INCIDENTS OF A GREAT STRIKE.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12767, 13 April 1910, Page 1

INCIDENTS OF A GREAT STRIKE.

The American correspondent of "The Press" writes : — "If the Philadelphia strike does not become national, it is at least practically certain to spread through the State of Pennsylvania. Beginning : with the walk-out of 6000 tramway workers, it has , become a general strike of the union men of the city. A conservative newspaper service estimates that 100,000 men have left their ; work. ; "A stone thrown from a crowd in- | jured a strike-breaking motorman. In- : furiated by this, fifteen of his com- ! rades took a car out of the barns, I smashed the windows with their clubs i and then isped through the mob, firing "l through the windows with revolvers. i Four were wounded, by their bullets — i one of them a girl of fourteen. While tha wounded were being picked up the strike-breakers turned their car back and rushed to the barn at the highest speed they could make. The crowd, taken by surprise, was unable to gathler for a counter demonstration. But I tha brutal attack roused the mob's fury, and several other cars were wrecked. "Five thousand school girls have been given vacation till the disturbances end ; it is considered unsafe for them to pass through the streets. "Over two thousand windows were broken during the day early in the strike. "A pitched battle betwen 500 workmen of the Baldwin locomotive works, armed with scraps of iron and a large forcei of police with revolvers, occurred during <me touch iour. The workmen jeered when a car came along with policemen guarding the strike-break-ers on the front and rear platforms. The policemen tried to arreet a man; he was rescued by his friends. Then the workmen sent a volley of bolts and nuts through the windows and . doors of the car. The police whistle was blown and twenty officers camei up. They received the second volley of bolts. Then the workmen retreated into the locomotive works and continued to fusilade from the windows and roof. I " 'Fire at them ! Use your, guns ! • Shoot right at the windows whenever you see a man," ordered the sergeant. ■ The shooting began, but not a bullet found its mark. I "Try it again.!" shouted the men in the building, and continued to rain down their scraps of iron — missies that proved more eftective than the policemen's lead. ."Perhaps the most terrible feature of the Btriko is that it is largely attributable, to the politicians who control the city government. Mayor Iteyburn is one of the city's representatives 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 the company to submit the dispute to arbitration. It is not the duty of the city, he says, to meddle, and he considers it I would be meddling to compel the company to agroe to arbitration. It cannot be doubted that he is acting in every way possible to assist the company ; and the reason is that the leading stockholders of the company are those that put the Mayor into office."