The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-02-13
WORK OR STARVE
Is the Alternative Confronting
the Employees
or the Illinois Steel Company
at Chicago.
THEIR WAGES ARE CUT
From 10 to so Per Cent After
Months
OF Enforced IdIeness-They
Bend But Curse.
There Are OminOus Murmur-
ings and Threats.

Chicago, Feb. 13.-The 5000 workmen
of the Illinois Steel company are ours
ing the times. Their wages have been
cut all along the line. They were told
that if they voted for Mckinley there
would be plenty of work at good wages.
Hundreds are now heard to loudly
proclaim that they wish they had voted
for Bryan
All the mills were running at full
blast yesterday morning for the first
time in months. But the reopening of
the big plant and the return to work of
nearly 5000 idle men occasioned more
gloom than joy among the thousands
of people who depend on its operation
for their subsistence. The name of the
Illinois Steel copmnay was a subject
Tor the deepest execratiOn.
The mailed hand of the great corpor-
alton struck the fierceSt of it's many
blows at labor. It's army of workmen,
reduced by a winter of enforced idle
ness to extreme penury was notified
before it streamed through the gates
that wages all along the line had been
cut. Not man escaped. From the lit
tie boys who carry water up to the
foreman of departments, every one was
made a victim of the reduction that
went in force Feb. 1.
Some WOrkmen were reduced 10 and
is per cent, while others will earn fully
$l.15 to 81 a day less than when they
last worked.
Unexpectedly the members of the
Amalgamated association, the skilled
workmen, were stunned to find them
selves the worst sufferers. They work
on sliding scale, by tonnage and the
fall in the price of steel rails means
a corresponding decrease in their earn
fngs They had been sure when notice
of the intended cut of wages was given
some months ago. that it would not af-
feet them, because they had a wage
contract with the big steel corporations.
But the alleged collapse of the steel pool
and the decrease in the price of rails
means to them that their wages will
be chopped one-half.
Along the Strand and Eighty-ninth
street a multitude of men congregated
before dawn, waiting for the opening
of the gates. They We're anxious to go
to work, for their families are starving
and the Illinois steel works is the only
hope of their existence. The notices
posted on the high fences told them
that they would get less wages than
ever before, and they groaned and NUT
tered ominously, but they dare not pro-
test or refuse the opportunity to keep
from absolute starvation. For two weeks
the same crowd has haunted the COM
pany'S gates because they did not know
when the corporation would become ca
PRECIOUS and resume operations. With
out notice it shut down Jan. 20 the few
departments that had run through the
winter, and with little notice it started
up again.
Half a loaf is better than no bread
at ALL"
1t was this sentiment that kept hun
dreds OF men with resentment and mu-
tiny in their hearts from inaugurating
strike in which they forsaw bloodshed
and riot. They talked of it, but the des-
r titution in South Chicago was deemed
too great to permit the men to battle
with the company just now. The work
men have spent the winter without
or being able to buy necessa rieS OF life
for their wives and little ones. It is
the annual object lesson vouchsafed by
the corporation to the laborers to teach
them that it is wiser to accept with
gratitude the cOmpany's offerings.
When the men commenced work they
Knew how they stood, for the cOmpa-
ny refrains from being anything but
brutally frank. Foremen who received
500 or 1925 will now draw SIS or $50 or
$S5 a month. Engineers are to get 45
cents a day less than formerly. Ma
chinists will be paid within 40 or As
cents of as much IS they got last year.
Labcrers are cut to 81 day and less
But the skilled men in the place and
rail and steel mills who work by ton
mage on the sliding scale are infinitely
worse off
They will now earn 81 so or 50 a day
instead of as they hoped up to yester-
day $3.50 or "a a day. The price of rails
is the pulse of their existence When
steel kings fight and monopolies clash
they form millStoneS that crush the la
borer.
A few skilled men turned away from
che prospect and spent the day gloom
lily watching the smoke that belched
from the tall stacks and in specializing
On the evil that they prophesy is sure
TO come. They felt that though the
employees of the Illinois Steel company
dare not strike while the rigor of win
ter renders restitution doubly unbeara-
Bile, they will have a stern reckoning
with the company.
Leaders of the AmaIgamated associa-
ton declare that the bursting of the
steel pool is a blind, and that only the
workmen will suffer from the fall in
price of rails. 1t is, they believe. pre-
concerted scheme to decrease the wage
of the workmen with whom the steel
companies have contracts
Subtle cunning is pointed out in the
method of engineering projected wage
cuts by the Illinois Steel company First
comes the Inevitable shut down that
chlorofOrms the patient for whom the
knife is sharpened in advance. Then
there is the usual notice of the reduc-
ton. and finally the coup that includes
everybody who feels immunity from the
cut.
There will be wild times around the
works before many months" signifi-
canty exclaimed a member of the
Amalgama ted association, who was dis
cussing the matter with group of fell
low workmen- 6 Hundreds of the men
are frantic to revolt, and it is only a
question of warding off starvation until
warm weather comes. Even the non
union la bOrerS can be gathered in a
giant movement to teach this inhuman
corporation that its employees are not
beasts of burden, but men. The lash has
been applied once too often
Residents of South Chicago shared in
the general gloom In the Strand, which
faces the mills, there are blocks of de-
serted stores whose owners could not
take in enough money to pay the rent
and who either moved away or became
pauperS. The town has many paupers
who were never idlers. Families have
gone without food for days because none
of their members would beg and none
had work Ia closing down its works