CHAPTER XI
LABOR TROUBLES AND STRIKES

Strikes, lock-outs, and similar labor troubles, as disturbances in the economic life of the community, are of interest to many readers who are not directly affected. Important issues of wide-spread interest, such as the recognition of trades unions, the eight-hour day, and a living wage, are often involved in labor disputes. Acts of violence committed in connection with strikes have for the average reader the same kind of interest as do other similar acts.

A fair and accurate presentation of the points of view of both the employers and the employees is essential in all stories of this kind. Statements from both sides, therefore, are important. Although stories in this class are largely informative, there is also a chance for human interest treatment. Accounts of living and working conditions, for example, as obtained from workmen and their families often give a better picture of the circumstances that produced the strike than do formal statements by labor leaders. Sympathy may be legitimately created for the strikers and their families, especially when they are in actual want or are plainly the victims of oppression. Because the settlement of labor troubles not infrequently is brought about by the influence of public opinion, constructive journalism recognizes the importance of furnishing readers with all of the facts necessary for an intelligent understanding of the issues and conditions involved.

POSSIBILITY OF STRIKE

New York Herald

Chicago, Saturday.—Admissions were made on both sides to-night that the controversy between 30,000 firemen operating on 150,000 miles of railroads West, Northwest and Southwest of Chicago, and the railroad managers, had become critical and that the question of a strike, tying up practically all systems between here and the Pacific coast, would be settled within forty-eight hours.

W. S. Carter, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, on behalf of the firemen to-day sent to the General Managers’ Committee of the railroads a request for a clear statement of the employers’ position. The brotherhood asked for information on three points in their demands: Increased wage scale, which the railroads say would amount to an increase of 22½ per cent, but which the firemen say would equal only 12½ per cent; the right of the union to represent the fireman after he has been promoted either to an engineman or to any other capacity; the right of the union to have authority in questions of seniority or the promotion of old time employes.

In previous negotiations the Brotherhood said that they were willing to submit the wage question to arbitration under the Erdman act, provided the other two points were settled without the aid of a third party.

It was announced by the general managers’ committee to-night that an answer was directed sent to Mr. Carter, denying this request and leaving it to the union, despite their “strike vote,” to take what future course they think best. It is said that the recent vote, showing more than eighty per cent of the men to be against accepting the offer of the railroads, would enable the national officials to call a strike at any time.

Negotiations have been on for six weeks. About forty-nine Western railroads are involved. If a strike were called, it is said, 25,000 other employes would be thrown out.

STRIKE

New York Evening Post

If you failed to find a red auto-cab on the street this morning, it was because the 475 drivers of the New York Taxicab Company had gone out on strike at five o’clock. At noon the strike was still on, the men, who are members of the Chauffeurs’ Protective Association, not having reached an agreement with the company.

Most of the cabs are stored in the big Gospel Tent, next to the Y. M. C. A. building, on West Fifty-seventh Street, and if the company fails to get any of them moving by to-morrow, there is likely to be no room for the worshippers who attend the evangelistic services.

So sudden was the action of the drivers that the company was totally unprepared to cope with the situation, and hundreds of orders remained unfilled. Many persons were disappointed during the day. At the offices, No. 546 Fifth Avenue, it was said no statement would be made, for the reason that the company did not know yet just where the trouble was.

At Washington Hall, where the drivers established their headquarters, the officers of the association were in session nearly all morning, and out on the street in front of the building the members stood about in groups, waiting for an announcement as to the success or failure of their action. They did not hesitate to tell their grievances, either.

“The whole question sizes up about like this,” said one of the be-goggled and helmeted chauffeurs. “The company expects the riding public to keep us alive on tips. But the riding public is losing the tip habit, if anybody should ask you, and it has been a starving game for us.

“Now, we fellows have got to live, like any other workingmen. Just because we drive automobiles don’t prove that we’re all millionaires. We want a fair wage and opportunity to earn it. We don’t care how many hours we work, as long as there is a chance to make the money.

“But we can’t do much under the present system. Here is the way the company proposes that we will make a living: We run the cabs for a week and take 20 per cent. of the fares. Out of this we have to pay for all the gasolene we burn, the polish we use to keep the cabs bright and shiny, and two or three uniforms a year.

“Supposing a driver takes in $20 a week? Out of that he would get 20 per cent., and out of that four dollars he is expected to pay for six or seven gallons of gasolene at fifteen cents a gallon, besides laying aside a clothing allowance and buying his polish. Of course, he is allowed to keep his tips, but tips are getting smaller every year.

“Last week I made just seven dollars after all expenses had been deducted. I owed the company after the gasolene charges had been paid, and my tip money pulled me out seven to the good.”

BEGINNINGS OF STRIKE

Chicago Tribune

Five hundred employes of wholesale grocery houses yesterday joined the strike begun on the preceding day by the porters of Sprague, Warner & Co. Many nonunion men joined with the unionists, and in some of the houses the tie-up practically was complete. Boys and girls employed in the canning departments of some of the houses caught the strike fever and walked out with the men, although they are not organized. Two of the larger houses, those of Steele, Wedeles & Co. and Reid, Murdoch & Co., escaped the strike yesterday, but their employes may go out to-day.

The strike came as a sort of April fool joke on the merchants. They had offered to arbitrate the differences with the union, and did not believe that the men would obey a strike order. There has been no trouble in the industry for the last six years, and the merchants were inclined to believe that the entire controversy would be adjusted at a conference held yesterday morning. They found the union representatives firm in their demands for a fifty-four-hour week all the year.

The merchants offered to grant a Saturday half-holiday for eight months, but insisted that while the fall rush was on in September, October, November and December the men would have to work full time. This was met by a proposition that they be paid time and one-half for the overtime on Saturday afternoons, but the merchants declared that would be an increase in wages which trade conditions did not warrant.

Immediately after the negotiations were broken off the union officials hurried from one house to another and called out the men in most of the houses. A few of the older employes stuck to their posts, but the number was so small that they could not handle the business. Among the larger houses where the men went out are:

“We have a few men left at work,” said Rollin A. Keyes of Franklin MacVeagh & Co., “but I would not like to bet that we will have them to-morrow morning. They seem to have caught the strike fever, although I think our position is eminently fair. We made them as good a proposition as we believed the business would stand, and when that was not acceptable to them we offered to submit the entire matter of wages and hours to arbitration. They told us they had tried arbitration once and did not want any more of it. I cannot say how long the strike will last or how extensive it may be, but so far as this firm is concerned, we are always ready to meet our employes. I don’t see, however, that a conference will do any good at this time, as the strike will have to run its course.”

Alex Gilchrist, business agent of the Wholesale Grocery Employes’ Union, declared that the demands of the men were conservative and that the offer to arbitrate was made too late in the negotiations to be taken up.

“The merchants have had our demands before them for a month,” said Mr. Gilchrist, “and they offered us nothing until the last moment, when they knew we would strike. They are trying to break up our organization, and the men think that they might as well fight it out now. If the trade is so heavy during the fall months that they cannot grant us a half-holiday it is all the more reason why they should pay us overtime for Saturday afternoons during those months. Our men believe that they cannot get anything without fighting for it, and that is what we have decided to do.”

The Freight Handlers’ Council will meet to-night and take up the strike of the grocery employes. A sympathetic strike in some of the railroad freighthouses is said to be probable unless the difficulty in the grocery houses is settled soon.

SERIOUS CLASH IN BIG STRIKE

Chicago Tribune

Trinidad, Colo., April 21.—[Special.]—Twenty-five dead, more than two-thirds of them women and children, a score missing, and more than a score wounded, is the toll known tonight to have resulted from the fourteen hour battle which raged yesterday between state troops and striking coal miners in the Ludlow district. The battle occurred on the property of the Colorado Fuel and Iron company, the Rockefeller holdings.

Today both sides maintained an ominous quiet, but it is feared the battle will be resumed tomorrow with greater bloodshed than that which has occurred.

The militia, which yesterday drove the strikers from their tent colony and, it is charged, set fire to the tents, involving thereby the greatest loss of lives, are preparing for a machine gun sortie at daybreak from their position along the Colorado and Southern railroad tracks at either side of the Ludlow station.

On the surrounding hills, sheltered by rocks and bowlders, 400 strikers await the coming of the soldiers, while their ranks are being swelled by men who tramped overland in the dark, carrying guns and ammunition from the neighboring union camps.

Italian, Greek, and Austrian miners have appealed to their consular representatives for protection, and John McLennan, president of the local union district, today wired the Red Cross in Denver to be prepared to render aid.

Both strikers and militia have a plentiful supply of ammunition on hand. Five thousand rounds were taken to the troops at Ludlow on a Colorado and Southern train from Denver early this morning, and this supply was supplemented by a shipment from Trinidad this noon.

The strikers by the seizure of an engine in the Denver and Rio Grande yards at Elmoro early yesterday were also able to replenish their stock.

The militia number 200. Detachments from Walsenburg and Lamar got through the lines early yesterday.

The fighting began early yesterday, when a militia detachment under Lieut. Linderfelt started to investigate the cause of firing near Cedar Hill. As the day progressed, word of the clash reached officials, and a relief expedition consisting of fifty members of the newly organized Trinidad militia company were sent to the scene on a special train. The militia went south of Ludlow and came upon the strikers barricaded in the pumping station.

Maj. P. J. Hamrock, in a statement this morning, declared that the main battle was precipitated about dusk by a crowd of Greek strikers under Louis Tikas, who opened fire upon a detachment of his men while they were drilling near the military camp, and in sight of the tent colony.

The strikers retreated along a gully back of the tent colony, followed by the militia, who swept the valley with machine guns.

The fire of the troops set many of the tents on fire. While the flames were spreading several thousand rounds of ammunition stored in the tent of John Lawson, Colorado member of the national executive board, United Mine Workers, according to the military reports, was exploded.

Terrified by the rain of bullets which poured through the blazing canvases above their heads, the women and children, apparently more afraid of the lead than of the flames, remained huddled in their pits until the smoke carried death to them by suffocation.

When it appeared that no more men remained in the colony the militia ceased its fire and went to the work of rescue. Women ran from the burning tents, some with their clothing afire, carrying their babes in their arms. Many were forced to abandon their older children to their fate.

Trembling, hysterical, some apparently dazed, the women were escorted by the troops to the Ludlow station, where they were held until this morning, when a Colorado Southern train brought them into Trinidad.

The camp was abandoned to its fate following the departure of the women, and the strikers retreated to the arroyos back of the colony and to the surrounding hills.

This morning the camp was a mass of charred débris. In the holes which had been dug for their protection against the rifle fire the women and children died like trapped rats when the flames swept over them. One pit, uncovered this afternoon, disclosed the bodies of ten children and two women.

ONE DAY OF BIG STRIKE

New York Times

(Condensed)

LAWRENCE, Mass., Sept. 30.—For the first time in this country a “demonstration strike” against the imprisonment of labor leaders took place here to-day. After hand-to-hand fights between rioters and police, from the opening of the textile mill gates in the morning until the closing at night, the demonstration was called off by the Industrial Workers of the World.

The strike was called for twenty-four hours, beginning this morning, in protest against the imprisonment of Joseph J. Ettor, Arturo Giovanitti, and Joseph Caruso, whose trial in connection with the death of Anna Lopizzo opened in Salem to-day. Seven thousand of the 30,000 operatives in the cotton and woolen mills here obeyed the call, forcing out 5,000 others, either through intimidation or lack of work because of closing down of departments. Then, at a mass meeting late this afternoon, the workers were told to go back to-morrow morning, ready to come out again at the call of the Industrial Workers, if the leaders should not be satisfied with the progress of the trial at Salem.

The worst of the rioting occurred at the opening of the mill gates this morning. Pickets armed with revolvers, knives, sledge hammers, iron bolts and other weapons, attempted to stop operatives from going into the mills. When the police tried to maintain order, the pickets struggled with them desperately. Swinging their clubs with effect, the blue-coats drove back the rioters. A score of arrests were made, many of the prisoners having cracked heads, while there were many others who escaped through the crowds to their homes with bleeding heads and bruised faces.

Men, women and children on their way to work were held up and assaulted by strikers or sympathizers.

The morning’s trouble began at the corner of Essex and Mill Streets. A fireman was escorting his young daughter to her work in one of the mills when he was attacked by a crowd of pickets. The fireman put up a hard but successful fight to protect his daughter from interference. After seeing the young woman safely within the mill gates, he returned to the crowd of pickets. Here he pointed out a man, who, he said, had struck his daughter. The alleged assailant was arrested.

A short time before the hour for opening the mills a stream of operatives began to pour down Essex Street and through the side streets leading to the factories. Pickets intercepted the workers and attempted to prevent them from entering the mill gates. Lunch baskets were snatched and hurled into the faces of the women and children. One gray haired woman was rescued, with two companions, from a group of pickets who had bruised her face.

Fathers and brothers, some of them armed, escorted daughters and sisters to the mills. One boy was struck over the head with a bottle and rendered unconscious.

Cars bearing workers were intercepted by pickets and stalled for a time. One motorman had to fight with the crowd for possession of his controller.

Private automobiles were used as patrol wagons by the police. Timid women operatives were taken in charge by the police and conveyed by automobiles to their mills.

Leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World said that the organization could not be held responsible for the disturbances. Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn in a statement said: “I, personally, and other leaders have constantly cautioned workers against any violence, particularly in the present strike, which is one of demonstration rather than of grievances. The trouble this morning was caused by some excitable youngsters, whose actions can hardly be controlled by any one.”

Against this statement must be weighed the language of one of the addresses in Italian that aroused the crowd at the afternoon mass meeting. It was translated into English and given out to-night in the form of a statement by the speaker, Carlo Tresca, an editor of Pittsburgh. It said:

“If Ettor, Giovanitti, and Caruso are found guilty, or either of them is found guilty, the Industrial Workers of the World will march to Salem, storm the jail, and rescue the prisoners, if possible.”

Only one hospital case was reported, that of an operative who was thrown headlong from a street car and knocked unconscious. He was later discharged. No policeman was wounded, and no shots were fired.

The decision of the Industrial Workers’ leaders to call off the strike was made public at a mass meeting attended by 5,000 persons in a vacant lot this afternoon. There was no dissent, although many of the operatives said they had expected the strike to last much longer. No vote was taken at the meeting on the matter of formally ending the strike. Archie Adamson, who presided, said afterward that the usual vote was dispensed with because it was feared some of the hotter heads among the strikers might insist upon remaining out, and thus create disturbances.

CHAPTER XII
WEATHER

The universal interest in the weather, which makes it the most common topic of conversation, is due to its effect upon health, business, and pleasure. Official forecasts of the weather are given a place of prominence on the front page of most papers, and are read with interest by most readers. The business man, the farmer, the shopper, the pleasure-seeker, all are concerned with the state of the weather and the predictions regarding it. Besides the official reports, there is opportunity for weather stories of various kinds. The change of the seasons, extremes of heat and cold, storms, and unusual weather of any sort serve as subjects for weather stories. Two stories of an eclipse of the sun have been included in this division, although, of course, such phenomena should be classed as astronomical rather than meteorological.