Armed Motormen.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 4, 30 September 1907, Page 7

Armed Motormen.

• ■ FIVE STRIKES AT ONCE. A. letter just rccoived from a worker n San l'Ymicisco states that the whole ;puntry is ono big bubble of industrial tumult, nnd at times the feol.ng between capital and labour is so bitter that it almost looks like a civil '.var ahead. "I am sick to death of ■strikes,"' goes on the writer. "At one' iimo there wero five all going together -the laundry-men's, when I had to •rear the samo shirt for I don't know ;ow long; the engineers', telephone ■Ms', tramway men's, and beer bothers. Only yesterday, as a member if the Carpenters' Union, of. over two thousand members, I had to give four dollars as tho monthly tax each member has to pay to help'the striking carmcn in a useless fight against the United Railroad Company, of San Francisco. I had to pay twenty dollars to join tho union, and it's a' large light more worry to mo than nil the bosses v It isn't even safe to smoke a non-union cigar. "After the conductors and motor:nen went on strike, tho whole bitsi■loss of the city was at a standstill for three days. ' It took that time tomake arrangements to man tho cars with strike-breakers, or 'scabs,' as they call them here. Fancy cars put on the main streets for tho transport of people each manned by eight armed man! Each man had two pistols stuck in his belt, tho windows of tho ears were all removed ,and as they moved through the crowded streets they were greeted with showers of stones, and ''ad great difficulty in getting along. Two men wero shot doad, and no one dared ride in tho cars for days. It has been going on now for over two months, and does not seem much like '•■fling- settled. Thousands of people ride to: and from work in tho queerest •ilrl 'buses and waggons you ever saw. md tho horses are having a bad time. What with one thing and another, 'Frisco is in an awfully bad way."