Perhaps the most remarkable fact about the disorders has been
the failure of the attempt to produce a general strike of labour. The head of the Knights of Labour, Master- workman Sovereign, and other Labour chiefs ordered a general strike for Wednesday, but the order was not obeyed even in Chicago. The truth is, a general strike is an im- possibility. It is a negation of the essential fact that every labourer is an employer and consumer as well as a producer and labourer. A man may be induced to cut off his nose to spite his face, but not his head. The original leader of the strike, Mr. Debs, President of the American Railway Union, who has been deluged with injunctions and prosecutions, was on Wednesday indicted by the Federal Grand Jury at Chicago, and at once arrested. He was, however, admitted to bail in a sum of £2,000. At the same time, the Marshals of the Court, armed with search-warrants, visited the offices of the Union and seized the books, papers, and other records of the organisation. Meantime, Mr. Pullman, on whose action the whole strike hangs, steadily refuses to consider any proposals for arbitration.
