Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1902-07-12
BIG CHICAGO STRIKE.
NINE THOUSAND FREIGHT HAN.
Oilers GO OUT.
Sreat Fight Threatens Loss of Vast
Sums in Commercial World -Mer-
chandise Worth Fortunes Held on

With every freight line entering Chi
cago practically tied up, 5000 out Of q
total of $4,000 freight handlers on strike,
wholesale business at a standstill and
hundreds of special policemen guarding
freight sheds, Chicago Monday felt con-
dition strongly in keeping with the great
railroad strike Of 1894.
Pursuant to their decision Of Sunday
the officers of the Interior Freight Hand
lers' and Warehousemen's Union, finding
their demands for higher wages and hap
pier hours ignored by the managers Of
the twenty-six roads centering in Chi
cago, declared a strike effective Monday
morning and at a. N. every union men,
Der quit work.
The men demanded increased wages for
different classes of workers in the union
and recognition of their organization. The
general manager of the railroads made
counter proposition embracing non-recog-
milton of the union and a scale Of wages
lower than that proposed by the workers.
The reply Of the men to this was the Or
der to strike. The railroads decline to
submit the differences to arbitration and
refuse to deal as a unit with the union.
Each road insists upon dealing in its own
way with it's own men. The strikers
say they are willing to waive recognition
of the union and are willing that each
road shall deal with its own employees,
but they insist that each road shall pay
its men the union scale of wages. AS
soon as road agrees to pay the union
scale the strike will be declared off on
that particular line.
AS soon as the strike was declared the
railroad managers began bringing in hun
dreds of outside men, all of whom are
housed and fed in cars which are guard
ed by special and city policemen.
Strike Causes Widespread Losses.
The sudden suspension of customary
operations by the freight handlers occa-
stoned widespread trouble in and about
the various railroad warehouses and de-
pots. By noon the shipping interests of
the city were practically paralyzed, and
the wholesale houses were bombardlng
the railroad agents with questions. Police
were massed about the various freight
houses, and the big doors of the long
railroad sheds were dropped down, while
the striking workingmen gathered Oil the
corners or hurried over to union head
quarters to await developments.
Hundreds of heavily loaded trucks from
wholesale houses all over the city were
dragged up the inclines to the freight
house doors, and there was a blockade
before it came to be generally known
that the war of the freight handlers Tor
increased wages and union recognition
had been inaugurated. The pickets and
their sympathizers surrounded each new
arrival in the long lines of wagons end
urged the drivers not to deliver goods to
non-union workers in the freight houses.
They received assurances from practically
everyone they approached that their
wishes would be respected, but their
work was almost unnecessary, since there
was not one of the houses in that tier
of railroad shipping quarters that was
making any effort to take in anything in
the way of freight.
One thousand men from the Illinois
Central and the Michigan Central rail
roads Joined forces with the workers who
filed out of the Wisconsin Central build
ings, and they marched through the
downtown streets A halt was called on
the lake front and several speakers
mounted to the platform of a wagon and
harangued the big gathering, urging them
to keep cool and do nothing to precipitate
a clash with the police.