Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1893-07-14
A SUGAR TRUST KING.
HIS WORD is LAW IN ALL THE RE-
FlNERlES OF THE LAND.

q
Laborers VIII Be Roasted In His Pro-
tected Refinery-An Illustration Of TIKI
Terrible Power of Trusts.
The terrible power of trusts to Cypress
labor is just now illustrated by the
strike in the Havemeyer & Elder REIN
cry, the largest refinery in the Sugar
trust-and that means the largest in the
world.
When trust gains full control of an
industry and can by the aid Of pro-
tective tariff control production and
prices, as does the Sugar trust, not only
must the consumer suffer from extor-
ton, but the workingmen also find them
selves subject to the tyranny Of an al
most omnipotent organization. Theo-
retically the laborer is still free man,
but if he knows only one occupation he
is practically a slave, for, there being
no competition for his labor, he must
sell it for whatever the almighty at the
head of the trust is willing to pay. The
other alternative is starvation for him
self and his family.
The heat in the rooms where sugar is
melted becomes intense in summer. The
unusual heat in which men are required
to work and the small pay allowed them
by the trust for their services and risks
has driven nearly all Americans out of
the refineries. Those employed now are
mostly Huns, Poles and Italians, many
of them brought over under contract to
work at low wages and to displace the
OF in 4
American" industry. Over 1900 are
employed in the great Haveneyer & Ell
der refinery in Brooklyn. During the
excessive heat of last summer the rooms
in this refinery approached so nearly to
an earthly hades that several hundred
laborers were taken from the rooms
more dead than alive, large proportion
of whom could not be resuscitated. If
there had been other important refner-
les not in the hands of the trust, the la
borers could have thrown up their jobs
individually or struck altogether, with
fair prospects of obtaining employment
elsewhere or of successful termination
of the strike. But as they had to deal
with sugar king whose word was law
in all the refneries Of the land they
must either submit to the heat and op-
preston or see their families starve.
They submitted.
This year with the renewal of last
years conditions rooms heated to $50 de-
grees, strong men fainting, ambulances
hurrying back and forth from hospitals
to the refinery, deaths and funerals the
chief topics of conversation-the laborers
naturally begin to think of means Of i'm
proving their hard lot Onexhundred and
two firemen and their helpers who are
getting $3.50 a day for 10 hours continu-
GUS work ti1nidly approach the sugar
king, tell him Of their neutrality-suspicious.
last year, remind him that while they
are kept at most severe work for IL
hours they get less wages than fremen
and boiler men on steamships who are
only four hours on and eight hours off,
and then ask that their hours be reduced
from 10 to 8. They say that for this
concession they are willing to work1four
boilers instead of three, as now. The
king, who is dressed in light colored
summer suit and who is making So OOO,-
600 month clear profit for his royal
family, takes his cigar out of his mouth
and informs his intruders that it would
cost him $4,000 a month to grant their
request, and adds as the impudence of
their proposition dawns upon him. "Pll
be damned if we will don't"
Then" said Mr.. Lyons, the chairman
of the committee. IF wewere willing to
work for so cents for eight hours you
would not allow itpo
mo, would not, ">said theking.
Mr.. Lyons then explains the special
reasons for their request:
THE men cannot work 12 hours.a day
during the warm weather." he says.
Last summer, when 500 men.were car
ried from the works overcome by heat
and there were several. dozen deaths, we
were told that that was the time to
strike. But we did not doit because we
considered we would be taking. you at q
disadvantage. Now when we come to
you to save us from4a repetition of that
experience, you say, 'Tll be damned if
do"
The king is immovable, ,and as the COM
mittee leaves the office orders the super
intendent to "shut. down the mixers and
call up the police" The committeeturns
and tells him: Eve are not, going to give
you any trouble. We resign; we'do not
strike"
The great potentate, however, who can
purchase legislation and who thinks the
occasion good one to display his police
force, has his refinery surrounded by blue
coats for several days. He announces
that it is a particularly fortunate time
for strike, as the trust has enough re-
fined sugar to last three months and
that the decreased production.due to the
strike will help to sustain prices.
The men have been out less than two
weeks, but their'poverty and h6plessness
are fast making them willing: to again
submit their bodies to the burning heat
and to the tyranny of their former mas
tiers before their places are filled by
more submissive, if not freproof. slaves
imported for the occasion.
Great is protection, and great,is the
trust king. BYRoNW. HOLT.
Chains That Bind Us.