Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1877-08-17
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
The True IRWardness of the Strike
The Trouble not yet OVer-The Eheet
of the strike on BusIness-LabOr
Troubles i'm the CIIy-The Liquor
DeaIers-CrIme-Th Fashions.

went up to Ludlow stree Jail last week,
to see Donahue. the leader of the strikers
on the Erie road. He is a man Of consld-
erable intelligence, and was fitted by ma
ture for a leader. He is not one CT the
kind who want their employers TO divide
with them. but he does insist that business
shall be so adjusted that the operative can
live in something like comfort. Donahue
saws that the average that the men make
is from $25 to $50 per month, and that
the cost of living is higher in Hornells-
Vile than in New York. For in
stance. -four is from $10.50 to $11; butter,
30 cents; beef, % cents; brown sugar, u
cents; coffee 80 and 40 cents, and any de-
cent tea from so cents to $1.25.a pound.
Rents are terribly high there. $25 month
is extorted Cor common frame houses OF
from eight to ten small rooms. Those
who. when wages were better. had purchas-
ed property, were loosing it by the reduc-
ton; and what ground them more, the
wages had been screwed down to such
point that a workman under the best cir
cumstances was debarred from everything
of a social nature. He could not take
newspapers or buy a book, he could not
pay dues to lodge or church, or so dress
his wife and children that they could at
tend church or anything else improving.
The Company had even gone so far as to
charge the employees with rent for the
waste land beside the track, which was
formerly allowed them as a perquisite.
Donahue admits that the strike was fail
ure, but says that some good viii grow out
of it.
THE TROUBLE Is NOT VEL OVER,
For there can be no doubt that the work
ingmen are suffering. and that the compa-
nv have not dealt with the question in
liberal spirit. 1t is true that the roads are
making nothing, and the stockholders are
missing their dividends, but that it is so is
the fault of the management. If they
would keep up freights to paying figure |
instead of cutting each others throats, and |
more especially if they would inaugurate a |
system of economy in the management,
there could be enough of a saving to make
up for the loss by reason OF hard times. |
The wOrkingman whose wages were S35 |
a month, doesn't like to be cut down to $50 |
when the higher grade of officials are vot-
ing themselves their old salaries. 1t was
very bad economy to squeeze the great
mass of men who were getting little enough
before.
THE EFFECT OF THE STIKE UPON BUSINESS
Was terrible. There was an enormous de-
struetfon Of goods by the iniuriated mass,
which made interruption in trade, and in
stances of severe loss are coming to light
everywhere. One western brewer has been
three years introducing his beer into New
York, Boston. Philadelphia and Baltimore;
he had spent hundreds of thousands of dol
lars to create his trade and had it running
His shipments were caught in
the jam at Buffalo and Pittsburgh, some
cars remaining week. In the meantime,
his stock being exhausted, other brewers
stepped in, and now he has his work all to
do over again, or abandon it. There were
of carloads of perishable goods
allowed to stand for ten days, and the
goods that were not perishable were so
plundered as to be almost a total loss.
The action of the companies in cutting
down wages and the method of the
strikers in seeking redress has cost the
country millions upon millions of dollars.
The direct loss can be ascertained-the in
direct will never be known.