STRIKE OR WAR ?

Manawatu Standard, Volume 9187, Issue XLI, 11 April 1910, Page 7

STRIKE OR WAR ?

PHILADELPHIA'S GREAT - CONFLICT. HOW IT BEGAN. SAN FRANCISCO, March 10. Yesterday an appeal was issued to every Labour union in the United States to strike in sympathy with the tramway workers of Philadelphia. If the unions respond, there will be revolution—noth- : ing- less—and' no bloodless revolution i cither. But such momentous action will not bo taken with haste. The matter must come before the American Federation of Labour, whose leaders, Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell, and the rest, arc mostly men of international experience v»;ho know what a-nntibnnl strike would mean. Yet it is possible that they will decide , the time is ripe ; the principles of unionism have been directly • attacked; the Philadelphia Streetcar Company has re■fused to deal with the union as a union; [ it insists that its employees shall conduct negotiations simply as individuals. If tho American Federation of Labour declines to call a general strike throughout the country, it will not be because it admits tho lack of just cause, but because it believes organised labour is not strong enough to win. Recent events have raised tho flood of unionist resent- ! merit against present conditions almost to the bursting point. The national leaders, Gompers and Mitchell, even now have a sentence of imprisonment hanging over their heads because they ordered a boycott of non-unionist stove works; only tho possibility of their appeal being , upheld by the highest court stands between them and gaol. For boycotting' a hat manufacturer, the Danbury Hatters' Union has been ordered to pay a line of £44.400—m0re than the combined wealth of the union and all its members. Such defeats have a tremendous significance, coming as the climax of years of suppression of tho working man —strike after strike crushed largely by troops, reactionary measures passed by dishonest Legisalturos, hostile decisions given by political judges, till in the majority of cases the working man is not evert pro-' tected against being killed for profiit, and his'widow has f)o redress. If the Philadelphia strike does not become national, it is at least practically certain to spread .through the State of Pennsylvania. Beginning with tho walkout of six thousand tramway workers, it has become a general strike of the union men of the city. A conservative newspaper service estimates that 100,000 have left their work. The immediate cause of the car strike was the dismissal of some hundreds of union men. The company claimed to have good cause for their removal, but workers alleged that- the only cause was that these men had been prominent in union work. A new union had been formed, and the old employees accused the company of organising this body with tho deliberate aim of "breaking" the old union. They had urged that none of the members of the upstart organisation engaged, at the same time demanding an increase in wages. * Both demands had been refused. ARBITRATION REFUSED. So the strike began. After a few days of strife and bloodshed the union asked tho company to submit the dispute to arbitration. The company refused to deal with the union, but offered to negotiate with representatives of, the work- I ers, including the so-called union-break-ers. Tho offer was not accepted. Tho general strike was called at midnight on 4th March. Strike means bloodshed in America. just as surely as it means cruel, silent suffering. In the first four days of tho original strike, it is reported 3 pei-sons were, killed, 375 injured, and 500 arrested ; 7 cars were burned, and 841 wrecked or disabled. The company lost about £80,000. The bloodshed and destruction have continued on a similar scale since. Among those killed by the poaco officers' bullefs is a girl. Here arc a few I incidents that are fairly typical of the J rioting : — INNOCENT FOLK SHOT. | A stone thrown from a. crowd injured"a strike-breaking motor-man. Infuriated by this, fifteen of his comrades took a • car out of the barns, smashed the windows with their clubs, and then sped through tho mob, firing through the windows with revolvers. Four were wounded by their bullets—one of them a. girl of fourteen. While the wounded were being picked up tho strike-breakers turned their car back, and rushed to tho barn at the highest speed they could make. The crowd, taken by surprise, was unable to gather for a counter-dem-onstration. But the brutal attack roused the mob's fury, and several other cars were wrecked. Five thousand schoolgirls have been given vacation till tho disturbances end; it is considered unsafe for them to pass through the streets. Over two thousand windows were broken during one day early in tho strike. A pitched battle between 500 workmen of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, armed with scraps of iron, and a large force of police with revolvers, occurred during one lunch hour. The workmen jeered when a car came along with policemen guarding the strike-breakers on the front and rear platforms. The policemen tried to arrest a man ; he .was rescued by his friends. Then the workmen sent a volley of bolts and nuts through the windows and doors of • tho car. Tho police whistle was blown, and twenty officers camo up. They received the second volley of bolts. Then the workmen retreated into the locomotive works, and continued a fusillade from tho windows and roof. "Fire at them! Uso your guns! Shoot right afc tho windows whenever you soo a man," ordered the sergeant. Tho shooting began, but not a bullet found its mark. "Try it again !" shouted tho men in the building, and continued to rain down their scraps of iron—missiles that proved more effective than the policemen's lead. Pechaps the most terrible feature of the strike is that it is largely attributable to tho politicians who control the city government. Mayor Reyburn is one of the city's reprcsetnatives on the board that decides questions of policy in which the city as well as the tramway company is interested. He has made no effort to induce tho company to submit the dispute to arbitration. It is not the duty of the city, he says, to meddle, and he considers it would be meddling to compel the company to agree to arbitration. Jt cannot be doubted he is acting in every .way possible to assist the company ; and the reason is that the leading" , stockholders of the company are Republicans—friends of the party that put the Mayor into office.