The Nationalist.
In this age of strikes it is not always the workers who strike, as is indicated by the title of Mr. Lloyd's book. That brilliant and great-hearted journalist and publicist several months ago, in the shape of an open letter of several columns, printed in the Chicago Herald, told the story of the criminal and cold-blooded conspiracy of a group of enormously rich men against a body of honest and industrious workingmen. That letter he has made the basis of the present volume, which deserves a wide circulation among patriotic citizens of the United States. The strong and truthful words here uttered ought to ring throughout the land and arouse the people to a realizing sense of the greatest danger that has ever threatened our republic—the danger of its conversion into the worst of despotisms, that of rule by an irresponsible plutocracy.
The Burlington Hawkeye.
Mr. Lloyd proves every charge he makes, the testimony he brings forward being so presented as to leave no question as to its absolute correctness. In all the dark record of tyranny, cruelty, and brutality made by the coal barons of this country there is not a blacker chapter than that which tells of their crimes against the miners of Spring Valley in the year 1889. This is not the verdict of the "labor crank" alone; the people of Chicago and the whole of northern Illinois, in the press and pulpit and on the platform, have denounced the outrage, and the cooler judgment of to-day, when the lock-out is about worn out and the majority of the old miners are scattered all over the country, is in accord with the denunciation made by Mr. Lloyd.
The Rock Islander, Rock Island, Ill.
A Strike of Millionaires against Miners, or the Story of Spring Valley. The above is the title of a beautifully printed volume of 264 pages, by Henry D. Lloyd. Its prelude is the story of the starved Indians of Starved Rock, and it proceeds to parallel that by the starvation of labor by the millionaires. The story of Spring Valley is given in detail, with official proof of its truthfulness, and is graphically told by Mr. Lloyd. Its exposure of the oppressors of labor is terrific. It shows who they are; who has done this thing; how the town was boomed; how it was doomed; how the ghost of Starved Rock walks abroad; and how people are bought and enslaved in this boasted free country. It gives Governor Fifer a deserved slap for not going in person to the scene of starvation, and it roasts his military toady of the rich (Adjutant-General Vance) who was sent there by the governor to investigate, and whose report is proven to be a tissue of sneers at the poor, and falsehoods in regard to them and their situation. He quotes freely and approvingly from the report of Judge Gould and Mr. Wines, proving all that was claimed for the suffering there. He shows (page 66) that the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad Company generously acknowledged the necessity for help by hiring a physician for its miners at Braceville, and sending supplies of necessaries for sick women and children to be given out by its agent there. He shows up the campaign of slander against Spring Valley, which was carried on through capitalistic newspapers and corporation tools; says the Spring Valley case is only a preliminary skirmish of capital against labor, and, after showing the first fruits, asks what the last will be. He closes with a chapter giving part of the moral. An appendix is added, showing what the millionaires said of themselves, and the replies by the miners and the press. Everybody should read this most remarkable and ably prepared story of the crime of capital upon labor.
Seed-Time (London), the organ of the New Fellowship.
Perhaps the most striking of all the American object-lessons on the tendencies of capitalism has been given us by Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, of Chicago, who has recently published a book entitled, A Strike of Millionaires against Miners, or the Story of Spring Valley. A more complete exposure of the tyranny and cruelty of capitalism has never before been made. Its great importance for us, however, lies in the fact that all the tyranny and wrong he witnessed and describes are but the natural outcomes of the principles of commercialism when those principles are carried to their logical conclusion, and capitalism has unchecked sway. Such terrible scenes do not occur everywhere, simply because capitalism is held in check by other social forces, and has not everywhere attained that full and unfettered development which discloses the evils which in its more undeveloped stage lie concealed.
The Twentieth Century.
It is a mind-agitating and heart-rending tale, and unless I am much mistaken the publication of it will create an epoch in economic thinking and social regeneration. What is the remedy for such crimes as Mr. Lloyd has exposed? The remedy will be found if open-minded persons will read such books as Mr. Lloyd's, and keep themselves informed as to what is being done to reduce a people to servitude. This single book ought to produce such a revulsion of feeling against the monstrous millionaires who perpetrated this awful crime that they would be looked upon by all decent people with abhorrence.
If you will read Mr. Lloyd's book I think you will agree with me that if before long, as many persons believe, this county is to be deluged in the blood of revolution, the catastrophe will be brought on by condoning such crimes as that at Spring Valley; it will be brought on because you and I read such stories as this, and, knowing they are true, straightway forget all about them; it will be brought on because editors and preachers, and others who have the public ear, keep silent through negligence or fear of the rich who misrule the land. If people will not think, if they will not care, you may depend upon it that the price of their indifference will be slavery or war.