Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1886-12-13
LETTER FROMrCHICAGO.
THE GREAT STRIKE.

To the Editor.-The great strike
at the union stock yards, of 20,O 900
men, has passed into history. The
hastily written reports, gathered from
day to day amid great excitement
and conflicting rumors, were sent out
to the world and eagerly read. Riot
and bloodshed, an angry mob, depu-
ty sheriffs, Pinkerton detectives and
state militia, make up the confused
picture given to the public. The true
history of great strike never has
been, and never can be written. AS
my home is in the very center of the
stockyards' population, being only
| few blocks distant from the union
entrance to the yards, and as my
| congregation Is made up of people
| who sustain some relation to the
| yards and the work done there MIN
CLING freely at all times with all class
es, it may be supposed that my point
of observation afforded an unusually
good view of the whole situation. |
have studied the labor problem with
some care. My relation to laboring
men is one of sympathy and personal
acquaintance and friendship. I an
the only Methodist pastor amid a
population of more than twenty-five
thousand people, and have access
with like freedom and welcome to the
homes of the rich and the poor. Last
year / attended thirty-four funerals,
baptized thirty-five persons, and made
over seven hundred pastoral calls in
this community, which fact will indi-
cate to some extent how generally
| have been among the people. Pack
ers, commission merchants and la
borers are members of my church.
The suffering, innocent poor, without
money, without friends, without a
job, and without the means to pro-
vide the next weeks rent, or the
next days bread, come with their pit
iful story to my door. If do not
understand the true inwardness of
these difficulties as thoroughly as do
the capitalists or the laborers, it is
not for lack of vantage ground for
/ can see both sides whereas they see
but one.
There are two things that ought to
be better understood generally.
The capitalists are not all, nor even
a majority of them, oppressors of the
poor. 2. The men who are involved
in strikes sre nor all, nor even a ma
jority of them, vicious, lawless OIL
roughs. Both classes are made up
of average mortals. The kind and
the unkind, the just and the unjust
are about in the same proportion as
will be found elsewhere. Packers
and butchers are no exception, nei
ther is there any evidence that theil
association is particularly brutalizing
A man who sticks five thousand pig:
day, standing in pool of blood
from morning till night, is not neces
sarily rendered thereby brutal, hare
hearted man, any more than the sol
dier who has experienced the horrors
of the battlefield is devoid of all ten
derness of heart.
A strike is really cry of the hun
Cry for bread. Men who really hav,
hungry children, according to my OBJ
servation, prefer to work. Two o
three weeks wages is quite an iten
when the children are hungry. In
deed, do not know of strike tha
. was in fact bread obtaining
measure. The Maxwell Bros, Bo,
s. manufacturers strike was to secur
the discharge of five ''scabs' or non
union men from the company's EN-
ploy. The great Lake Shore switch
mems strike was to secure the dis
charge of half dozen men who ha
been in the company's employ fror
ten to twenty years, but could not b
persuaded to join union. Th
strikes last May were for eight hours
work and ten hours pay, and the re
cent strike was caused by the retur
to ten hours for days work.
All the men who go out are nc
strikers. Seventeen hundred me
went out last spring at Deering, tht
only ten men were dissatisfied br
- the ten secured the power of the m.
chine, and the others must 90 out {
N be subject to the intimidation of tI
twenty thousand Or more who wei
IL back of the ten. 1t was choice wit
t them between going out quietly {
entering into warfare that has lit
~ promise of an end.
of
" In the recent stockyards' strik
about $4,000 to 10000 were ou
?" Just how many really favored Il
ou strike cannot be known; but vel
IN large number had no sympathy wit
it whatsoever. One reason why nol
union men 60 out when strike
he ordered, and remain away until Il
" trouble is settled. is because of the
id experience after the strike is over
b. generally they are crowded QUIT
ok old hands who worked during Il
IL strike are treated as new hands
the strikers after they are taken bac
- Take one such instance A man wi
Tvs was sorely in need continued to wo
it during the strike, and after the o
ar men returned was actually driven OF