THE VICTIMS OF STRIKES.
By Editor
A RECENT number of a Philadelphia paper says that “the saddest results of the late strike on the Reading Road are now coming to light, and its victims are beginning to realize their own folly in obeying the orders of their malignant leaders. . . . They left their work willfully and without just cause; others have taken their places; and now they have no work and no means of support. Their situation is pitiable indeed.” These misguided men have asked to be taken back into the employ of the Railroad Company, but President Corban has firmly but kindly told them that “he cannot break the promises made to the new men, and discharge them to make room for the old ones, who voluntarily left the service of the company when ordered to do so by the leaders of the Knights of Labor.” He has offered, however, to recommend for places elsewhere all old employees against whom there is no complaint except that they went on strike. This is all, and more than these unfortunate men could reasonably expect of the Railway Company, whose business was damaged by the strike to the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The employees of that company had no just cause for the strike; they went out, not because they had grievances, but because they were ordered to do so by irresponsible leaders of the Knights of Labor, who had nothing at stake but their reputation, and very little of that. Though a strike always entails heavy loss upon the corporation against which it is directed, the most serious loss is that sustained by the strikers themselves; their violent dealings generally come down upon their own pates; or, as is too often the case, upon the heads of their helpless families—they are its real victims. The Lutheran Observer pertinently says:— “Such folly and presumption have been so often repeated in the labor organizations of this country in recent years, that their sad and disastrous consequences should be held up as a warning to deter others from pursuing a similar course.”