WHAT SHALL WE DO? 337 



itcd to the extent of the diminished ability of the 

 workmen to buy and consume, which must have been 

 to the amount of five millions of dollars, or the sum 

 of the wages lost ; and the transporter, trader, and 

 merchant, suffered to an equal amount in their respec- 

 tive businesses. If the suffering which grows out of 

 strikes could be confined to the immediate strikers, 

 all the undeserved misery thus brought upon society 

 would be averted. But it can not. The loss and de- 

 moralization thus inflicted reacts upon the interests 

 of all. These evils are of the most serious character, 

 and the hatred and bitterness engendered and perpet- 

 uated among the members of society by strikes and 

 proscriptions seriously complicate the solution of the 

 industrial problem. 



Had the industrial development of the last fifty 

 years been directed by some infernal power, with the 

 design of working upon the laborers, and society in 

 general, the greatest possible amount of injury, no 

 more effective methods could have been adopted than 

 those that are now, and have long been, in use by the 

 workingmen. 



That the workingmen have suffered ; that their 

 sufferings are constantly increasing, and are now 

 greater than ever before, no one can successfully 

 deny. That when they find themselves being hurt, 

 and their families in distress, they should struggle 

 and attempt to strike down and destroy the object 

 that gives them pain, is to be expected, and proper 

 to be done. But in the insane struggles which they 

 make, and the blows which they so liberally shower 

 about them, they never touch the causes of their 



