Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1893-07-27
TRUST KING.
HIS WORD IS Law ~ ALL THE RE-
FINERIEs OF THE LAND.

To Save Few Dollars Several Dozen More
Laborers win BE Roasted In His Pro-
tected Rennery-An Illustration Of the
Terrible Power Of Trusts
The terrible power Of trusts to oppress
labor is just now illustrated by the
strike in the Hayemeyer & 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 a 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 fo> 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 pap allowed them
by the trust for their services and risks
has driven nearly all Americans out of
the refneries. Those employed now are
mostly Huns, Poles and Italians, many
of them brought over under contract tc
work at low wages and to displace the
Americans at work in this protected
American" industry. Over 1000 are
employed in the great Havemeyer 6 e.
der refinery in Brooklyn. During the
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 refiner-
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. One hundred and
two tiremen and their helpers who are
getting $2.20 day for IL hours continu-
GUS work timidly approach the sugar
king, tell him of their terrible experience
last year, remind him that while they
are kept at most severe work for 12
hours they get less wages than firemen
and boiler men on steamships who are
only four hours ON and eight hours of,
and then ask that their hours be reduced
from 10 to 8. They say that for this
concession they are willing to work four
boilers instead of three, as now. The
king, who is dressed in o light colored
summer suit and who is making $2,000,-
900 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 month to grant their
request, and adds as the impudence of
their proposition dawns upon him, 'Tll
be damned if we will do it,"
"Then," said Mr.. Lyons. the chairman
of the committee. "if we were willing to
work for SO cents for eight hours you
would not allow it?"
mo, would not" said the king.
Mr.. Lyons then explains the special
reasons for their request:
1.-THE men cannot work 10 hours 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 tc
| strike. But we did not do it because We
considered we would be taking you alta
disadvantage. Now when we come, tc
you to save us from repetition of that
experience, you say, I'll be damned il
] do" ~
The king is immovable, and as the com
mittee leaves the Office orders the super
intendent to "shut down the mixers ani
call up the police" The committee turns
/ and tells him: "We are not going to givt
you any trouble. We resign; we do MOI
strike"
The great potentate, however, who car
purchase legislation and who thinks thu
occasion good one to display his police
force, has his refinery surrounded by blu'
, coats for several days. He announce
that it is a particularly. fortunate tim'
for a strike, as the trust has enough re
: fined sugar to last three months ant
that the decreased production due to TIN
strike will help to sustain prices.
,, The men have been out less than two
weeks, but their poverty and helplessnes
are fast making them willing to agai1
4 submit their bodies to the burning hea
: and to the tyranny of their former mas
j ters before their places are filled BY
more submissive, if not freproof, slave
imported for the occasion.
t Great is protection, and great is tn
trust king. BYRON W. HOLT.
-, Chains That Bind Us.
G When the protectionists Of Piedmon
}. invoked the example of the Unitet