Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1894-07-26
CHAPTER XIV.

It was this year that the new phase
of imported socialism came into view
with the Industrial Junta,'' as it was
called. The branches had been or
gained secretly and it was known
that the mischievous order had its
lodges In oil the states Public atten-
ton was not however awakened to the
power of the "Junta," until the St.
,Mary's riots occurred St. Mary's, at
one time a mere suburb five miles from
lPaducah at the confluence of the Ten
inessee and the Ohio, had five years be
fore become an important manufactur-
ing place owing to its purchase by an
English syndicate and the erection
there of enormous workshops. The
principal industry was the manufac-
ture of cutlery and oil kinds of copper
tools, hardened by a new process,
equal to the finest steel. The same
syndicate had purchased an enormous
track Of copper-mtning land on Lake
Superior and communication was di-
e and inexpensive by means of the
Mississippi. This English company had
obtained the secret process of harden
ing copper, so it was said, from O poor
American mechanic. At the time of
the trouble with the men, there we're
over ten thousand operatives employed
at ST. Mary's- The place may have con-
tanned five thousand other inhabitants
but all the stock holders lived abroad.
It was a town Of factories and Chin
neys and, cave at the outlying end OF
its main thoroughfare where one OF
the directors and several of the super
intendents had erected handsome
houses, Its residences were cottages of
unpretentious form. 1t had a bank
also owned by the company; o free Ii
brary, several churches and q public
hall called ''The Forum" The trouble
between the company and the work.
men was at the start a trihing one and
would have been adjusted by the work.
men themselves if it had not been for
outside interference. THE Junta'
had had its eyes on this point for q
year and resolved to make it the start
ing point Of its socialistic upheaval. It
succeeded in.getting it's own men into
the works and ~disafecting a large
number of operatives. A strike of one
branch occurred early IN the year and
b company sent men from England
to take their places. 1t was not proven
that they came Under contract, but no
one doubted it. In six months they
had taken on three hundred men
guardedly and singly, and, having dem
onstrated to their own satisfaction the
feasibility of importing their labor in
O surreptitious manner, undertook q
~colnizing scheme They put up five
hundred cottages on a large tract and
let the property and invited imnigra-
ton, disclaiming any desire to get
workmen. 1t was not till a reduction
of wages took place and another strike
occurred that the colonists proved tc
be able to take the place of the dis
charged men who were, in the main,
unskilled workmen. At this point the
actual trouble began. The skilled
American worltrnen sympathized witt
the men who had gone out and four q
the factories shut down.
The director appears to have bean {
pragmatic EnglishInan, without tn.
tact of prudence. There was, at thu
time, q million dollars in specie OF
Temporary deposit IN the st. Mary.
bank, being the two payments made
by the government fora large contrac
for copper gun-barrels. This money
should never have reached St. Mary
in coin. But there had been a louC
.outcry from different parts OF the coun
try that all the profits of the compan,
went to England, and the disaffecteC
men Of FThe Junta" had reechoed i
bitterly. This director, therefore
Whose name was Matlock, had advised
the company to use the money at St