The Great Strike on the "Q"

by John A. Hall

THE SWITCHMEN.

"From the very inception of the strike, the members of the Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association evinced a profound interest in the struggle and freely tendered their sympathy and support to the strikers. They realized that the contest was for the maintenance of a common cause, and that the employes in every department of the railway service were interested in the result. The Grand Master, J. L. Monaghan, prompted by a desire to protect the interests of his men, as well as to extend a helping hand to his co-laborers, came to the front nobly, and with the aid of the members of his Order, took a decided stand in favor of the strikers. The switchmen realized that their interests were largely at stake, that a victory for the strikers meant a victory for them, and vice versa, and, with this feeling, they left the service of the company in a body, preferring to sacrifice their situations rather than serve in the employ of a company that refused to do common justice to its employes. Candor compels the admission, that we are indebted to the switchmen for aid freely given in the hour of our direst necessity. They acted the part of manly men, and are entitled to the thanks and gratitude of the Brotherhoods."

Equal candor on the part of those who signed the above circular would compel the admission that the switchmen have not yet received that which was so freely promised them during the early days of March and on the night of March 22,—namely, federation.

From the 1st of March until the 22d, Mr. Monaghan was in frequent consultation with Chiefs Arthur and Sargent. It was evident that the switchmen in remaining at work with the new engineers were doing the cause an incalculable injury, and efforts were made to overcome this new difficulty.

FEDERATION.

The switchmen and the brakemen were willing and anxious to unite with the Brotherhood. They did not wish the company to be victorious through aid given by them, and they were equally unwilling to give aid to the Brotherhood in this struggle and receive what many had received in the past, only injury. In this condition of affairs an arrangement was made whereby, in future troubles, the two Brotherhoods and the Association of Switchmen were to stand faithfully by each other. It was at this time the universal opinion among the switchmen, engineers and firemen that some such plan should be devised, and the Constitutions changed accordingly, and this feeling was concurred in by the officers of the three organizations. The legal counsel was called into the conference and a plan formulated for future action, which was to be subject to the Annual Convention of each organization. True to the promises given by Grand Master Sargent, the Convention of Firemen did, in September, 1888, put forward a most comprehensive plan of federation, which was adopted by the Convention of Switchmen in the same month, and which apparently died at the Convention of Engineers in October.

Whatever the action since taken, the switchmen were then perfectly satisfied—particularly so, as at the union meeting held in Chicago on the night of March 22, prominent members of the two Brotherhoods from all parts of the United States gave their unqualified approval to the action of their officers, and, furthermore, pledged the honor of the Brotherhoods that the obligation would be faithfully met and promptly carried out. More solemn or binding obligations were never entered into by men. The switchmen were promised, and written pledges given by the officers of the Brotherhoods, that the same financial assistance given to the engineers engaged in the strike should also be given to them, as long as an engineer received a dollar, the switchmen should receive a like amount.

SWITCHMEN ENTER THE STRIKE.

On the morning of March 23 the switchmen, with the consent of Grand Master Monaghan, left the service of the Burlington Company in Chicago, not one single man remaining behind. Out of seventeen yardmasters, eleven went with the switchmen. Two of these, however, remained out but a few days, and then returned to the service of the company. Of the switchmen, but one returned.