The Jersey City news., 1899-05-16
LABOR UNION MEETING
Held in Bayonne Saturday
Night -Conroy Down
on Voorhees,.

| A monster mass meeting of the men en-
| ployed in the building industry of Bay
| onne was held at Hendrickson's Hall,
| Thirty-first street and Avenue ID, Bay
| onne, on Saturday evening under the aus
pices of the Building Trades Council of
Hudson County William Ward, Jr., the
painters representative, was chairman.
The hall was packed long before the meet
ing was called to order.
P. j. O'Hare reviewed what organized
labor had accomplished in the past and
what it intended to accomplish in the
future in Hudson county
Frederick Ramsay and John Westlake
discussed the plasterers' fight. stating
that they had been trying to obtain the
eight hour work day rule for nine years
before they Joined the Building Trades
Council. Within one year after they
Joined the Council they succeeded, and
through the effective work of the Coun-
cirs energetic business agent, Thomas f.
Conroy, they had doubled their member
Ship.
( Daniel Harris, Eastern representative OF
the Cigar Makers International Union.
described the conditions under which
cigarmakers are compelled to earn lv-
ing and requested his hearers to purchase
and smoke only blue label cigars.
Chairman Ward in introducing Business
Agent Conroy said he knew him person.
ally to be very near every working man
employed in the building industry of Hud-
son county, one who could be trusted, ana
whose individual effort, patience and per-
sistence had succeeded in placing the
Building Trades Council on the high
pedestal it now occupies in the labor
movement.
THE position of the various trades
unions affiliated with the Council are
monuments to his work. said Mr.. Ward.
Mr. Conroy made the speech of the
evening He described the conditions of
the workingmen past and present ana
argued the advantages of organization in
labors war. He alluded to what had been
accomplished in over two hundred cities IN
the United States-the bringing about OF
the eight-hour work day rule and increase
in wages of from ten to forty per cent. In
times past he said, the demands or en-
ployes were not worth the paper they
were written on and generally died IN the
waste basket of their employers, like
some of the bills that were passed at
Trenton a year or so since, only they met
their death in the Governors desk
Speaking further on this subject Mr. Con-
roy alluded to the expression or he
publican Governor that such labor legis-
lation is foolish"
'sThe man who used that expression,
said Mr. Conroy, contracted a debt with
organized labor, and sooner or later or
ganized labor will pay that debt with
compound INTEREST,"
He arraigned trusts and Attorney-Gen-
eral Griggs for his support of them. The
speaker paid an eloquent tribute to or
ganized labor and made a strong appeal
to his hearers to join unions. He promised
the assistance of the Trades Council.
..It may not" he said, be the true
solution of the labor problem, any more
than our present form of government is
the best but at the present time it is the
only practical one. The labor problem,
my friends, will never be solved by any
man or body of men with red flag in one
hand and a gun in the other"