424 



LABOR-STRIKES. 



general determination to make it a test-strike, 

 which should give a definite sanction to certain 

 powers for the adjustment of wages to be won 

 by the workmen, although the particular rights 

 which they claimed were anything but definite. 

 The particular grievances which they made 

 their casus belli were, however, plainly drawn 

 ;ip by the committees on the different roads. 

 While these differed on each of the lines, the 

 main complaint and the common incentive to 

 the strike was the last reduction of 10 per cent, 

 in the wages, determined upon by the manage- 

 ments of nearly all the railroads in the coun- 

 try, which went in force on some of the roads 

 in June, and on a greater number in July. On 

 nearly all the roads, the restoration of this 10 

 per cent, was embraced in the demands of the 

 strikers ; but on some of them this was done 

 more for the sake of unanimity than because 

 that was the most obnoxious of their griev- 

 ances ; as, for instance, on the New York & 

 Erie road, where the pay was higher than on 

 most of the others, and where the reduction 

 had been already acceded to by the employes. 

 On one or two roads in the West the men struck 

 without alleging any grievances, simply out of 

 sympathy with the movement. 



The origin of the rebellion, so general and 

 determined, against the unrestricted control 

 of employers in the matters of the hiring and 

 wages of labor, goes much further back, and 

 its consequences were intended to reach much 

 further ahead than the adjustment of the pres- 

 ent compensation of labor on the roads. The 

 hostility of the managers of the corporations to 

 labor unions and combinations, as such, had 

 become more and more pronounced and effec- 

 tive ; some of the managers had declared their 

 determination to destroy these associations 

 root and branch, and the practice of discharg- 

 ing the members of grievance and striking com- 

 mittees was common. The power of the strike 

 had been felt upon the railroads, notably in the 

 instances of the successful engineers' strike on 

 the New Jersey Central, in 1876, when every 

 engineer on the road stopped his train at the 

 given hour of midnight on a fixed day, and left 

 his engine where it was standing. A strike 

 was conducted in the same way on the Gr.md 

 Trunk Railway, in Canada, which extends from 

 Montreal to Detroit, in which the strikers like- 

 wise gained their point. These strikes were 

 organized by the great society of the Brother- 

 hood of Locomotive Engineers. This associa- 

 tion is the strongest ever formed among the 

 railroad operatives, [t numbers 50,000 or more 

 members, and possesses a fund of millions of 

 dollars, it is said. It dates from 1863 ; the 

 headquarters are in Cleveland, Ohio. It is com- 

 posed of train and track hands and conductors, 

 as well as engineers, the higher grades of em- 

 ployed being represented the strongest. It 

 first developed its strength-after an unsuccess- 

 ful engineers' strike on the Pan-Handle road 

 the connection of the Pennsylvania Railroad 

 running from Pittsburgh to Louisville in 1874. 



T. M. Arthur, who is still its head officer, was 

 then elected chief, and is the depositary of 

 great authority. He attends to all complaints, 

 and hastens to the spot when any grievance, 

 great or small, is heard of, to confer with 

 the aggrieved parties and with the railroad 

 superintendent. When he decides that the 

 employed are wrong, the matter is dropped. 

 Where he finds that the grievance is real, and 

 where the railroad authorities do not make good 

 the claim, he advises with his brother officers, 

 and if a strike is determined upon, it may not 

 take place immediately, but is consummated at 

 some hour when the railroad has pressing need 

 of all its hands and cannot momentarily replace 

 the striking employes. The brotherhood has 

 thus dictated terms to the railroad managers 

 in many a difficulty, from the case of a dis- 

 charged workman to the matter of raising 

 wages on whole lines of railroad. Railroad 

 managers have sworn to break this powerful 

 association. A determined strike which took 

 place under its auspices on the Boston & 

 Maine road in February, 1877, led to the pas- 

 sage of a law by the Massachusetts Legislature, 

 making it a penal offense for striking work- 

 men to do any act which would endanger com- 

 mercial interests ; and similar acts were passed 

 in the Legislatures of Pennsylvania, New Jer- 

 sey, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri. The 

 Engineers' Brotherhood took no active part in 

 the present strikes, although sympathizing en- 

 tirely with the movement. 



It was rumored that there was a concerted 

 strike planned, which should take place in Oc- 

 tober upon all the railroads of the country, and 

 that it was forestalled by this premature out- 

 break on the Baltimore & Ohio road, on 

 which the last oppressive reduction had ren- 

 dered the men desperate from poverty. The 

 subject of the wages actually received by the 

 railroad employes is a complicated one, on ac- 

 count of the varying conditions nnder which 

 they have to perform their labor. The train- 

 hands have often to lie idle three or four days 

 in the week, and must spend a good part of 

 their wages in board at distant stations, away 

 from their families. In a conference between 

 a committee of strikers and Mr. King, vice- 

 president of the Baltimore & Ohio road, on 

 July 27th, the strikers demanded $3.50 and 

 $3 per day for engineers, $2.50 for conductors, 

 and $2 for firemen and brakemen. They 

 declared that firemen and brakemen aver- 

 aged but 4 days' work in the week, and asked 

 that the time taken in going for engines on 

 passenger-trains, and in reporting for work 

 when called out, if no work was given them, 

 should be counted as extra time, and that 50 

 per cent, extra should be paid for Sunday run- 

 ning. They stipulated, also, that no man should 

 be discharged for having participated in the 

 strike. On this road the strikers declared re- 

 peatedly and emphatically that all they wanted 

 was living rates of wages. Mr. King, in his re- 

 ply, presented a comparative scheme of th* 



