Morning journal and courier., 1886-04-26
LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS.

The Grand R ally cfEngineers i'm Hart
 ford Yesterday-Chief Arthur Speak | -Cond8mns Strikes and BoycOtts- | Arbitration If Poss1b!e-ThIs Plan
 Works successfully and HappflY-A
 Model Labor COngregatIOn-What lat the
 Brotherhood has AceOmpI1shed-Ad.
 dresses by H1r. Van Tassel of New
 York NAT. Everett, of Philadelphia
 and Others.
 1 HARTFORD, April 25.-About 800 mem bers of the Brotherhood of Locomotive En-
 gineers were present at the meeting of the
 brotherhood held in Allyn Hall, this city, to-
 day. In the morning at eleven o'clock 8
 public meeting of the members was held
 and an hour or two spent in getting acquain-
 ted and discussing various topics, among
 them the labor question, by the discussion
 of which it was shown that the brotherhood
 don't believe in strikes only last resort,
 that they abhor boycotting and do not coin
 eide with the strikers out west, nor uphold
 the Knights of Labor in their present system of doing things, and believed in settling l matters by arbitration when they could.
 This meeting has hitherto always been g
 private one, but yesterday it was public,
 although only the members of the brother l
 In the evening another public meeting was
 held at the hall, and although many of the
 engineers were obliged to return large
 number of them were present. In all about
 twelve hundred people were present, among
 them being many ladies. The Mayor of the | city and other officials were invited to at l tend, but were unable to be present, and at
 8 o'clock Chief Brennan of the Hartford di- l vision opened the meeting and said: We
 have assembled here to-day to hold union meeting and the prejudice of the people has
 been so much against us that we decided to
 hold public meeting and tell the people
 what our order is. The people have called | us socialists, communists and demagogues
 banded together to govern the railroads, but
 this is not so; we are bound together for love ] and charity.
 Chaplain of the Brotherhood George H. l Van Tassel, of New York, then offered prayer, during which he said the order was
 bound together for love and charity.
 Grand Chief P. M. Arthur, of Cleveland, O., said: MT. Chairman, ladies, friends and 1 brothers. This, perhaps, to many of the good people of Hartford is an unusual gath 1 ering for Sunday evening, but when you go 1 forth tonight 1 hope that you will say that your evening has been preftably spent in 1 listening to some of our brothers talk. We
 belong to that class of men who are called to perform our duty on Sunday we'll as other days. We cannot | leave our engines and go about as the mer- l chant or even the man in the shop can do, | and we hold our meetings on Sunday that l we may have more present. l want you to | see our organization in it's true light and
 then decide for yourselves if it is not entitled to respect. Our organization had 8 begin ming and shall say to laboring men here to-
 night that the only way they can ever get l anything is by organization and then have it l an intelligent one This organization
 in April in Detroit, Michigan. It | was organized to do good in our ranks and
 not to rule the railroad companies, as has | been said. Our motto is sobriety, truth and fidelity. As time rolled on division after l division was organized, and at our interna- l tional meeting held in Indianapolis in 1864 l we had forty four sub divisions represented 1 Then we decided to let our brothers over the l line into the organization, and at this meet | ing also the name of the organization was
 changed from the International Division of 1 Footboard Engineers to the Grand
 International Division Brotherhood | of Locomotive Engineers At our meeting in Boston in 1866 l we undertook the publication of a monthly l magazine, devoted to the objects of our I 1 this was no slight undertaking for men of I our stamp, who know more about the mech | anisrn of an engine than literary work, but | we had the will to push the undertaking, and l to-day that magazine has circulation of | 16, ,000 copies per month, and goes into the homes of engineers all over the world.
 l In this magazine we tell what is of interest l to engineers. It also has the names of the 1 officers of the divisions and subdivisions of 1 the brotherhood. Also in this book we pub I fish the names of those who are expelled af l ter fair trial for some crime, misdemeanor | or for incompetency. Some think 1t not ! fair to publish these names, but when they | joined the brotherhood they agreed to all l this, and this method has reclaimed many l of those who would have fallen. At our | meeting in 1867 we formed our insurance | company, and since then we have paid to | engineers widows and injured engineers | over $1 ,S59. 600. Years ago before this ! brotherhood was organized locomotive engi- neers were many of them drunkards, but now the railroad companies have trusty and 1 reliable men. People say the brotherhood is | all right financially, but you have strikes 1 Yes we have strikes and have not yet come 1 to the point of being anti-strikers. We | have grievance committee to adjust differ | ences between railroad companies and engi- | neers There are differences and there will be as long as capital and labor have any | thing to do with each other When griev- l 1 to wait on the railroad com
 pany and every honorable | means to settle the matter. If they cannot l settle it, however, the grand chief engineer 1 is called and he does what he can to settle l the matter, and am glad to say that in the 1 past twelve years there have been troubles 1 on twenty-five roads and in every instance ln | which the officers have met us and talked over the matter and shown disposition to l treat with us trouble has been avoided. The l first year I was grand chief had fifteen cases of this trouble and every one of them | was settled.
 | Since these recent troubles came up we l have had trouble on seven different roads and every one of them has been settled by 1 our methods. On the Connecticut Valley | road and the Maine roads the companies do not want their engineers to belong to the bro 1 therhood, and what is the result! Their | wages have recently been reduced ten l per cent and the men can do nothing to pre- | vent it. I don't believe in men saying to others thou shalt, or thou shalt not, and this 1 is the great mistake the labor organizations | are making to-day. When 8 committee of l men goes to corporation and says this man | must go out or must stay, the corporation has the right to say, you shall leave this or that organization or not work for us. We l don't believe in dictation in any l justice and when we send out 1 our grievance committee and they confer with the company, our troubles are mostly
 settled. Why, you might as we'll say you | shall discharge a man because he does not
 belong to your union; that only shows that
 the people who would do that want things l just their own way.
 Some weeks ago the papers repre-
 sented me being hid away ! in St. Louis holding conference
 with committee of the Knights of Labor l on the railroad matter. This was all false | hood, as I was not hid away nor did go on l that business committee of the Knights of Labor. The real place did go
 was to Houston, Texas, to settle some trou-
 ble. I was detained by the missing of a l train in St. Louis over night, and out of this
 the story grew.
 Ours was the first organization of railroad 1 men, and now we have organizations of near | ly all railroad men in general. There is also
 another organization. the Knights of Labor,
 a good name for an organization, and all I
 have to say is for you to do unto others az you would they should do unto you and you
 will succeed. Be faithful, do your duty and
 then hold up your head and feel that you are
 your employers peer and you are. It is not
 clothes that make the man; it is