Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1894-07-19


violence. The managers CURLY rejected
the appeal and returned the letter with
out answer.
Sovereign and Debs say this means
that the fight will go on. The former adds:
And we will die fighting"
The American Federation OF Labor
refused to join the strikers, but con-
demned the "plutocracy."
More trains moved, both in the far
West and Chicago, yesterday, than on
any other day since the blockade took
effect.
General Master Workman Sovereign
of the knights OF Labor said this morn
ing:
"The X. of L. organizations through
out the country were to meet tonight
to consider the question OF standing by
the American Railway Union in the
present strike. / have been expecting
that they will all, at these meetings,
vote to stand by the union, but may
telegraph them to-day requesting them
not to consider the matter at ALL 1t is
question whether they cannot help the
A. r. U. more by remaining at work,
and this question will be considered ct
meeting of the directors of the A.. r.
u, to be held to-day"
REsUMING ITS NORMAL CONDITION.
Chicago is very rapidly resuming its
normal condition. The action of the
conference of the Federation Of Labor
yesterday afternoon, supplemented by
meeting of the Building and Trades
Assembly last night, at which IL was
resolved to call off the strike and re-
sumo work at once, is accepted uni
versally as the death-blow of the Pull
man boycott. OF course Debs and
Sovereign are saying that II is not over,
and that they are going to fight to the
bitter end. Debs goes so far as to say
that he will tie up every railroad in the
| United States, but he also says, or did
say in speech last night to 500 Of the
strikers:
1.-THE only thing that now remains for
us to accomplish Is to get you boys back
at your work. We made proposition
| to the railway managers to-day regard
ing this. We did not ask for recogni-
ton for the A. II. u, because you and /
know that nothing will make general
manager sick so quickly as any mention
of the A. r. U. We simply made the
proposition to them that we would call
|
to be prejudiced against you boys in
taking on employees. All we asked
them TO do was to take back the honest,
clean, former employees, the ones who
had not committed any crime. We
offered to come half way in settling the
trouble. If any man here can suggest to
us any fairer proposition we want him
to do so, because you know we want TO
be perfectly fair in this matter.
My heart goes forth in these times to
the switchmen as the bravest and most
loyal men that work on railroads to.
day. The switchmen have more than
once come to the help OF the firemen,
engineers or conductors, but does any
one know of any other brotherhoods
ever having gone out in sympathy with
the switchmenl If the engineers and
conductors had shown loyal brotherly
spirit in this trouble and acted as the
switchmen did, affairs would now be in
very different condition. hope, boys,
to see the day come soon when every
railroad man and laborer will be ready
and glad to lay down his work to fight
for the rights of any body of brothers
who are being wronged Not until you
are ready to do this can labor success
fully make any demands on capital"
This statement, as has been all of
Debs' statements during the last As
hours, is accepted as an acknowledge.
ment that he recognizes his defeat and
is now engaged in an effort to undo the
work he has been doing for the last two
weeks. He called in conference this
morning the members of his executive
board, but they did not all respond.
For the most part the railroads are
taking back their old employees as fast
as they apply and there were great
many applications this morning. They
are not discharging any of the men
who were hired to take the places of the
strikers, and such Of the strikers as are
re-employed are taken as individuals.
1t necessarily follows that large num-
Der Of the strikers find themselves un-
able to secure reinstatement, and these
are insisting upon a continuance of the
struggle.
HOWARD WANTS TO KEEP IT UP.
Vice-P President Howard Of the A. r.
U. said this morning:
81 am more encouraged than ever to
continue the strike This encourage
ment is based largely on many kilograms
received last night and to-day from
different quarters throughout the coun-
try"
FINISHING TOUCH.
The switchmen, at meeting to-day,
endorsed the action Of Grand Master
Miles Barrett, of the Switchmon's Union,
in not endorsing the strike.
This is interpreted to mean that the
authoritative body in the switchmen's
organization have official discounte.
napced the strike, and the switcAmen
having been the backbone Of the
strikers forces, the outlook for the
s-Sovereign plan for continuing the
strike is discouraging.
President Debs declared this morning
that the Chicago, Milwaukee &. st. Paul
road was tied up. He said the men
agreed last night to 60 out, and that
they had done so.
On the other hand the general mana
ger of the road declared; SIT is utterly
false. Not man quit work to-day,
but any number of our old men were
taken back and we have as many men
us we can USE"
Mr.. Debs said that the arbitration
commission which President Cleveland
propose was apparently now unneces-
sary, owing to the action Of the General
Managers Association in refusing abso-
lutely to have anything to do, directly
or indirectly, with the A. II. U.
"Ihe managers" said Debs, shave
undertaken to crush the A. r. u, and
the latter will fight back"
HUNDREDS OF CARS DESTROYED.
| CHICAGO, ILL, July 15.-Now that
the railroads are getting their traffic in
shape and business is assuming its normal
condition, speculation is rife as to the