The Sixteenth regiment seems to have been the most unreliable of all the regiments called on for service during the time of the troubles. Company I was disbanded in dishonor, for insubordination, cowardice, and mutinous conduct in disobeying orders and furnishing ammunition to rioters at Reading, by Major General Bolton, and he afterwards disbanded companies C, D, E, and H for mutinous conduct, subject to the approval of the Governor. The bad conduct of these companies commenced before they left home, in refusing at first to go aboard the cars, and continued until they got back again. The Fourth regiment, after having a serious collision with the mob at Reading, and behaving like men through that trouble, became badly demoralized by the action of the above named companies of the Sixteenth regiment, and, for a day or two, was entirely unreliable, but afterwards recovered its morale and did good service. A squad of some fifteen or twenty men, of General Brinton's division, (company and regiment not known,) which failed to report in time to leave with him for Pittsburgh, afterwards came on and were stopped near Altoona, and being unable to go further came back to a short distance above Harrisburg, and then left the cars to pass that place on foot by a circuitous route, as it was reported that the mob was in possession of the railroad, and would allow no soldiers to pass through. This squad stopped at some place across the river from Harrisburg. Some two hundred to two hundred and fifty men and boys, on the 23d of July, went across the river and came back escorting this squad of soldiers, a lot of boys carrying their guns, and they were taken to some place near the railroad, fed and afterwards put on the cars for Philadelphia. Such an isolated instance as this ought not to condemn the command to which it belongs, but it is discreditable to those engaged in it, and, it is learned, a court-martial has been ordered to sit on their case.
The National Guard of the Commonwealth is a necessity, and in a State like ours, with large numbers of illiterate and unprincipled men concentrated in certain localities, many of whom are foreigners, and imbued with the spirit of foreign communism, which is spreading in this country, the Guard must occasionally be called on as a posse to assist in enforcing the law; but it never should be called on until all other means are tried and exhausted. It has become too common to call on the Governor for troops, in ease of a mob, and the experience of the summer of 1877, demonstrates that in any community where the civil authorities and the citizens wish the law enforced, and act together harmoniously and vigorously, order may be maintained and mobs dispersed without the intervention of the military. At Philadelphia, large and angry mobs were dispersed by the police, which, if allowed to have been together for a day or two, would have become so strong, as to defy the ordinary authorities, and the result would have been riot and destruction. It was the same at Harrisburg, and also at Scranton, except at the latter place the city council refused to cooperate with the mayor and citizens, but notwithstanding this disadvantage, the wisdom of the measures of the mayor was vindicated at the first collision with the mob. It is but just to the people of Pittsburgh to say that the above places had the example of the latter place before them, and had learned the danger of temporizing or in any way sympathizing with anything like a mob, however just they may believe their original demands to be.
In conclusion your committee adopt the following clause of the Governor's message, which fully coincides with their views, viz:
"I have been thus solicitous to present the conditions of a militia campaign, because the conduct of our troops during the late crisis has elicited every variety of criticism, from mild censure to absolute condemnation, and because there has grown up in Pennsylvania a spirit of caviling at its militia, in marked contrast with the kindly feeling and pride manifested by other States towards their citizen soldiery. Now, that a temperate review of the facts may be made, I believe it will not be considered a partial judgment to say that during the conduct of the State troops during the late strike was, upon the whole, commendable and creditable. In Pittsburgh before a final decision, many considerations must modify our judgment. The conditions were not purely military. It was not simply a question of preserving a body of soldiery intact, of holding a position or defeating an enemy. Expecting to march into a friendly community, whose moral support would be cheerfully given them, they entered a practically hostile city, were denounced and threatened by press and people, and attacked by men who lurked in the security of a sympathetic crowd, and used women and children as shields and instruments. If, under such circumstances, their action lacked the energy and severity that purely military canons would have justified, it cannot be a matter of surprise, that having so long been accustomed to peace, they were unable to comprehend at once the sudden conditions of war. As it was, though not executed with the skilled precision of regular troops, the movement accomplished its purpose, and the failure to move the freight trains out of the city, to which more than any fact the subsequent burning is attributed, was the result of the want of cooperation of an adequate and competent police, and the desertion, at the critical moment, of the railroad employés.
"The behavior of the Pittsburgh troops, in a military sense, is without excuse; but was it any worse than the defection of officers and men in the regular army, who, in 1861, deserted their comrades in arms to join the communities in which they were born and bred? Such things are not military, they are political or social; and it cannot be expected that they should be judged by the severest military code. It was, in fact, the temporary excitement of unthinking men, carried away by the universal clamor around them. For that reason, when the burst of passion was over, I re-instated them; otherwise, new troops would have had to be enlisted, while these might be trusted to have a keener sense of duty, from a desire to retrieve their fame. In the case of the Philadelphia troops, although disheartened by being placed on the defensive, and a part of the command demoralized by a too precipitate retreat, the general steadiness and obedience to orders, under comparative hardships, and in real danger, show them to have been composed of the best of soldiery material. The failure to subdue a city in insurrection against the laws is not to be attributed to the want of courage, capacity, or fidelity in the officers and men, but to a natural disinclination to take life indiscriminately, and the uncertainty as to how far, under the laws, they could exercise a purely military discretion. For myself, I have every confidence in the Guard, and shall not hesitate, if another occasion should unhappily arise, to rely upon its fidelity and courage. The after service of the Guard, when assembled together, prepared for active campaigning, was all that could be desired. The fact that as many answered the call for a service likely to be long and dangerous, as assembled in the pleasant encampment at the centennial, is conclusive proof of the general zeal and fidelity of the troops."
The causes which led to the riots are, in the opinion of your committee, as follows, to wit: The riots grew out of the strike of the railroad men, and the strikers themselves were the protest of the laborer against the system by which his wages were arbitrarily fixed and lowered by his employer without consultation with him, and without his consent. There are many other causes that combined to bring about the strikes, but the cause mentioned underlies the whole question, and it is the foundation of all the trouble.
Instead of capital and labor working together in harmony, as their community of interests would dictate, a conflict has been growing up between them, which, if not averted or discontinued, will lead to more serious troubles than any that have yet occurred, and which must result, as all such conflicts do, in the defeat of the labor interests and in consequence thereof placing labor at a still greater disadvantage than it now occupies. This conflict has been engendered and kept up by demagogues who, for their own advantage, seek to control the votes of the laboring men for base and partisan motives and who, in order to more surely secure their ends, profess to be the only and true friends of the laborer, and persistently misrepresent the capitalist. It is much easier to move a body of men (which, like a large portion of the laboring class, has but little time to investigate the problem of the true position of labor and capital towards each other) by appealing to passion and prejudice, and in this respect your demagogue knows the material he has to work upon and allows no scruples of either honesty or modesty to restrain him. He is the leading spirit in organizing and keeping up so-called labor organizations of one kind or another, and which organizations, as heretofore managed in this country, have never resulted in any advantage to the men in whose ostensible interests they are gotten up, but, on the contrary, have inflicted untold damage on them. The demagogue likes to be appointed to some position in the labor organizations, and is not slow in suggesting a traveling agent or lecturer, with some supposed duty, where he can travel about the country, living at his ease on the fruits of the hard labor of his comrades, and spending freely the money that is as freely furnished him.
Why cannot the laboring men of the country see through the flimsy disguise of these men, and look at them as they are, the leeches and vampires who prey upon the life-blood of the interest they profess to befriend. There are men in all parties who have, or claim to have, some reputation as statesmen, who are not above the arts of the common demagogue, and who seem at times to be running a race with him to see which can stoop to the lowest tricks to secure the votes of the dear laborer. By the efforts of these men, and the tricks they practice, this conflict has been brought on. But the capitalist himself has not been blameless; instead of, in the common phrase, meeting his workmen half-way, and trying to come to a fair understanding with them, he has put himself on his dignity, and has placed all the blame of the results brought about by the demagogue upon the laborer himself. He must remember that the laborer is human, with hopes and aspirations as well as passions and prejudices, and that it is much better to cultivate the former by fair, frank, and courteous treatment, than to inflame the latter by the opposite course. The laborer believes, as he has a right to believe, that his wishes should be sometimes consulted, and that he should be recognized as one of the parties to the contract, and as such, fully consulted whenever the same is to be changed or abrogated. We believe it is in the power of the capitalist who is an employer of men, by fair, frank, and just treatment of his employés, not only in the immediate question of wages, but also in looking after their social and educational interests, to completely undermine and destroy the occupation and influence of the demagogue spoken of, and create that mutual trust and friendship which ought to exist between labor and capital, and thereby put an end to the frequently recurring strikes which inflict such serious damage on the business of the country, and do no man or set of men the least particle of good.
Many instances of the favorable results following such action might be given, but we will only refer to one instance, which occurred in Yorkshire, England. Titus Salt, whose father was a woolen manufacturer at Bradford, in Yorkshire, at the age of twenty-one years, started out in business for himself, by hiring a small mill and one or two men, who, with himself, did the work of the establishment, and so diligently and wisely were his affairs managed that in a few years he found himself doing a successful and rapidly increasing business, and by a lucky discovery of the value of the wool of the Alpaca sheep, and its manufacture in dress goods, he soon acquired a fortune. This necessitated the enlargement of his mill, and to do this the more conveniently, he moved some two miles from town and erected a large manufactory, in which he gave employment to some four thousand operatives. Having been a laboring man himself, he knew the needs and wants of the laborer, and he accordingly erected neat and convenient cottages for the use of his employés, which were rented to them at a moderate rental, with the privilege of buying to those who were able, thus assisting them to procure a home of their own, and giving them a substantial interest in the success of the business they were employed in. He also caused to be erected churches which all could attend, and also school-houses, wherein every child could receive a good and thorough education. A public park was laid out and completed, bath-houses built, and clubs and lyceums established, Mr. Salt taking the lead and encouraging his people to carry out and sustain these institutions. In a short time a thriving town was built up which was named Saltaire, in honor of its founder, and here the laborer has an opportunity to enjoy himself like other human beings, with no thought of occasion for strikes, the employer or capitalist and employés all feeling a common interest in the fortunes of their place, and with none of the jealousies or prejudices now commonly existing between these two classes. Mr. Salt has been created a baronet, but this can add no additional honor to the name of a man who has successfully solved the problem of the true relations between labor and capital, and who has taught the capitalist to what noble duties it is possible to devote himself, and the laborer, that the barrier between the sympathies of the master who employs and overlooks, and the man who works, may be broken down in other and better ways than by hostile combination. Such a town as Saltaire, with its neat cottages, pleasant parks, clean streets, fine churches and schools, where labor is respected, and intemperance banished, is a better monument than any made of marble or stone, and will perpetuate the name of its founder more surely and completely than if he had made a fortune by grinding down his human help to the last farthing, and then on his death-bed bequeathing it to some public institution.
The immediate cause of the first strike which took place in Pennsylvania, in July, 1877, to wit: that at Pittsburgh, July 19th, was the order by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to run "double-headers" from that place to Derry. This order of itself, had there been no previous reductions of wages or dismissals of men on account of the depression in business, would probably have caused no strike, but following so soon after the second reduction, while the ill feeling engendered thereby was still having its effect on the men, together with the spirit of independence and probably recklessness which was brought about by the organization of the Trainmen's Union, with its general plan for a strike on the 27th of June, and the feeling of uneasiness and dissatisfaction existing among the laboring men of the country generally, caused by the want of labor and the low price thereof as compared with a few years previous, all together combined to set in motion this strike, which was followed by results so disastrous as to be forever memorable in the history of the State, results unforeseen and unanticipated at the commencement by the actors therein. The few trainmen who refused to take out the freight trains on the morning of July 19th, while not intending or wishing to cause any destruction of property or loss of life by their action, still cannot escape the primary responsibility of the fearful scenes enacted at Pittsburgh during the few following days. The order which the railroad company made was one it had a right to make, and if the men did not wish to work under the order, they had a right to refuse to do so. So far there can be no question among reasonable men. The order having been promulgated several days before it was to go into effect, gave the men plenty of time to consider its effect, and if they did not wish to go out on double-headers, fair treatment would have dictated that they should have given the officers of the company reasonable notice of their decision prior to the time at which the order was to take effect, but this did not comport with the intentions of the men. They not only did not intend to work themselves under that order, but they did not propose to allow those who might be willing to accept service of the company on the double-header trains to do so, and when they combined together and raised their hands to prevent other men from working, they committed an act for which there can be no excuse.