Counting the Cost

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7136, 19 November 1894, Page 4

Counting the Cost

Week the last mail left America the railway companies were still counting up the cost of the late great strike. The cotal •was not known, but the following had been definitely ascertained, the figures being given in evidence before the Commission of Enquiry appointed by President Cleveland : — Chicago and Alton. — Loss to company, 178,560dol ; loss of wages by employees, 100,000dol. Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy. — Loss from destruction of property, 115,000dol ; loss from decrease of business, unknown. Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul.— Loss in cars and other property, damaged or destroyed, 14,243d0l ; losses in earnings, 618,454d01 ; loss of wages by employees, 175,779d01. Chicago and North- Western. — Losses of the company, 573,690d01s f loss of wages by employees, 20b',503c101. Chicago and Erie. - Losses, 115,37b'd01 ; loss of wages by employees, 29,413d01. Illinois Central. — Damage to property, 53,000dol ; freight destroyed, 50,000dul ; loss in traffic, SOO.OOOdol ; extra expenses of operation, 127,000d0l ; total, 730,000 dol ; loss of wages by employees, 164,000 dol. Lake Shore and Michigan Southern. — Losses of the company, partial statement, 5164d01. Chicago and Eastern Illinois.— Damage to property, 2377d01. Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific. — J Loss estimated by general manager St. John at from 800,000dol to 1,000,000d01. Pennsylvania Line. — Estimated losses, SOO.OOOdoI. Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe. — Damage to cars and other property, 5,030 ' dol ; loss by employes in wages, 111,217 dol : estimated loss of business, 500,000 dol.' The companies which had still to be heard from were the Baltimore and Ohio, Grand Trunk, Chicago and Northern Pacific, Chicago and Western Indiana, Chicago Great Western, O.C.C. and St. L., Louisville, New Albany and Chicago, Michigan Central, New York, Chicago, and St. Louis, Wabash, and Wisconsin Central Companies, all of which suffered heavily in loss of traffic, and most of which suffered in destruction of property, and in expenses in obtaining and protecting men to take the place of the strikers, The strike, in brief, cost the railways of Chicago millions of dollars, cheir employes millions of dollars more, and the taxpayers many other millions for che suppression of disorder, and all this with no practical result whatever. This, pithily remarks a railway journal, is the cost which has been paid in order to demonstrate theunntness of Mr Eugene V. Debs to be the leader of a labour movement. — H.B. Herald.