The Globe-republican., 1894-10-05
CHAPTER NV.

y
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 all 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 mere suburb FIVE miles from
Paducah at the confluence of the Ten
nessee 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 all kinds of copper
tools, hardened by new process,
equal to the finest steel The same
syndicate had purchased an enormous
track Of copper-mining land on Lake
Superior and communication was d.
rect and inexpensive by means Of the
Mississippi. This English company had
obtained the secret process of harden
ing copper, SO it was said, from poor
American mechanic. At the time of
the trouble with the men, there were
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. save 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. It had a bank
also owned by the company; free IL
brary, several churches and a public
hall called ''The Forum" The trouble
between the company and the work.
men was at the start trifing one and
would have been adjusted by the work.
men themselves if it had not been for
outside interference. "The Junta"
had had it's eyes on this point for q
year and resolved to make it the start
ing point of its socialistic upheaval. It
succeeded in getting its own men into
the works and disaffecting a large
number of operatives. A strike of one
branch occurred early in the year and
the company sent men from England
to take their places. It was not proven
that they came under contract, but no
one doubted 1t. 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
q surreptitious manner, undertook q
colnizing scheme. They put up five
hundred cottages on a large tract and
let the property and invited immigra-
ton, disclaiming any desire to get
workmen. It was not till q reduction
Of wages took place and another strike
occurred that the colonists proved to
be able to take the place of the dis
charged men who were, in the main,
uuskilled workmen. At this point the
actual trouble began. The skilled
American worlmen syTpathized with
the men who had gone out and four OF
the factories shut down.
The director appears to have been a
prag1natic Englishman. without the
tact of prudence. There was, at the
time, a million dollars in specie or
temporary deposit in the st. Mary's
bank, being the two payments made
by the government for large contract
for copper gun-barrels. This money
should never have reached st. Mary's
in coin. But there had been loud
outcry from different parts of the coun-
try that all the profits of the company
went to England, and the disaffected
men OF 1.-THE Junta' had reechoed it
bitterly. This director, therefore,
whose name was Matlocl, had advised
the company to use the money at ST.