Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1890-08-14

president of the road, Chauncey NJ. De
pew, and lived up to for two months, and
then broken by the company. When a
committee of the employees waited on the
officers Of the corporation at that time to
| inquire as to why the agreement was not
lived up to, they were coGi.y informed
that the agreement was obnoxious to the
/ company, inasmuch as they (the officers)
did not realize at The time of making it
the large amount of money it was going
to cost.
Another agreement made by the corpor-
alton with its employees was also ruth
lessly broken. The company, through its
officers, agreed to give preference in the
line of work or promotion to employees on
the principle of seniority when the senior
in the service was competent to perform
the duties required. Not satisfied with
breaking these two agreements, the com
pGny have gone further, and has now dis
missed from its service many of its oldest
and most experienced men, The real
reason for their discharge seems to lie in
the fact that the men are union men
There is still another factor that has
had considerable to do with bringing
about the arbitrary action of the company
in discharging its old and experienced en-
plOyes. Mr. Webb, the third vice presi-
dent of the Central and Hudson River
road, is an avowed enemy of organized
labor one whom, since the inception of the
Knights of Labor on the Vanderbilt sys-
TEN of railroads, has used every means
within his power to destroy its useful
ness. Every recommendation that has
been made by his subOrdinates for the
amelioraton of the condition of the I'M
derpaid and OyerWorked employees of the
road has met with the haughtiest opposi-
tion at his hands. He it was that started
the wecdng-out policy put in operation last
spring, but he was prevented from carry
ing out his cowardly designs by Mr..
Depew, who WAS then in this country, and
who did not feel like antagonizing the
working classes, whose votes, rumor has
it, he will need in 1902
BE this as it may, appearances indicate
that in order to give this man Webb an
opportunity to vent his spleen on organ
lied labor, Mr.. Depew found it convenient
to take II trip to Europe That Mr. Depew
left the country at time when the busi-
ness of the corporation was duller than it
had been in ten years, and that Mr. Webb,
as soon as he had chance, started in with
the COrbin system or rallroading, is a
most positive proof that mutual under
standing must have been arrived at be-
tween the president and vice president
Both were well aware that the time to
cripple the labor organizations that were
obnoxious to the greedy and grasping
corporation was when times were dull
Hence they discharged the men who
had been the longest in the service
of the company, as well as the most
prominent in the ranks of organized labor.
This was done with the intent of aggra-
waiting the employees. 1t was done with
the intent of arousing their passions and
bring on an immediate strike,
Mr. Webb is a brutal tyrant and has
always been particularly offensive and
overbearing in his treatgaent of the em-
ployes of the road, The responsibility OF
The strike lies with this man and the
grasping corporation, whose every act
during the past month has savored of
selhshness and cruelty to the men, who,
through sunshine and storm in the past,
have been faithful, not alone to the inter
ests of the company, but to that of the
travelling public as we'll