Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-11-11
WEDNESDAY, NOvraBEK II, 1853
Tho Tabor Observation-Disclosures In the
Large cities,

During the hast month there have been &C.
cosional cxcitemens among artisans and
fradesnlen OF various sorts, growing out ct
the imitation Of the currency, and the serious
rise in the prices of nearly all the neccssaries
of life In very many instances, owing partly
TO the scarcity of skilled workmen, and part
" to the fact that the productions of nearly all
kinds Of labor command greatly increased
prices, employers have conceded an advance
in the wages of their laborers. In other cases
laborers have resorted to combinations
against their employers, which in some of our
large cities have become especially formula
bic during the last forty. eight hours.
The strikers in this state include the ship
carpenters, blacksmiths machinists and la
borers at the navy yard, to the number of
nearly three thousand; and the boiler and
iron plate makers in East Boston, numbering
about twelve hundred. There are some thir-
ty-five hundred employed at the navy yard,
of whom is said not more than three or four
hundred appeared at roll-call on Tuesday
morning. Their case is one of peculiar hard
ship For upwards Of twenty years workmen
at the navy yard have been required to work
(between September 20 and March 20) from
one hour after sunrise to sunset, with an hour
for dinner. On Monday an order came re-
quiring them to begin their work at sum
rise and end at sunset, which in the
case of large part Of them, who live at dis
lance from the yard, would take them from
their homes before daybreak. The strikers
held meetings, Tuesday, and after unsuccess-
full conferences with the commandment at the
yard, voted not to return to work except I'M
der the old rule, allowing the morning hour of
grace the workmen had always had in winter
The combination in East Boston is strike
purely for higher wages. Of the same class
are the combinations of machinists in New
York city, chiefly those employed in estab-
lishments working upon government con-
tracts of city railroad conductors, coach driv
ers, ndothers; and of bookbnders and print
ers in the government printing office at Wash
ington. The league in New York has be-
come the most formidable, and, like the IA
nous shoemakers' strike in Massachusetts,
three or four years ago, and like most other
combinations in which the passions of men
have become unreasonably excited seems to
have fallen under the control of unsafe and
violent men, whose influence never fails to
bring misery and distress upon the working
men whom they misead.
1t is natural that when men have enlisted
in such movements, they should desire to
draw into it all the workmen of their class,
and compel employers to come to their terms
and it almost invariably happens, that while
the excitement lasts, few men, to whom the
loss of few days or weeks wages is no bur-
den, get control over hundreds and, perhaps,
thousands of others, whose sober judgment
never approved such proceedings, and whose
families suffer for every days wages they
lose. Waving altogether the right and wrong
of the questionable reasons by which labor
combinations and trade unions may be defend
ed, it is safe to say that of the ''strikes''
which have occurred during the last twenty
years in this country, at least four .fifths have
failed utterly in so far as they concerned the
interests of the strikers, while of the other
one-ffth their success has been due to causes
independent of the power OF their combina-
tons, and which would have proved entirely
adequate to the desired reform.