THE TRIAL IN IDAHO.
THERE is a tendency, we think, to exaggerate the political meaning of the astonishing story from Idaho. It is no doubt a little bewildering to perceive that the hatred between employers and employed, which is in all countries, though in very varying degrees, a note of the modern industrial world, should be most unrestrained in the United States, where, on the Republican theory, all men are equal. and social hatreds therefore least bitter ; where wages are so high that poverty loses much of its sting—outside one or two cities there is no hunger in the Union—and where the body of the people can remove any oppression by a simple vote. (The State Legislatures are supreme in matters which affect the relations of Capital and Labour.) Still, there are elements in the condition of the United States which make class contests very fierce. Every one is educated more or less, and with education comes fuller consciousness of any sort of difference of opportunities. The prosperity of capitalists is so great that the cleavage between the "Haves" and the "Have-nots" grows wider in the eyes of both. The indifference to human life—due, we fancy, to a pervading optimism which minimises all offences as it minimises the suffering from ruin—tends to make all incidents of the industrial struggle more and more ghastly to the observer; and. the heavy proportion of foreign labour, especially in mining and the more arduous kinds of work, tends to destroy that unity of general sentiment without which public opinion loses something of its correcting force. The capitalist conscience is apt in such circumstances to grow leathery, as does also the conscience of the worser kind of industrial. We do not know that the shocking revelations of the bravo Orchard —assuming them for the moment to be true—are much worse—though they seem worse from his callous imperturbability—than the similar revelations made in this country in the half-forgotten " Broadhead " affair, when, as some of our readers may recollect, it was necessary to guarantee the witnesses against the legal consequences of their own confessions of crime. The great difference is that the terrorists in the United States do not limit their coercion to recalcitrant workmen, or even to wealthy employers, but threaten the great officials, the Courts, and the juries engaged in securing order or ensuring equal justice. It is for the murder of the late Governor of Idaho that the accused are being tried. There is in America a want of reverence for the will of the people as expressed in its governing machinery which is absent in Europe, and which can hardly be explained by saying that the instruments of justice are elective. They ought, on the Republican theory, to be more reverenced on that account, and they ?limit decidedly are not. It must be recollected, too, that, partly from a bad tradition and partly from the popular eager- ness to secure equal protection to the poor, the machinery for distributing criminal justice works almost as badly as it used to do in Spain and Austria. The criminal is allowed too many chances, and much too great a delay elapses between the arrest and final conviction. It often takes twelve months to execute a man of whose guilt no one even professes to suggest a doubt, and the moral effect of punishment is therefore, so to speak., watered down till its restraining effect almost disappears. Punishment is not the origin of conscience—. that is a misconception of the mind of man as well as of true utilitarianism—but it is the healthy tonic of conscience, keeping it strong even in the grosser natures.
Whether, however, the majority of American industrials sympathise with the scoundrels who, to secure the influence of the Western Miners' Federation, ordered, if Orchard's revelations are well founded, a series of assassi- nations, is by no means proved. The Times American correspondent thinks they do, hints that there may be resistance to the punishment of the men under trial in Idaho should they be found guilty, and quotes opinions which, if they mean anything, mean that, in the judgment of grave Americans, there is danger of actual rebellion. We doubt that greatly. It is quite possible that many American industrials in their hatred of the capitalists honestly believe that the whole affair has been got up and is paid for by the rich in order to discredit the Trade-Unions. But the born American at least is not very credulous, except when appealed to from the side of his superstition. He may believe in a new religion like "Christian Science," or even in a new revelation like 'that of Joseph Smith ; but if you appeal to him against Christianity, or against what he his always believed to be the distinction between right and wrong, he is apt to be humorously sceptical. He might accept the statement that capitalists had ordered assassina- tions with a view to a great dividend ; but he would suspect the statement that they had ordered them in order to dis- credit their employes. Nobody doubts that the assassina- tions occurred; but such a motive for their occurrence would strike him as a little too subtle and far-fetched. There is no particular objection to capital punishment in the United States among the industrial classes—as witness the constant resort to lynching—but the idea of rebellion to prevent the due execution of a judicial sentence seems to us imaginative, even if it is not produced by excessive inner distrust of the labouring people. The majority of the latter must be Christians, at least in their own eyes, and the idea of their rebelling against the dictates of the universal conscience is a little too like the old Anglo-Indian idea that in suppressing crimes like suttee the Government were giving the, signal for universal insurrection. Moreover, the industrials in America are hardly in a position to rebel. We are too apt in this country to forget the great fact
that in the United States physical force still remains with the freeholders, who outnumber the industrials by some-.
thing like three to one, who are all more or less trained as Militiamen, and who have never that we can remember, when called upon to protect the laws, failed to appear in irresistible strength. That is the real reason of the extravagant jealousy with which the Unions' regard any legal appeal to the use of force. If the' industrials were in a majority, or anything like one, they would secure their ends by the vote, and so be able to avoid' assassinations, which even in the present imperfect con- dition of the American Courts must involve risk to their necks as well as to their repute. We think it possible that the Court in Idaho will not be able to secure a verdict, part of the jury being too much frightened ; but if it is able, and the Governor is resolute, there is force enough even in Idaho to carry out the sentence of the law. The "Molly Maguire" 'business was quite as bad as this one, and nevertheless was followed by no rebellion.
We should not wonder greatly if the Idaho struggle. were followed by a great increase in the popular demand on President Roosevelt to stand for a third term, or rather for a second term, for his first assumption of the Presidency was only due to the death of his predecessor during his own term of office as Vice-President. He has decided. not to be re-elected ; but ibis hardly in human nature for any man to resist a nearly unanimous nomination. So con- vinced are the people of the United States that he is the" only man possessed. of the qualities required in a time of" great social trouble—the only man, that is, resolutely on the side of the poor, yet determined that order shall be main- tained—that it is even conceivable that he might be nominated by both the great parties, in which event a refusal to continue in power would be a dereliction of duty of the kind Mr. Roosevelt is almost certain not to commit, Even if he were convinced, which he probably is not that his third election would constitute a bad precedent in the history of the Republic, he would risk it rather than refuse the service which the entire nation called upon him to perform. After all, there can be no moral guilt in con- . seating to keep for four years more a power which his people declare that he has exercised wisely, and which he must be aware in himself he has exercised in accordance with the dictates of his conscience. There are perhaps. many good possible candidates for the Presidency, but there is no personality so great and so trusted as to be an adequate rival.
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