The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-07-28
AGAIN ..THE FORGOTTEN MAN.

Summers Forgotten Man" is a resi-
dent, just now, of the cities of Cleveland,
Brooklyn and Manhattan. He is forgot
ten this time by street railway corpora
tons on the one hand and their employees
on the other. He is the same old For
miliar; the man who has no representative
in congresses or legislatures or city coun-
ellis, is never thought of or considered.
except when an election is pending and
his vote is needed, and who, when that
is obtained, is dropped back into de
miz." He bears the, burdens, pays the
cost, but is treated as if he had no rights
that any man, white, red or black, is
bound to respect.
In the cities named the Forgotten Man.
for the sole purpose of enabling him and
his to get more quickly and easily from
home to office, shop and factory, and
back again, acting by his representatives,
granted to sundry corporations the right
to use his streets free of charge, streets
for whose grading and paving he had
paid, on which to lay rails and operate
cars and give employment to men to aid
in giving the Forgotten Man prompt and
continuous service. Relying upon this
very essence Of the granted franchises,
the Forgotten Man removed his home
farther into the suburbs that his children
might have purer air and he more elbow
room, for the rapidly driven cars enabled
him to get to and from his work over
distance which he could not traverse
without them.
By and by, the employees. who, by en-
gaging in that service, became parties
to the contract with the Forgotten Man
found grievance in their treatment by
their employers. No court was open to
them to which they could go for redress:
they could only take what was given
them or quit, and wives and children
would be hurt by the quitting. The cor
porations denied the grievance and re-
fused redress. Then the employees. for
getting, if they knew, that they owed
any obligation to the Forgotten Man. and
the corporations, also forgetting their
contract with the Forgotten Man. fell
out; the men quit-''struck'' is the trade
term-and the corporations tried to put
other men to run the cars. And for DAYS
and weeks the Forgotten Man walked
to and from his work or got to and from
as best he could while the contending
factions strove for mastery. And, really,
the Forgotten Man is so accustomed to
being ignored and forgotten in these and
similar cases that he bore the brunt of
the discomforts and losses patiently as
he would a stroke of sickness or other
inevitable Ill luck 1t does not seem to
have occurred to him that he had rights
superior to those of either of the con-
testants, which they were bound to re-
spect by subordinating their dispute to
his rights.
Possibly the Forgotten Mans repre-
sentatives, when they gave away those
franchises, never dreamed that conditions
such as these would arise, because If
they had they surely would have put
into the grant stipulation that the cor
poration and all it's employees should
agree to submit to some tribunal or board
Of arbitration any differences that might
arise between them, and that no such
dispute should ever be permitted to cause
suspension Of the operating of the cars
And they would have attached penalties
to the violation of the provision so severe
that the parties bound by it would ever
be cautious about defying It. But 1t is