Los Angeles herald., 1891-12-28
READY TO STRIKE.
THE TELEGRAPHERS NOW WELL
ORGANIZED.
Chief Ramsey Discusses the Situation.
The Only Demand Will Be the With
drawal of the Obnoxious Afidavit.

D. G. Ramsey, grand chief OF the tel.
egraphers' union, was stretched at full
length on lounge in front big fire.
place in his rooms at the Baldwin hotel
yesterday afternoon when reporter
called on him for the latest news con-
cerning the trouble between his order
and the Southern Pacific Railroad COM
pany, says the San Francisco Chroni-
Gle of Saturday.
II am enjoying your famous Califor-
MIA climate by staying at home and keep
ing comfortable" said Mr.. Ramsey.
"This is Christmas day and am resting,
after an exciting and eventful trip"
Mr.. Ramsey then went on to say that
the ieault OF the present difficulty de-
pended entirely upon his proposed inter-
view with the railroad people, but he was
not prepared to say whether that inter-
view would take place today or on Mon
day.
"The situation is simply this" said
Mr.. Ramsey, 81 shall ask that the
Southern Pacific company withdraw
their manifesto prohibiting their en-
ployees from joining our order. If they
refuse this request we will declare war,
and in very short time they will not
have any telegraphers to dictate to. If,
on the contrary, they will listen to our
appeal there will be no further trouble"
Mr.. Ramsey also informed the Chron-
icle that five divisions of the Southern
Pacific system are now represented by
six delegates each in this city, and that
it entirely depended upon the result of
his talk with the railroad people whether
or not convention would be held within
few days. The divisions represented
are the Tucson and Gila, the Los An
geles, the Sacramento, the Humboldt
and the Oakland divisions, and their
delegations contain one member of each
of the following organizations The Tel
egraphers, the Locomotive Engineers,
the Firemen, the Trainmen, the Con-
ductors and the Machinists.
Speaking of the reasons why the Cali
fornia telegraphers are badly organized
and why 80 few members of the order
obeyed the mandate of the union when
ordered to quit work, Mr.. Ramsey said:
"Our order is not very old one, and as
a matter of course we concentrated our
best preliminary efforts in the states
which embrace the large eastern centers.
This of course left the more distant
states, such as California, to be attended
to later, and our organization in this
state is for these reasons not as strong
as it is elsewhere. From Ell Paso to New
Orleans. however, we have every oper-
ator except two, although the road is
branch of the Southern Pacific, which is
strongly opposed to u.s."
Abiding to the difficulties encoun-
tered in organizing the far west, Mr..
Ramsey said: "rhe operators out here
are located many miles distant, and
communication between them is ex-
tremely difficult, because, although they
have the wires and can use them to talk
to each other, there are so many nom
union men sandwiched in between sta
tions that anything like confidential
conversation is next to impossible"
Mr.. Ramsey further said he would re-
main in this city until the present
trouble was settled one way or the other,
even if he would have to be here for the
balance of his natural life. and judging
from the way he expressed himself on
this subject he would not object to be-
come life resident of California, for he
was certainly quite enthusiastic in
speaking of what he had seen of this
state so lar.