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:

FRANKLIN MACVEAGH & CO.
SPRAGUE, WARNER & CO.
W. M. HOYT COMPANY.
JOHN A. TOLMAN & CO.
HENRY HORNER & CO.
W. J. QUAN & CO.
S. PETERSON & CO.

“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.