The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1898-01-18
NOT A SPINDLE IS TURNING.
THE DIG STRIKE AT NEW BED
FORD HAS COMMENCED.
Nine Thousand Operatives Refuse to
Accept Reduced Wages, and
100000 More Are Interested In
the Result OF the Struggle Now On

BOSTON, Jan. 1.-THE fight between
employers and employees in the New Eng
land cotton mills is on, and what it VIII
lead up to cannot be forerold. The great
corporations in New Bedford are silent and
thousands OF operatives are idle, while
here and there discomfort has cropped out
all day, the most serious being at Bidde-
ford, Me-. where 1900 persons refused 10
work. thus closing the two mills. and at
Lewiston, where one mill was crippled by
400 weavers staying out. The general wage
reduction is estimated to affect $4,000 per-
sons in about $50 mills.
Tonight finds the textile operatives
everywhere intently interested In the New
Bedford strike, for there the real strength
and the endurance will come. and upon the
outcome Will depend the question of an in
dustrial battle the entire length ana
breadth of the New England states. The
chief point In this will be discipline.
From the point OF view of the mill
owner, the New Bedford situation Is now
q lockout. Intervention by the state
board of arbitration this week Is hardly
likely TO be allowed and no overt act ON
the part of the strikers and no attempt TO
open a mill is expected for number or
days.
The New Bedford strikers will receive
strike money from operatives elsewhere.
but the sum total will be reserved until
II
hardship. which the unions Will then try
TO relieve.
All the New Bedford mills opened at
the usual time. When no help came In.
lights were turned out. speed stopped.
overseers and second hands prepared TO
make everything snug and the mill gates
were closed indefinitely.
The labor unions did little work today
except TO carry out the plans OF cam
paign. which will be developed only as
fast as the weaverS seek to return to
work.
OF the other strikes little has been de-
veioped In them as yet to forecast the fi-
ture. The Iaconfa and Peppereii mill
works, In Biddeford. struck because they
were anxious to. while the weavers In the
AndroscoGgin mill, at Lewiston, simply
took matters into their own hands, regard
less or other departments. These two
strikes. while on identical issues, will serve
only as minor fights along the line, unless
the strike fever grows and they become the
nucleus In the fight In the main cities. One
other minor fight now is at Burlington
VI. where the Queen City mills shut down
indefinitely, because the operatives refused
point blank to accept the reduction This
trouble began number OF days ago but
reached the acute stage today.
Taking t0day's events throughout II NAV
be said that things came to pass iust as
expected. il Is the immediate future
which awakcns approximations
NEW BEDFORD. Jan. IA shutdown
the most complete in the history OF the
cotton mills OF New Bedford began this
morning. Not spindle was turning nor
loom in motion In the factories of the
cloth corporations, an hour after the
usual time of beginning work Between
forty and fifty operatives went into the
Bristol mill and twenty-five or thirty into
the Whitman. but aside from these M mil
made any show Of running, and these two
shut down. Nine corporations. operating
eighteen mills, in which upwards of 0 0.1
hands are employed. are involved in tbs
strike. The cut Is uniform al! over tha
city. 10 per cent.
LA" RfNcE. Mass. Jan T.-Opera-
tives Of the Brightwood Manuractnrira
Company at Andover, today refused Ia ac.
cept cut OF IS per cent. MANY Of them
quit work. The mill manufactures wool.
en- goods.