INJUNCTION CAME JUST IN TIME.
Striking Machinists at Ansonia, Conn., Had Become Violent—Some of Their Acts.
Ansonia, Conn., July 18.—The effect of the sweeping injunction granted by Judge E. B. Gager, restraining the striking machinists, their unions and their sympathizers from interfering with non-union men at the Farrell foundry, has been to check what promised to be a serious outbreak here. The history of the strike situation in Derby, Steelton and Ansonia, three small manufacturing communities, aggregating possibly 25,000 inhabitants, shows that there has been little temporizing on either side. Four concerns, employing probably 400 machinists, were affected by this strike, the Ferrell Foundry and Machine Company of this place, the Driggs-Seabury Gun and Ammunition Company and the Birmingham Iron Foundry of Derby and the Whitlock Printing Press Manufacturing Company of Steelton. Demands exactly like those made by machinists all over the country were made and refused and the strike began on May 20.
The Farrell Foundry was the first to begin running its shop with non-union help. Men from New York were brought here about June 15, were placed in the shop and have been doing good work, so the company officials say. The arrival of the new men was the signal for the striking employees to begin a series of actions which resulted in the injunction. Every day and night the shop was surrounded by pickets but the presence of Sheriff Dunham’s deputies prevented any pickets reaching the new men or anything being done to annoy them until the early morning of July 4. Then, to show more thoroughly than ever that the union men think that not every man in this free land is entitled to earn his daily bread unmolested, strikers or their sympathizers bombarded the sleeping apartments of the new men with skyrockets and Roman candles, frightening them, endangering property of the company.
Several days later one of the new men left the shop and went to his home. Returning on Sunday evening, he was not recognized by the guard at the shop door, and admittance was refused. He fell into the hands of the pickets and was persuaded to leave town. Five men boarded an electric car with him to show him the way to Bridgeport. Reaching Derby, he insisted that two men were enough, unless the strikers wanted to “do him up.” The last Ridgeport car having left, two men started to show him the road to Bridgeport. The new man having declared his willingness to walk.
When the outskirts of Shelton were reached the electric lights went out. What happened there only three men know. The striking machinists say that the man, without warning or cause, sprang on them and slashed them fearfully with a razor. The man says the strikers, after kicking and pounding him, tried to throw him into the river, and he used his razor in self defence. He returned to Shelton, was arrested, released on bonds, and is back at work.
On Monday last David Smith, one of the striking employees, and A. M. Valentine, another, returned to work. At 6 o’clock Smith was followed home and made a promise not to return to work. He is old and promised because, he said, he was too old to stand the nervous strain. Valentine is colored and was in church when the crowd gathered around his house. The noise broke up the meeting and Valentine met a committee in the church vestry and there made his promise.
These acts were followed by the injunction. This injunction not only prohibits such demonstrations, but upsets the scheme on foot to boycott merchants who sell to the company, and if any merchant refuses to sell to the foundry or its employees he becomes a party to the illegal conspiracy and subject to the penalties of such disobedience.
The pickets have all been called in and one of the head officials of the machinists who has been here has gone to Washington to consult about the situation. The strike is practically broken. The Whitlock Company’s men have all returned, except such as were discharged, without gaining a point. The Birmingham Iron Foundry started its roll department on Wednesday with new men and no demonstration occurred. The Driggs-Seabury concern is shut down indefinitely. The Farrells have gradually increased their working force.