The Labor enquirer., 1886-09-11
ALL HANDS ON DECK.
Let All Sailing Craft In the Harbor Of
Sam Francisco Tie Up Until tho
Law is Enforced.

ill
San Francisco headquarters;
SAN Francisco. August 26.-The steam
ship and sailing vessel EN- yloYes of this
coast are nearly all union men. Many
Of the employers desire to break up
these unions and reduce the sailor again
to slavery. They aim to do this by put
ting non union men in the place of
unioni It's. THIS coast employs 1000
sailors, 1000 steamship sailors, 1000 fire.
men, ,Hcoal- -passers. etc., 900 cocks aud
walters. Total, 1000. There are 5000
uniunists on the coast to fill these 7,OO0
places; men with families to support,
with homes, who are citizens, who have
a right to employment over and above
the right of an imported non-union man
and alien. These unions by gallant
fight this last year abolished the "blood-
money" infamy so far as the coast was
concerned Simply in order to obtain
cheap labor the employers are now TAX
ing steps to re-estaslish it again. Their
plan is this
A large foreign wheat fleet arrives
this summer and goes away again in
November. 1t will number hundreds of
vessels carrying thousands of men.
These men are shipped abroad to cone
to San Francisco and return home again.
If they leave at San Francisco thew for
felt their wages. Besides this tn ere is a
law making it crime to entice them to
desert or to harbor them after they have
deserted. This has prevented them
from so leaving in past years and has
permitted the Pacific coast to develop
fine body of coastlng seameu devoted to
American ideas and institutions and
anxious to have and train up families in
our midst. But now all this ls to be
changed.
These grasping merchants have allied
them elves with the most brutal board
ing-masters of the Front, and these last
propose to steal and entice by deceptive
promises of high wages and good times
the deep. water sailors of the grain fleet
away from their ships and put them on
to the coast.
The merchants to aid them have estab-
lished so-called shipping Office,
through which these men are put into
coasting ships. SEVENTY per cent of the
sailors of the deep. water ships now in
port have been thus stolen within the
past three weeks, and 300 coastlng sea
men have been discharged to make room
for them and are now penniless ashore.
Of course it is evident that the deep
water ships must g away again and
must have men to man them. The
boarding masters expect that. driven by
poverty, the c0asting union seapen will
take their vacant places and scatter
abroad, expatriating themselves and
onco more becoming homeless wan
derers. The union men will not do this.
Tney will beg for food from door to door
before they will yield.
If they will not ship, and scarcity OF
men arises in the autumn, the shang-
haiers, the drugger5, the bulli95, the
blood money man hunters, will again
take the field. and hundreds who are
not sailors and never followed the sea
will be kidnapped, as in the past, and
sold into the slavery Of that floating hell
the forecastle of foreign ship.
If the deep-water sailor were bene
flied by the change the picture might
have redeeming touch, but he is not
Every one who deserts forfelts his wages
already earned. These generally aver
age 2l0 apiece.
Besides that it is proposed to reduce
the wages on the coast, and in addition
increase his labor bv making him dis
charge the lumber and the coal on YES
sells of all kinds This is blow at the
'longshoremen's stevedores' and freight
handlers unions. 1t is but whispered
as yet, but will be practiced soon.
The merchants shipping Office, which
is the means by which these men are
E thus put on the coast, ought to be abol
ished, or compelled by law not to ship
deserters. The authorities ought TO in
terfere to enforce sections 644 and 645 Of
the penal code. And reputable mer.
chan 3, one and all, ought either to re.
form the office that bears their name, or
withdraw from the association that sup
ports its unlawful actions,
This struggle that the Coast Seamen' 8
Union is now engaged in is the outcome
of the Spreckles boycott. When the fire.
men were refused the extra men de,
manded on the Mariposa, and the assist
coast seamen called all their men out of
Spreckles' sailing craft. Spreckles, to
get revenge, organized the Merchants
Shipping Office, for which Immediately
Boarding Masters Cane, Curtin, Clausen,
Monroe and Mordaunt began to steal
men from deep-wa ships.
Nine of the Coast Seamen's Union
deserted" Spreckles' vessels the Selma
and Emma Claudina, as soon as they
heard of the boycott. Thev were ar
rested and convicted, and some of them
still lie in Jail serving out their terms
Over 300 deep-water men have been en-
ticed away and have deserted to be put