Daily globe., 1883-07-22
i Statement Of tie Case.
ISpringfeld Repuhli can.


What the telegraphers will do to-day
upon receiving the ultimatum of the Wes-
tern UnionTelegraph company ia question
which interests large portion Of the COM
munlty. 1t is fact VIII N Tn ! RepubIi-
can has noted before thar the Gould man
agement of the great telegraph monopoly
has scrimped the wages OF its employes.
1t bends its energies in securing the con-
tirmation of the courts of the valaditv of
millions of stock on which not a dollar
was ever paid in, rather than to the liberal
treatment Of employees who render value
received every hour. At the same time it
is worth remembering that the telegraph
employees in England, where the service is
all IL the hands of the government, have a
constant struggle on the wages question
| and have appealed to the postmaster-gen-
eral without much success.
The telegraphers' list Of demands has
been accommodating till it is a pretty large
bill to file at once. They demand total
abolition Of Sunday work as compulsory
duties unless compensated as extra ser
| vice; that eight hours shall be days
work and seven hours a nights work;
| that both sexes shall receive equal pay for
equal work, and that wages shall be in
creased 10 per cent. Also that linemen's
| wages shall be increased and Iinemen's
| work on Sunday shall be paid double, and
| minimum is also fixed for the salaries of
the Wheatstone operators. Telegraph Of
| fcials say that the operators ask too much
and more than can possibly be conceded.
AS to the equality of men and women,
| they say that at the same wages men are
better and if the rule is Insisted on
the women will have to go. They
also cry out against being
compelled to pay Iinemen double wages for
Sunday, when they have been sitting still
all the week and drawing pay. But il is
not the llneman who sits still; he is simply
an emergency man, and the emergency
does not arise; his family eats bread, not
in emergencies, but every day, and the
lineman is paid for holding himself at the
! company's order. But the demand of the
operators as whole is large one, and it
will probably prove, if they carry the
/ quarrel to the point of strike, that they
| have 'bit off more than they can chaw."
The New York Evening Post, in discus
sing the threatened interruption to bust
ness by the refusal of thousands of opera
tors to perform their duties, holds that
these operators are like trainmen who are
forbidden to abandon railway trains, and
| says:
| Telegraphers, railroad men, postoffice clerks
| and policemen FILL places in modern society verv
| like that OF soldiers, In fact, they together do
| for society what soldiers used to do. They en-
| able every man to come and go freely on his
| lawful occasion, and transact his lawful bust
/ ness without let or hindrance. If it be asked
| what should employees In these services do in
order to settle the rate of wages by fair trial
| OF strength such as other trades resort to- we
! answer that3 they can easily devise some mode
l n orh Innf forf "
| so minded, in the present temper of the public.
readily procure legislation making such arbi-
| trat1on compulsory the companies They
can appeal to public opinion. They can, if de-
| term1ned to stop work In a body, give sutfi-
| ciently long notice to make the inability of the
| companies to fill their places in time a plain
| proof that their demands are well founded
And, though last, not least, they can keep
out @ calling in which strikes are not allow
| able.
| The laboring man might we'll reply to
our patronlzlng contemporary with some
very troublesome questions. He might
| ask, how happens it, that this theory of a
governmental employment which
| places the employe in the light of a sol
| der under orders and liable to be shot for
| desertion is never applied to the corpora
| tion which .semploys? How happens it
carriers, bound under the common law to
permitted to initiate their capital to such
an extent that millions of money are an
nually distributed N dividends an capi-
tai never paid in? With what
| face can the Post hold out such
obligations as this to the employees. men
working on few hundred dollars year,
when the employers set at naught and
defy every obligation OF public policy?
With what face can it call upon these men,
single handed, powerless, dependent for
their daily bread, and working under close
supervision, to command terms of arbitra-
tion from legislatures and yet make no
corresponding appeal to the alI-powerfuI
employer which could concede arbitration
without any legislation? The Post puts
quite too much of the burden of public
obligation on those less able to bear 1t and
to whom it does not belong.
STRUCK BY MISTAKE.
PETERSBURG, Va, July 21.-Since the
strike the operators of the Western
Union office along the line of the Norfolk
d Western railroad have refused to do any
work, and the telegraph company have
confined themselves strictly to railroad
business. The telegraph lines along this
road are owned by the railroad company,
who employ the operators and the strike
was caused by misunderstanding. They
all went to work to-day.
Another Strike.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala, July 21.-Four hun