Q. You think it was ill advised, to undertake to move trains at the time?
A. They could not have moved a train, because they had not the men to move it, but they could have done there what they did elsewhere. They could have let it exhaust itself. The very presence of the soldiers begat excitement, and if they intended to intimidate the great crowd, I suppose the calling of the soldiers would do that, if they had cool leaders, men who understood what was to be done in an exigency of that sort. They ought not to be thrown into a crowd to be assaulted by stones.
Q. Would the mob have exhausted itself before there would have been great destruction of property?
A. There would not have been any destruction of property whatever.
Q. Would not there not have been a loss of perishable property that was in transit, too?
A. They seemed to be willing to make provision even for that. It seems to me the whole labor movement has failed signally in strikes in coal mines, in mills, and in large places, because it was only local, and the whole community failed to sympathize with them. They failed to get their rights by strikes, because it did not affect the general interests. They discovered, for the first time, where forty millions of people could be stricken as with a blow, by all the people on these roads refusing to work. They found out, for the first time, where the weak point was, as well as the strong point, in this country. They can do it again. When the employés—brakemen, trainmen, conductors, and engineers will agree not to run a railroad in this country, that is the end of traffic, and they can starve out whole communities. They discovered that fact, and then it was on Saturday evening, that labor sympathizing with those people, they partook of the strike, and helped to burn cars and carry on the work of destruction. That is a danger we are subject to, and the Governor, in this city, when he came back from the West, the very first proclamation he issued, was this:
Pittsburgh, July 25—1.30, A.M.
To the people of the State of Pennsylvania:
Whereas, There exists a condition of turbulence and disorder within the State, extending to many interest, and threatening all communities, under the impulse of which there has grown up a spirit of lawlessness, requiring that all law observing citizens shall organize themselves into armed bodies for the purpose of self-protection and preserving the peace; therefore,
I, John F. Hartranft, Governor of the State of Pennsylvania, recommend that all citizens shall organize themselves into associations, with such arms as they can procure, for the purpose of maintaining order and suppressing violence, and all good citizens are warned against appearing in company with any mob or riotous assembly, and thus giving encouragement to violators of the law.