The Portland daily press., 1883-07-17
The Threatened Great Strike.

Not many years ago great Inconvenience
was occasioned, not only to persons travel
ling, but to the great business interests of
the country, by a strike of men employed on
some of the great lines of railway in the
country. Now there is threatening of
general strike of the telegraph operators in
the service of the Western Union Telegraph
Company. If this should take place, the |
people of all classes are likely to get clear
er idea of their dependence, direct and in
direct, on the electric transmission of Intel
llgence than could be had in any other way.
Perhaps the lesson is not worth the price
that will have to be paid for it, but that is a
question they are not called upon to consid-
er. If all the railroad traffic of the land
should be suddenly interrupted, it would
hardly produce more loss and Inconvenience
than the sudden stoppage of all telegraphic
communication. The business of the land
is done by telegraph, or depends upon tele-
graphic communication TO a greater degree
than is generally supposed. To cut off that
communication would be worse than stop
ping the mails. Having the telegraph, we
could get along without the post Office for
a short time, better than we could get along
without the telegraph, if the post Office did
its best service.
The Western Uuion Telegraph Company
has no rival in many parts of the country,
and in every section it trausacts the larger
part OF all the telegraphic business. As
many rival companies as have teen formed
have been bought up by it, or consolidated
with it as soon as their business became
matter of moment to the older and richer
company. There are now competing with it
only few railroad companies lines, the
most important of these being that of the
Baltimore & Ohio road, and few lines serv-
ing comparatively small territory, which
have been organized to use improved sys-
TENS. All these are inadequate to do the
ordinary and necessary daily business. The
people of the country are dependent on the
service which the Western Union Company
alone can give.
If the operators, "a word which signifies
technically, the men and women who know
the telegraphic alphabet, and are skilled in
manipulating the instruments by which mes
sages are sent over the wires, and in reading
messages as received,-if these, or the most
of them, refuse to work, the business cannot
be done. Although the learning of this art
is not a thing of great difficulty, it is a
business of months to acquire by practice
the skill which enables one to work accurate
ly, rapidly and confidently, and the work
must be done accurately to be of any value.
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
person who can send and receive dispatches,
working slowly, just as there are thousands
who have mastered the elements of steno-
graphic writing; but the former can no more
work satisfactorily at either end of the wire,
sending or receiving, than the others can
take down a speech as delivered, or read
their notes easily after they have made them.
If the professional operators go out on
strike as they threaten to do, these am
ateurs and persons who are not sufficiently
skillful to obtain regular situations will be
employed if they are willing to work, and
the company will unquestionably exert itself
to serve the public as well as possible under
the circumstances. But delays and blundersu
are to be expected through sqch~sefTice.
y hetneT there ~ enough Eons sufficient
-. :.
ly skilled and capabl sufficiently rapid
improvement to enable the company to per
manently dispense with the services of the
strikers is doubtful. If this is attempted
the public will suffer for a long time; but
there is no remedy unless one or the other
of the parties to the controversy relents and
submits.
As to the merits of the case we suspect
the sympathy of the public will be strongly
with the operators. A good telegrapher
must be person of intelligence, and it is
not strange that the men and women who
do this work should think themselves en-
titled to better wages and less exactting
hours. The work is exhausting. The
strain upon the nervous system of rapid
work at the key is very great and moreover
the best operators are subject to a peculiar
paralysis of the muscles of the forearm and
hand, by which they are often totally in
capacitated for the business after few
years of such labor as is required of them.