PREFACE.

THE great and overwhelming interest exhibited by the people of the United States in the recent terrible railroad and labor riots in various parts of our country, demands that a record of the events of the great outbreak shall be preserved in a more permanent and satisfactory form than the brief and excited newspaper reports upon which all were forced to depend during the continuance of the disturbance.

At a period of profound quiet and repose, the entire country was startled by the simultaneous seizure by lawless men of the four great trunk lines between the Atlantic Seaboard and the Western States. In a single day the whole internal trade of the Union was suspended. Millions of dollars of capital were paralyzed, thousands of enterprises were confronted with ruin, and the whole of this great country was threatened with a crisis such as it had never experienced before. Instantly the whole military power of the general government and the great States immediately involved in the trouble was called

upon to give protection to the endangered commerce of the land. Our peaceful country resounded with the tramp of armed men hastening to assert the majesty of the law, on the one side; and with the rush of infuriated mobs, on the other side, gathering to resist the execution of the statutes of the land, and to overturn the very foundations of society. Almost without warning, the American people were brought face to face with a conflict which for a while threatened their very existence as a nation. The excitement grew steadily, and for a time mob law was supreme. From all points came reports of lawless violence, of pillage, arson and murder. The worst elements of the Old World, that had been driven out of Europe, suddenly appeared in our midst, and proclaiming their terrible doctrines of destruction and rapine, endeavored to revive in our prosperous and peaceful land the horrors of the Parisian Commune. The danger was terrible and real, and for a moment the American people stood appalled, not knowing how far the revolt might extend, or what character it might assume. Never since the days of the Civil War had the nation been so profoundly moved, or so painfully apprehensive. On all sides the determination was made plain that the outbreak must be put down; the laws must resume their sway; and the future of this great country must not be perilled by mob violence. No man could tell how

soon his home would be the mark of the rioter's torch, or his dear ones be at the mercy of an infuriated mob, and this thought brought hundreds of thousands to the support of the representatives of law and order. At the call of the civil authorities armed men came from all quarters, and it was soon apparent even to the most desperate rioters that the people were determined to preserve their institutions and property from violence at any cost. This formidable uprising of the people had the happiest effect, and the revolt succumbed before it. The disturbers of the peace slunk away, or were arrested, and the supremacy of the law re-established. The very originators of the strikes, horrified at the capture and distortion of their movement by the mob of lawless ruffians, in many instances gave their assistance to the authorities in restoring order.

Now that the danger is over, people are beginning to investigate the causes of the great outbreak, and to devise means by which such dangers may be averted in the future. It is a question in which all are interested, and which must I affect the welfare of every citizen. During the existence of the revolt, it was impossible to do more than obtain a hasty and incomplete idea of it. It broke out in so many, and such widely separated quarters of the Union, and its incidents followed each other in such rapid and startling

succession, that the observer was bewildered and unable to follow the events in their true order. All were obliged to depend upon the brief and hurried telegrams furnished the newspapers, which were frequently unreliable and often contradicted.

There is, therefore, a real need of a calm, clear and connected history of the terrible scenes through which we have just passed, which shall present a plain and unbiased account of the causes and incidents of the disturbance, and enable its readers to form a just conception of the danger of such outbreaks, and to do their share in providing measures which shall prevent such occurrences in the future.

Such a work the author has endeavored to present to the reader in the following pages. He has endeavored to present a complete picture of the great uprising in all its various features, and to show how it affected the separate portions of the Union and the country as a whole. He has sought to make the narrative impartial and truthful, and to do justice to both the capitalist and the workingman, and to place the responsibility for the fearful scenes through which we have passed, exactly where it belongs.

In order to render the work complete a full account is given of the San Francisco riots, which, though distinct from the railroad revolt, are generally connected in the public mind with them.

The strikes having extended from the railroads to the coal regions of Pennsylvania, and having embraced thousands of miners, the reader will naturally desire to know something of the secret and terrible power that in past years has directed the labor movements in this important section of our country. Therefore a complete and succinct account of the Mollie Maguires is embraced within the work. It is believed that it includes all that is worth knowing about this terrible order.

In the preparation of the work free use has been made of contemporary narratives. These give to the work an especial value, and impart to it a piquancy and vividness which would otherwise be wanting.

PHILADELPHIA,

September 18th, 1877.

E. W. M.