PREPARING FOR TROUBLE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 1, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 13.

PREPARING FOR TROUBLE.

It was announced recently that the War Department had notified the governors of all the States that it had prepared a new bullet, called a “riot bullet,” and was prepared to supply all the State arsenals with them. It has also been announced that the general government was ready to supply the regular army rifle to the State troops to replace the Springfield rifles with which they have hitherto been armed.

Many are asking the question, What is portended in this ominous move of the military branch of this government? One labor journal, evidently scenting trouble from afar, asks, “Where are the riots that these bullets are to suppress, and who are the rioters? We have not heard of any disturbance anywhere requiring the wholesale murder of Americans to quell it. We have supposed that our patriotism was of too real and too sturdy a quality to make it necessary to overawe any of us with troops. Garrisons and ‘riot guns’ and overpowering force we

have always supposed to belong chiefly to the monarchical countries of Europe. This being a popular government, it has never been supposed that it was necessary for the people to turn their power against themselves.”

The simple fact is that the government sees coming an inevitable conflict between organized labor on the one side and capital demanding government protection on the other side. It is the duty of governments to maintain order however individual sympathies may run. It has been found necessary again and again to call out the State troops to quell riotous demonstrations of strikers against their employers. Troops were quartered for weeks in the Pennsylvania coal regions, and, notwithstanding their presence, murders and other crimes were of frequent occurrence. Colorado now has troops on duty to prevent strikers committing deeds of violence, and other States have found it necessary also in the very recent past to rely on the military to preserve order where strikes were in progress. These are becoming more and more frequent. Strikes are being ordered on less and less provocation, as is the case in the street-car strike soon to be ordered in San Francisco. The organizations are becoming larger in membership, more insistent in their demands, and the government expects it will be necessary to use the “riot bullets” and the “riot guns” to keep them in check. It is true also that the government is becoming more monarchical in its tendencies, is drifting farther and farther away from its proper anchoring ground in the Declaration of Independence. And this, too, makes the conflict more certain. The prospect is not a peaceful one, but this is the situation which this generation has to face. The tide toward conflict is a strong one, is becoming stronger every day, and there is no prospect of the growth of an influence sufficiently strong to stem the tide and speak peace to the turbulent stream. But of this condition the Word has warned us, and the Father has provided a safe shelter for His children through the coming storm.