The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-01-20
in DANGER OF
A DISRUPTION
STREET CAR STRIKERS UNION
is DIVIDED.
Five Members Whot Waited on Cen
eral Manager silliman Independ-
ent of the Executive Board Are
Subjected TO a Severe Arraignment
at Last Nights Meeting-They
Retort in Kind and a Warm Time
Ensues - Motions to Return to
Work Declared Out Of Order

For some time past, dissatisfaction
has been growing in the ranks of the
street car strikers. Some of the
strikers believed that inasmuch as the
executive board was not accomplishing
anything towards settlement and that
the possibilities of settlement had not
been exhausted, II new committed
should be selected to wait ON the COM
pany officials and endeavor to restore
peace.
Saturday last, five old-time employees
of the company, Messrs. Fleitz, Lynch,
Dickson Cavanaugh and Nicholson,
waited on General Manager Silliman
and spent an hour comforting with him
as to the possibilities of bringing
about an adjustment. They went as
individuals, openly, in broad daylight
and aware of the fact that two MEM
bers of the executive board watched
them enter and leave.
At last nights meeting of the sti TX
crs, these five members came in for Il
scathinE denunciation at the hands of
tho executive board men and the rep
resentativcs Of the Central Labor
union who are interesting. themselves
IN the conduct Of the strike. They
were characterized as traitors and a
committee of three was appointed to
investigate and recommend whether
or not they should be expelled.
COMMITTEE REPLIED.
The five members We're not a whit
disconnected by the arragnment, but
instead made reply to every attack and
took a turn at recrimination when the
executive board members We're calling
names. Charges and counter-charges
were freely exchanged, and, as one OF
the on-lool1ing members put it, ",rhey
had heir coats off at one another q
couple of times"
One of the things charged against
the five assailed members was that
they We're acting at the instigation of
DIR. Lutz, whom the executive board
branded as an emissary of the COM
pany or the Citizens Alliance, hired to
disrupt the union.
The accused members admitted that
man named Lutz, who, they UNDER
stood, was a doctor, waited on them
and wante dto deal for them with the
company. They told him he might do
whatever he was capable of, but that
was the extent of their negotiations
with him. The charge that they We're
to be nhis pay while they would be
engaged in settling the strike and the
like fthat was branded as utterly
false
The connection of Lutz with the
strike problem Is not explained. The
Citizens Alliance and General Mana
ger Silliman do not know him as an
intermediary; in fact neither is at
tempting any mediation of the strike.
NEW COMMITTEE WANTED.
Several times at the meeting last
night motions We're offered to have "a
new committee appointed to arrange
with the company for a return to work
under the best terms that could be Sc
cured, but each time the motion was
ruled out of order, amid much con-
fusion.
Conservative members of the union
greatly deplore the internecine trouble.
They say that if the five assailed menu
bers are expelled a hundred men will
leave the hall with them and that if
such disruption comes, the strike
will never be declared off.