100,000 ON STRIKE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20360, 18 July 1934, Page 1

100,000 ON STRIKE.

More Unions Join Hold-up at San Francisco. TRUCKS BRING POOD INTO CITY. Additional Troops Stationed at Strategic Points. (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received July 18, 10.55 a.m.) SAN FRANCISCO, July 17. WHILE THE SIRIKE TF-NSION had relaxed somewhat to-day an additional 40,000 workers, the crews of the key system of ferry boats and trains, swelled the strikers’ numbers to more than 100,000. Meanwhile additional troops have been placed at strategic points and heavily-guarded motor trucks have begun moving foodstuffs.

The San Francisco and Oakland municipal street cars are operating unmolested.

Apparently feeling that hunger would turn the general public against them, the strike committee last night eased the ban on food importations and insisted that an ample supply of fresn vegetables, meat, milk and bakery products should be available, but they are determined that they and not the police shall have the authority to handle their movement. The committee has therefore issued the following orders:—

(1) Prohibition of all liquor sales. (2) Trucks of garden produce are to be given a safe conduct into the city.

(3) Steps are to be taken to reopen sufficient restaurants to serve the public.

(4) To ensure a satisfactory meat supply to the city’s people. (5) To name a transportation committee to arrange a transfer of the necessary ingredients for the manufacture of food products, and for gasoline and oil supply for these authorised services.

(6) To authorise the continuation of essential public services such as police, fire, health, water and sanitation. To-day the general strike became effective in the East Bay cities of Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda. Martial law is only a question of hours.

Late yesterday afternoon, as the real effect of the general strike began to be f e lt, lines of men, women and children stood in front of the nineteen accredited restaurants to wait their turn to be fed.

Units of the National Guard have been rushed to the city to ensure the protection of the metropolitan area. At present there are 7000 National Guardsmen here. From Washington the Department of Labour has sent Senator Wagner to Portland to attempt to prevent a general strike there, while General Johnson has been ordered to proceed to San Francisco and survey the situation. 1 Other Unions Join. The radio telegraphers, who are affiliated to the American Radio Telegraphers’ Association, have decided to join the strike. The organisation has 500 members in the Pacific area. Under Federal laws no vessel carrying passengers can sail without a properly authorised radio operator. Most of them are union members.

Bartenders, who waited through fifteen years of prohibition for the opportunity to resume their trade, were idle again to-day because their union joined the general strike movement. Communists tried to attack the Mayor (Mr Rossi) as he arrived a*t the Hall of Justice. Shouting imprecations they rushed Mr Rossi, who was rescued by the chief of police. Six demonstrators were arrested. The White House has issued a denial of the report that President Roosevelt would abandon his Honolulu visit and come to San Francisco personally to try to settle the strike. THE VIGILANTES. Originated in San Francisco in June, 1851. The Vigilantes, or Vigilance Committees, w’hich, according to a cable printed in the “ Star ” last night, may be revived in San Francisco as a result of the strike, were self-constituted judicial bodies* occasionally organised in the western frontier districts of the United States for the protection of life and property.

The first committee of prominence bearing the name was organised in San Francisco in June, 1851, when the crimes of desperadoes, who had immigrated to the goldfields, were rapidly increasing in numbers and it was said there were venal judges, packed juiies and false witnesses At first this committee was composed of about 200 members; afterwards it was much larger. The general committee was governed by an executive M committee and the city was policed by Sub-com-mittees. Within about thirty days four desperadoes were arrested, tried by the executive committee, and hanged, and about thirty others were banished. Satisfied with the results, the committee then quietly adjourned, but it was revived five years later. Similar committees were common in other parts of California and in the mining districts of Idaho and Montana. That in Montana exterminated in 1863-64 a band of outlaws organised under Henry Plummer, the sheriff of Montana City; twent\ r -four of the outlaws were hanged within a few months. Committees or societies of somewhat the same nature were formed in the southern States during the reconstruction period to protect white families from negroes and “ carpet-baggers,” and besides these there were the Ku-Klux-Klan and its branches—Knights of the White Camelia, the Pale Faces, and the Invisible Empire of the South—the principal object of Which war to control the negroes by striking them with terror. CAUSE OF DISPUTE. Engagement of Labour on Waterfront. The strike in San Francisco commenced on May 9, when 10,000 to 15,000 longshoremen, gr waterskje workers, ceased work. The main point of their dispute with the employers was, and still is, the method to be adopted in employing waterfront labour. Increased pay and shorter hours also were sought by the men, but, according to reports, a compromise could be reached on these two matters. The employers proposed that committees of employers and men should formulate rules for the registration and hiring of longshoremen through hiring halls to be established in each port. In operating the halls there was to be no discrimination against any man because of membership or non-membership of a labour union. The employers demanded freedom to select their men, at the same time leaving the men. free to select their jobs. The payment of rent of the halls and incidental expenses were to . be borne by the employers, and the men’s organisation, the International Longshoremen’s Association, was to maintain its own representatives in the halls.

This arrangement, according to the men, would mean less favourable conditions than they had hitherto enjoyed. Tn a statement the San Francisco strike committee said: “ A hiring hall controlled and paid for by the employers certainly could not be considered by the members, as it leaves the employers in absolute control. Under this agreement the employer has the privilege of hiring whomever he pleases; as a consequence, those who have actively participated in this strike would never be hired on the San Francisco waterfront again.”

From the first day of the strike sanguinary skirmishes have occurred involving strikers, police and strikebreakers. The trouble spread to Pacific Coast ports other than San Francisco, and additional labour unions have thrown in their lot with the longshoremen. Among the many thousands of men subsequently to become voluntarilv idle are members of the Sailors’ Union, Marine Cooks and Stewards’ Union, Masters, Mates and Pilots’ Union, Engineers’ Beneficial Association and Marine Firemen’s Union, as well as thousands of lorry and taxicab drivers and chauffeurs. Shipping and internal services have become dislocated. and heavy financial losses have been suffered by the business community, particular!v in San Francisco.