. 
 
 19 
 
It was conceived in extravagant folly, and, through the 
 machinations of politicians, it has been unfortunately 
 implicated, in the minds of thinking people, with the deeds 
 of criminals. The man who started the strike on an ex¬ 
 treme demand is responsible for much of the disgraceful 
 and piteous spectacle of the past five weeks, but the men 
 who have failed to put down disorder are responsible for 
 the transformation of a strike into a reign of lawlessness. 
 But be it not forgotten that the Company broke faith with 
 the men, after agreeing not to discriminate against Union 
 members, by discharging organizers. 
 
 While the strike was a mistake, and its continuance 
 after the company’s second practical recognition of 
 the Union was a blunder little short of a crime, the situa¬ 
 tion is, nevertheless, one for men who may not have sym¬ 
 pathized with the strikers to ponder long and well. Strikes 
 are not utterly causeless. Popular discontent is not 
 altogether a combination of neurotic disturbance and 
 vicious unrest. It is well to remember that there are many 
 just grievances against employers of men in large num¬ 
 bers, individuals as well as corporations. This, therefore, 
 seems to be a proper time to call the attention of those em¬ 
 ploying large numbers of people, to the fact, that many of 
 them have been, and still are, in the treatment of their 
 servants, even more selfish and inconsiderate than required 
 
 20 
 
by the coldest rules for money getting. Many of the 
 workers for large concerns are employed as one would 
 purchase cattle; that is to say, the employer does not pre¬ 
 tend to pay them what they are worth to him, but buys 
 their labor as cheap as he can force them, on account of 
 their necessities, to give it. It is true, that the employers 
 have a right to employ men as cheaply as they can, and 
 work them as many hours as possible, and this does not 
 justify the men in using violence against employers, and 
 much less does it excuse the brutal and cowardly assaults 
 on men and woman, during the past five weeks in this city. 
 It is well, however, for those interested to remember, that 
 much of the injustice to individuals, as well as to the pub¬ 
 lic, has been made possible by the indiscriminate creation 
 of corporations, and the opportunities thereby given to 
 place large establishments under control of a few men, as 
 also to keep large fortunes in dead hands. It is well for 
 corporations to remember that they are artificial persons, 
 created and existing by the sufferance of the people. 
 Whenever the people, who, while they are conservative, 
 are also just, find that these artificial persons are creating 
 artificial conditions to the detriment of the masses, they 
 will see to it that such changes are made in the Constitu¬ 
 tion, State, as well as National, that no more such artificial 
 persons can be created, and that those existing now get 
 exactly what they are lawfully entitled to and no more. 
 
 21 
 
This strike has won though it has failed. The Company 
 practically recognized the Union Labor principle. The 
 proposal recognizing that principle was futile because of a 
 politician’s obfuscation. The men were betrayed into re¬ 
 jecting a victory and choosing a defeat. The strikers were 
 identified with lawlessness chiefly through the incapacity or 
 chicanery or ambition of small politicians. The disgrace 
 of Union Labor, as of the city St. Louis and State of Mis¬ 
 souri, is due to bad government. Bad government is due to 
 the bad citizenship of good citizens. 
 
 The street railways of St. Louis will be unionized, and 
 that, too, before long. The “scabs” of to-day will be in revolt 
 against Baumhoff,to-morrow,as Union men.But when will St. 
 Louis and Missouri get rid of their Ziegenheins, Haweses, 
 Stones and Stephenses and others who place party and per¬ 
 sonal profit above public welfare? When will the people cease 
 to elect the sort of men who can be bought to create a Railway 
 Trust? When will Union Labor cease to put in places of 
 authority, men like Mahon who “strike” them out of em¬ 
 ployment on absurd demands and lead them in excitement 
 to the mouths of guns of posse men? When will we all leave 
 off politics and choose our leaders for character, for calm¬ 
 ness, for principle, for common sense? 
 
 22