Mr. Worthington: "Is it justifiable to incommode the public as such strikes do?" Mr. Debs: "It depends on circumstances. I believe with Admiral Porter, that a pin is worth fighting for if a principle is involved. To resist degradation is justifiable no matter what the result. If there were no resistance, things would be, if possible, worse than they are and without resistance degradation is inevitable. If the railroads treated their men fairly there would be no labor organizations. Every organization of railroad men is traceable to oppression. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers was born of the tyranny of the Michigan Central road. I have that from the lips of Mr. Robinson, the founder of that organization. The first meetings were held in secret because the men would have been discharged if the management knew they were organizing. Everywhere organization originated from similar causes. No legislation can reconcile railroad employers and employes while human nature is in it. Confidence has been destroyed. The men have been so treated that they have grown suspicious, and when general managers, who are themselves employes, order a reduction of wages on instructions from those above them, that it is necessary because of hard times or slack business, the men are not at all assured that such are the reasons. They may accept the reduction, but they are not satisfied. In many instances the general managers obey orders to reduce wages with regret for they are humane men, many of them. Soon after the Great Northern strike, the president of a railroad told me that I now had the opportunity to make myself a most enviable reputation, both among railroad employers and employes by advising the men themselves to propose a reduction of say 10 per cent in their wages during these dull times, thus putting the road under obligation to increase wages when business improved. I said to him, only a few months ago your road was doing a phenomenally heavy business. Did you propose an increase of even 5 per cent in your employes wages because you were making money? Every time a decrease in wages has been prevented or an increase secured, it has been the result of weeks of labor and pleading and the expenditures of thousands of dollars by the men. Every schedule ever adopted is evidence of that. Now that the strike is practically over the usual persecutions will be indulged in against those who took part in it. Some people are felicitating themselves that the strike has been suppressed, but the safety valve has been screwed down, that's all. The men are no more satisfied than they were. Some of them will get back their old positions; others will get work on other roads; still others will find work elsewhere, while some will be forced to remain idle for a long time. None of them are satisfied with the conditions and sooner or later strikes will break out again, I fear. You might as well try to stop Niagara with a feather as crush the spirit of organization."