Life — July 19, 1894 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“HOVhile there is Life there's Hope.” VOL, XXIV. JULY 19, 1894. No, 603. 1g West Tuirty-First STREET, NEW York, Published every Thursday. $5.00 a year inadvance, Postage to foreign countries in the Postal Union, $1.04 a year,extra. Single copies, 10 cents. Rejected contributions will be destroyed undess accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. the present writing the American people has a new boss, He is a y z man by the name of Debs. He hails from we Terre Haute, Indiana. He was not born “great, nor was greatness thrust upon him, He collared it. Like the centurion of Scripture, he is a man in authority, only more so and with differences. The cen- turion said “ go,” and “ come,” and his underlings came and went. Debs says “you can't go,” and “you shan’t come,” and his underlings stay just where they are and await his pleasure, ’ He also says “ you shan’t fetch, neither shall you carry,” and beef and hog products, and coal, and live cattle, and whatever else commonly cometh out of aes Chicago or entereth therein, stands on the ae track and waits for Debs. Another differ- ence between the centurion and Debs is that the centurion only had about a hundred men under him,whereas Debs is boss of a hundred thousand at least, and indirectly controls indefinitely many more. You remember Martin Irons, of Missouri? Debs isthe greatest boss since Martin Irons, It is well to pay at- tention to him while he is still with us, for his sort do not last very long. Men who chain up the internal commerce of the country, and threaten Uncle Sam with civil war unless their demands are satisfied, cannot count upon a very long lease of greatness in this country yet. The ultimate fate of Debs and the movement he leads is obvious. Very likely he will have been weeded out before these lines reach the reader's ( A pres here is only room for one form of government in the United Stat nd while we have a President in good work- ing order, a dictator's lease of power is brief. Debs is interest- ing, but he is much too costly and inconvenient to continue. If he personally manages to keep out of the clutches of the law so much the better for him, but as for his aspirations, Lire borrows the language of the Kentucky editor and welcomes them with bloody hands to a hospitable grave. HE strike literature has been in- teresting, but it has not been pleasant. The stories of the wholesale interruption of travel and of the de- struction of property by mobs have not been adapted to make the average American citizen feel proud, even though he realizes that a lawless multitude under the lead of active conspira- tors may be expected to get ahead, for the time, of the apparatus for promoting law and order, Perhaps the pleasantest bit of reading that the strike brought out was President Cleveland’s reply to Governor Altgeld’s protest against the use of United States troops in Chicago. It is astonishing that so great a State as Illinois should have chosen an Altgeld for its Governor, but it is comforting at least to feel that under the constitution there is a limit to the mischief that anarchistic governors can permit to be done, The United States army is not very big, but such as it is, it is to be depended on. No one man since the war has done as much as Debs to reconcile public opinion to the idea of increasing the number of the regular troops and of having them handy to the great centres of population in case of rows. The cost of settling railroad strikes by present methods is much too great. The Americans area thrifty people, and where the cure proves so expensive they will be apt to consider the advantages of a reasonable outlay for prevention. Every election of an Altgeld, a Waite, a Lewel- ling, a Tillman or a Pennoyer to governorship of a State, and every appearance of a Debs, hastens the day of a strong government with an adequate military force under control of the federal authorities. * . . MERICA mourns for Valkyrie. She was a good boat, and though she did not sail in these waters as fast as Vigilant, she deserved a better fate than to be cut in two. It is a disappointment to American sportsmen that Lord Dunraven will not have a chance to sail against the Yan- kee cutter over his own course. * . * CURIOUS instance of the effort of the social ma- chinery of the country to become automatic, appears in the circum- stance that the railroad strike shut off the coal from the Chicago breweries and stopped the manufacture of beer, The result was disappointing. There was plenty of whiskey in stock and the strike and consequent rioting went on just the same. comicbooks.com