advance in wages in the spring of 1906. In the circular they were advised to resist any request for higher wages, the closing words reading: "My purpose in writing is merely to put you and your neighbor on your guards that you may be considering how to deal with this thing when it comes up. In my judgment the best plan to adopt is to keep your fair-minded man well paid and satisfied, but don't increase any minimum wage rate. Many of these requests have already been refused, and the only way to prevent a successful outcome of the plan of this union is to chop it off behind the ears before it gets time to grow. Yours very truly, (The italics are ours.) "O. P. BRIGGS." The cost of living had been advancing rapidly, and in the spring of 1906 the. molders in the great majority of foundry centers and towns asked for an advance in wages. Strikes occurred in a number of cities, and it was evident from the beginning that the National Founders' Association was determined to prevent the molders from securing any advance in wages, and that they hoped in addition to deal a death blow to the International Molders' Union. Hundreds of circulars and letters issued by the association at that time demonstrate these facts. The association's greatest efforts were seemingly put forth in Milwaukee, Wis., where a number of foundries, in addition to the Allis Chalmers shops, had been struck. Headquarters were opened up and one or more of the association's representatives were almost continuously in the city. The striking molders were attacked from several points. Many of them were arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, assault, and contempt of court, the molders' attorney, Mr. W. B. Rubin, having defended more than two hundred such cases. In over 95 per cent of these the union molders were discharged, and in no instance was any union molder found guilty of carrying concealed weapons. Continuous efforts were being made to aggravate union molders, so that they could be charged with lawlessness, and the forty odd cases of National Founders' Association strike-breakers, sluggers, and private detectives found guilty of crimes varying from carrying concealed weapons to assault with intent to kill, which has been reproduced from the court records, gives evidence of the extent to which these men were employed to precipitate breaches of the peace. There were deeper motives in these tactics, however, than the mere arrest or conviction of a union molder. The National Founders' Association and the foundrymen desired to secure injunctions from the courts, and evidence of lawlessness on the union molders' part was required. With the small army of thugs and cut-throats-many of whom had criminal records-at their command it was not difficult to present alleged evidence on which injunctions could be secured, and six of these were issued, including one by Judge Quarles, of the United States District Court. This injunction was afterward dissolved through the efforts of Attorney W. B. Rubin.* Finding that the injunctions did not drive the striking molders back to work or disrupt their union, desperate tactics, including the beating up of union men and the maiming of the strike committee, were determined upon. The brutes who had been hired to do this work were guaranteed protection, and their fines were always paid when they were found guilty. The majority of those committing assaults upon union molders, however, were never apprehended, for as soon as a murderous job had been done they were shipped out of town, and taken care of while away. *Mr. W. B. Rubin, who was the union's attorney throughout the strike, and who prosecuted the Cramer case to a successful conclusion, and secured the evidence which uncovered the criminal conspiracy to beat up and maim union molders which is now being exposed, succeeded in having Judge Quarles dissolve he injunction which he had issued. This was the second Federal injunction against a trade union to be dissolved since American Judges have issued in junctions, and also the second labɔr injunction to be dissolved in Wisconsin, the other one having been issued and dissolved by Judge Dick, of the State court, in which case Mr. Rubin was also the attorney for the union affected. Time and again, after a union molder had been slugged, the thugs were compli mented for their work, and always retained in service, as shown by the record, the only one discharged being the guard who objected to the brutality of the attack upon Harvey; and who for this evidence of humane feeling was discharged by Herr. This reign of lawlessness and terrorism was maintained for over a year. Guards, spies, and strike-breakers were being continuously arrested and found guilty of carrying concealed weapons and committing aggravated assaults, and yet their employers, the foundrymen and the National Founders' Association, made no effort to stop them. Instead, the ablest attorneys were employed in their defense, and when found guilty their fines were paid, and they remained at the employment which had been assigned to them. These tactics are not exceptional on the employers' part during industrial disputes. Unfortunately they have been extensively used, but it has generally been impossible to produce evidence in court, as in this case, which would substantiate the facts, which striking workmen in hundreds of instances have known to be true. Powerful financial and political influences have shielded the guilty employers while they used their mercenaries in much the same manner as did the barons of feudal times, to carry out their private vengeance. The press has frequently been a friendly medium through which to tell exaggerated stories of lawlessness on the part of striking workmen, which has been fostered and brought to a head by the agents provocateurs hired by the employers. The case of McBride, already referred to, furnishes an illustration of how these things are done. Suspected of being a union molder, he was taken out of the foundry and plied with liquor until stupefied. The detectives then telephoned to a place where some of the strikers were, and posing as union sympathizers informed the men that there was a drunken scab in a saloon, and a good opportunity to beat him up. The public mind has been filled with reports of union lawlessness, but it has been given no opportunity of knowing the desperate conditions forced upon striking workmen when the employers determine upon the destruction of their union. In the strike which has been considered, no limit short of murder was placed upon the hirelings who were employed by the Allis-Chalmers Company or the National Founders' Association. They intended to defeat the union molders, regardless of the law and regardless of price. The record is an unsavory and disgraceful one, but it is merely a page, similar to many others, which are contained in the records of corporate lawlessness and vengeance when opposition crosses the path. This history of crime fostered and abetted by foundrymen of Milwaukee and the National Founders' Association, and based upon court records, is an evidence of the extent to which employers will go in their efforts to defeat union workmen struggling to elevate their standard of living. "MY BROTHER's Keeper.” By H. B. PERHAM, Eighth Vice-President, American Federation of Labor. F THE organized worker were to give up his efforts to defend himself and his fellows against injustice, abandon his union, allow his employer to pay any wages the employer chose to offer, permit the professional class to continue to make the laws for the people and administer them, what then would become of the United States? Many people have recently expressed their opinion in the public prints that organized labor, on account of the dynamite disclosures, has reached a crisis in its history. Those who have given an expression to such an opinion are, of course, not a part of organized labor; they might be likened to hermits living among the snowclad mountain peaks and not in any wise familiar with the lives led by common people. The men of labor are working assiduously for their cause, well knowing that in their organizations rests their only hope for anything like fair treatment and proper consideration, the one and only method by which their interests can and will be protected, and the machinery by which their eventual emancipation will be worked out. Their organizations having been purified in the furnace of actual experience are at the present moment as clean as human agencies can make them, and compare splendidly with any other function organized by buman beings. They know that organized labor has fewer representatives in the penitentiaries than have the banks, the bar, or even the pulpit, although the workers outnumber the professions better than ten to one. Let us suppose for argument's sake that the unions have become impaired for some cause not now apparent. To whom else would the wage earner look for protection? The answer is, he would look in vain. The protective tariff does not in any way protect the wage-earner. If it did, surely such conditions as now obtain in the steel industry would not be possible. Men employed by the United States Steel Corporation or its subsidiaries have not been allowed to organize for many years. It has been a clear case of "No union man need apply" ever since the Homestead affray in the '90s, and most of the dynamiting that took place last year was but another phase of that same situation. In between those epochal disturbances prevailing conditions for the tariff protected iron worker are fairly described in the report just published by the Department of Commerce and Labor. The conditions surrounding the worker who toils seven days per week, gets $1.35 per day, and suffers the tortures of hell every minute, can be more easily imagined than described. A man entirely dissociated from unions and union men might be led to believe that because two members of organized labor forgot its teachings and became bomb. throwers, all organized labor was to blame for the crime, but he would have to live up. in the mountains to hold that theory very long. As the old saying goes, "There are black sheep in every flock," and of course that applies to the organized millions in the wage earners' class. The condition in the protected textile industry now being brought to a focus at Lawrence, Mass., aided by a splendidly equipped force of militia, is only another case in point. These two highly protected industries are sufficient for an example, but if that is not deemed enough to point the moral, there are hundreds of others that can be cited. Congress has fixed the tariffs upon a socalled protective basis, the chief reason or excuse advanced therefor being that fair wages might be paid. It has never taken it upon itself to see that fair wages were really paid, and the theory upon which the protective tariff is based consequently resolves itself into a national fraud. The result of such legislation is that we now have over 6,000 millionaires parading their wealth and importance before an astonished world, and several millions of industriously inclined, law-abiding working people living from hand to mouth, constantly wondering what further misery fate has in store for them. The influential citizens who are charged with the administration of the laws, whose environment has been too close to corporations and the employing class for the comfort of the common people, whose sympathies are naturally with the good stewards who have got things as against those who are in want, are constituting themselves a factor for new and perhaps astonishing conditions. Their assumption of powers not delegated to them by the law in declaring legislative acts unconstitutional and consequently null and void, their meddling in trade disputes by issuing injunctions that favor the employers and damage the workers, their imprisonment for contempt of court of men on strike who were never present in court except when they came up to be sentenced, and even then had committed no crime nor what could reasonably be deemed a slight offense, and many other arbitrary acts are gradually causing the courts to lose the confidence of the common people. The daily press, which should be the popular mouthpiece and faithful recorder of current events apparently bears evidence of censorship by the gentlemen of big business, not particularly in their editorial utterances, but in the character and quality of news permitted to be published. Matters that would help and encourage the common people are not published; stuff derogatory to the labor unions and their leaders are given very prominent space. Articles carefully devised to smooth the way for the employing class toward profitable exploitation greet the eye on every page, excepting perhaps the comics, and even they are not always immune. The principal objects of this Government in the beginning of things worth while were to establish justice for the people and insure domestic tranquillity; that is, if the preamble to our Constitution is to be take in good faith. It can not be gainsaid that justice has not as yet been established, and were it not for the organizations of labor and the hopeful, helpful, constructive work they have done, are doing, and mean to do. it is altogether probable that domestic tranquillity could not so steadily be maintained. It is as reasonable and as patriotic to remark that this Republic is resting upon the brink of a precipice as it is to say that organized labor has reached a crisis in its affairs. If the views of Post, Kirby, Otis, et al. were to be accepted by the common people, and the labor unions as a consequence emasculated, this country would not take very long to journey from a republic to an empire. When that time approaches, the secret passwords into many of the unions will most likely be, "God Save the United States." DISTRICT AND GENERAL ORGANIZERS. Number Commissioned Organizers, American Federation of Labor, 1,630 District No. 1.-Eastern. Comprising the States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island. Connecticut, and the Province of New Brunswick, Canada. Organizers, John A. Flett, J. J. Cunningham, P. F. Duffy, Frank H. McCarthy. District No. II.-Middle. Comprising the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and the Province of Quebec, Canada. Organizers, H. L. Eichelberger, Cal Wyatt, William Bork, Henry Streifler, H. T. Keating, Hugh Frayne, J. D. Pierce. District No. III-Southern. Comprising the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Organizers, William E. Terry, Chas. A. Miles. District No. IV.-Central. Comprising the States of West Virginia. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Organizers, J. J. Fitzpatrick, Thos. H. Flynn, John J. Keegan, John L. Lewis. District No. V.-Northwestern. Comprising the States of Minnesota, Iowa. North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Manitoba. Organizers, Emmet T. Flood, John D. Chubbuck. District No. VI.-Southwestern. Comprising the States of Missouri, Kansas, Texas Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Organizer, Sim A. Bramlette. District No. VII.-Inter-Mountain. Comprising the States of Montana, Wyoming, Colc rado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho. District No. VIII.-Pacific Coast. Comprising the States of Nevada, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, and the Province of Brit:s Columbia. Organizers, C. O. Young, Jos. P. Sorensen. "P AN EFFECTIVE RAILROAD STRIKE. By J. W. KLINE, Chairman, Joint Federation of Striking Employes of the Illinois Central and Harriman Lines. ROGRESS, Federation, and Human Rights." This is the slogan of the trade unions that are on strike on the Illinois Central and Harriman lines, and we want the public to know something about it. The sentiment expressed in these three words has brought down the wrath of the Wall street brokers and other uncomfortably rich men upon the heads of 30,000 employes on these roads. No enlightened trade unionists doubt for a minute that the railroad managers have a federation that is governed by a set of rules that does not allow one of its affiliated roads to act independently unless given permission by the others. This is the slogan of the This has been proven time and again to the satisfaction of committees in their annual conferences. (It may be a gentleman's agreement, but it's in force.) This was proven to the satisfaction of the federated committee when notices were given the various managers of the Harriman lines and Illinois Central to meet them for the purpose of drawing up a joint agreement for the ensuing year, and was promptly and systematically refused by them as well as by all other lines after the strike went on, until for some reason, yet unexplained, the Rock Island and Texas Pacific signed the joint agreement. The requests of the joint committee were, as usual, a matter for the company and the committee to adjust in conference. Mr. Kruttschnitt, the gentleman in whom all authority had been placed by the company, shattered all precedents by holding the proposed contract up to the public through the Associated Press in detail and dissecting it from the company's standpoint. We found that the newspaper trust (especially the Hearst papers) was against us-nothing unusual. The American people know there are always two sides to a question, but they got only one side of it in detail. The general officers involved in the strike went the limit to avoid a clash. They arranged a conference with Mr. Kruttschnitt in San Francisco, and after a conference of three hours Mr. Kruttschnitt informed us that he had weighed the matter, he had considered the public, he realized that it would be a calamity, but he stated plainly and emphatically that he or his managers would not confer with a federation of employes on account of their strength. He rankly admitted that the company couldf handle one craft but they could not control a federation of crafts. An honest admission, which he dare not deny. Discriminations were being practiced, old men whose pensions would be due in a few years were displaced by younger men, and many indignities heaped upon them by subordinates of the company, notwithstanding the fact that the men were working under a contract that prohibited these violations. Our contracts on the Harriman lines the last few years have been a joke; the frequent violations of them by the company is what organized the federation for protection. Ninety-seven per cent of the men voted to strike rather than have their unions put to death by slow torture. They would rather take the honorable means of fighting for their existence than the humiliating position of submitting to such treatment. The general officers tried to avoid the strike; the managers forced the issue; they chose the time and selected the battleground. Thirty thousand men could do nothing but accept the challenge, and one of the most gigantic struggles of recent years was on. The company, realizing that we would make a magnificent showing in our walkout, reduced the force to minimize the strike. Nealy 100 per cent obeyed the call. Out of the 30,000 employes, less than 500 have deserted us, and they are mostly the unskilled. Figuring five to a family, there are 150,000 people involved. |