Better days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow

by Thomas Fitch; Anna M. Fitch

After a fortnight had elapsed these ten men were withdrawn from their labors, in deference to the request of the Mayor of San Francisco and the governor of California.

A committee from the Federated Trades then waited upon Lorin French, and informed him that, as the causa belli had been removed by the withdrawal of the ten obnoxious non-union laborers, the strikers were willing to resume work. His reply was that whenever work should be resumed generally, the ten “obnoxious” men, as well as all other non-union men he might see fit to employ, would resume work; and so negotiations came suddenly to an end.

At the close of the third week of the strike the Congress of Federated Trades assembled and declared a boycott against all members of the Builders’ and Manufacturers’ Union, and against all who should violate the boycott; the boycott to run also against any railway or steamship line that should accord them or their families transportation out of San Francisco.

It was expected that this last and most drastic measure would bring the capitalists to terms, for its enforcement would deprive them and their families of the necessities of life. Their employes left them under the pressure, and their offices and places of business were closed. Their house servants departed, and they were unable to obtain substitutes even among the Chinese, for the Celestial who should labor for a boycotted household was given his choice between exile and death. Hotel proprietors were compelled to refuse a boycotted person as a guest, or lose their own waiters, cooks, and chambermaids. The restaurant proprietor who should serve one of them with a meal would be compelled to close his doors for the want of help; and the grocer, fruiterer, butcher, baker, or provision dealer who sold supplies for their use, would be posted, and lose his other customers, for the boycott was declared against all who violated the boycott.

Mr. French was equal to the exigency. He caused representations to be made, and influence exerted at Washington, and the United States steamer Charleston was detailed for special service. The members of the Builders’ and Manufacturers’ Association, with their families, were taken on board of the war-ship, guarded by the Pinkerton men, and carried to Vancouver, where they were dispatched East over the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Lorin French, with a few of his fellow-members, refused to go, but, establishing themselves comfortably on the upper floor of the building No. 1099 Market Street, they managed to provision themselves and their guards, despite the boycott, and announced their determination to see the contest out.

It was the last week in April, 1894, and the tenth week of the great strike. Business was almost suspended in San Francisco. Thousands of the strikers had wandered out into the country, and every farmhouse within a hundred miles of San Francisco was besieged by men glad to work for food and shelter, while the highways were crowded with tramps. In the city the streets were filled with idle thousands, and at the daily meeting at the sand lots twenty or thirty thousand auditors were addressed by favorite speakers.

The orators made no appeals which were calculated to incite violence, and there was no police interference with the meetings. Indeed, there seemed logically no place or opportunity for violence. The offending employers had done absolutely nothing that the workers could even denounce. They had discharged nobody, and they had not attempted to fill the places of those who reluctantly left. They had simply suspended operations. They had accepted the refusal of the workers to work, apparently, as final. They had locked up their factories and places of business, and, with their families, had left the State.

The strikers generally regarded Lorin French as the prime mover against them, but his property they could not reach for the purposes of destruction if they had been so inclined. It consisted of mines in Nevada and Utah and Montana, of sheep and cattle in New Mexico and Arizona, of vineyards and orchards and grain-fields in California, of mortgages and bonds, and of unimproved real estate in San Francisco. On this latter he was now preparing to erect business blocks. But the buildings were in embryo. The mob could neither burn nor dynamite an unbuilded structure, and there was no visible property upon which to wreak vengeance.

Yet the most ample provisions had been made against any mob uprising. Two batteries of artillery, with guns shotted with grape and canister, two companies of cavalry, and four companies of infantry of the California National Guard, were in readiness, a portion being under arms, and signals were arranged for calling the entire force together at the armories, ready for action, on less than half an hour’s notice.

On Saturday night, late in April, 1894, the Congress of Federated Trades again met, and, after a short debate, it was sullenly resolved to accept the situation. The strike was declared at an end, and all the resolutions adopted since the preceding February, including the original resolution of indorsement of the action of the Hod-Carriers’ Union, were rescinded, and it was enacted that hereafter the employment of non-union workers should not be a cause of strike except by workers associated in the same work, and against the same employer.