Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1902-07-15
BIG CHICAGO. STRIKE.
NINE THOUSAND FREIGHT HAM
Oilers GO OUT.
Great Fight Threatens Loss of Vast
Sums in Commercial World = Mer-
chandise Worth Fortunes Held on
Wagons Because of Railroad Tel Up.

With every freight lac entering Chi
cage practically tied up. 5000 out of g
total of $4,000 freight handlers on strike.
wholesale business at i standstill anc
hundreds of special policemen guarding
freight sheds, Chicago Monday felt con
dition strongly in keeping with the greag
railroad strike of 1854
Pursuant 10 their decision OF Sunday
the officers of the Interior Freight Hand
lerss ard Warehousemen-s Union, finding
their demands for higher wages and hap.
pier hours ignored by the managers OF
the twenty-six roads ceLtering in Chi
cago, declared strike effective Monday
morning and at u. m. every union mem
Der quit work.
The men demanded increased wages fog
different classes OF workers in the union
and recognition of their Organization, The
general manager of the railroads made 8
counter proposition embracing non-reecg~
milton of the union and scale of wages
lower than that proposed by the workers.
The reply of the men To tbs was the or
der to strike. The railroads decline Il
submit the differences to arbitration ana
Each road insists upon dealing in its owal
way with its own men. The strikers
say they are willing to waive recognition
of the union and are willing that eacA
road shall deal with its own employees,
but they insist that each road shall pay
its men the union scale CT wages. As
soon rs a road agrees 70 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.
TEe 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 We're practically paralyzed, and
the wholesale houses were bombardinR
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 workingmeE gathered on the
corners or hurried ovef 10 union heaG-
quarters to await developments.
Hundreds Of heavily loaded trucks froIE
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 for
increased wages and union recognition
had been inaugurated. The pickets and
their synpnthizers surrounded each new
arrival in the long lines OF wagons end
urged the drivers not TO deliver goods Ia
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 II
the way of freight.
One thousand men from the Illinois
Central and the Michigan Central rail-
roads joined forces with the workers wins
filed out of the Wisconsin Central buil4
ings, and they marched through thk
downtown streets. A halt was called %
the lake front and several speakere
mounted to the platform Of wagon ant
harangued the big gathering, urging thene
TO keep cool and do nothing to precipitat3
a clash with the police.