Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1903-11-27


headquarters at 1855 Ashland avenue.
where many of the business agents
also have their offices. At least 5000
men and women pass in and out OF
the headquarters daily. The fifty-one
unions have a membership Of $4,000.
Under the proposed plan Of amalga-
nation of the United Brotherhood OF
Carpenters and Joiners and the Anal
gamated Society loses its identity and
takes the name of the United Brother
hood, but in most other respects the
plan Is based on the rules of the Anal
gamated Society. The benefits now
being paid by the Amalgamated So
ciety are reduced so as to be similar
to the Brotherhoods.
One of the greatest evils the mem
bers of the Garment Workers Union
have had to overcome in times past
was tendency on the part OF the
membership to lapse. This has in a
measure been overcome in the cutting
branch of the trade by creating sick
and death benefit system. The his
tory of all organizations that have
adopted this system shows that 1t is
to the advantage Of the same and
tends to solidify It,
The Illinois Steel company has re-
instated the 1900 skilled men who
were laid off at its South Chicago
mills last month. The open hearth,
the plate and slab mills, and the
shops reopened Nov. 9, and the men
resumed their former positions. All
will receive pay by the ton, and the
company has told them they must cut
down their schedules or be laid on
again, as the mills are turning put too
much finished goods.
81 know the sweatshops Of Hester
street, New York; am familiar with
the vice, depravity, and degradation
of the Whitechapel district In Lon
don; have visited the Ghetto in Ven
ice; know the lot of the coal miner
of Pennsylvania, and l know some
what of Siberian atrocities, but for
misery, woe and helpless suffering !
have never seen anything to equal the
cotton mill slavery of South Carolina"
Gilbert Hubbard in The Philistine.
The United Mine Workers of Ameri-
ca, for the first time in the history OF
their organization, have called strike
of the coal miners in the far West.
An order was issued by President
Mitchell of the United Mine Workers
ordering 10000 miners in Colorado,
Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico to
strike tomorrow morning to empha.
size their demands for shorter hours
of labor and mo scrip"-for the pay
ment of wages in lawful money of the
United States.
An agreement on the question OF
jurisdiction and tentative plans for an
ultimate amalgamation has been
reached between the Journeymen
Tailors of America and the United
Garment Workers of America. The
men and women employed in making
suits which are sold under $25 in the
United States and $1S in Canada are
to be under the jurisdiction Of the
United Garment Workers, while those
making suits sold above that price
must be members of the Journeymen
Tailors' union.
The Gibson Circuit Court in Indian
apolis has decided that union is re.
sponsible for any loss which an EN-.
ployer suffers through boycott The
decision was rendered against the
local union of carpenters, which was
sued for a large sum by contractor
whom the carpenters had boycotted.
The case is being taken to the higher
courts by the national organization Of
carpenters. The decision that lack Of
Incorporation does not prevent the
union from being responsible for the
result of their boycotts is very i'm
portant one to all labor organizations,
as a dozen or more are now being
sued in different states.
A typographical union in North
Carolina has found practical way to
help few of the child workers in that
state. It has instructed it's secretary
to select some Of the little girls who
are working in the cotton mills and
send them to school, paying them
their salary from the treasury OF the
union. The first child selected was
nine years old-the only support of
sick mother and baby brother. She
was getting $1.20 week in the mill,
but the union voted to raise her
wages. This kindly act has created a
great deal Of attention from all
classes of people in the South. One
southern labor leader proposes that all
the children who are working In the
cotton mills be sent to school and
have their wages paid by the state.
The fight against the Iron League
and the Building Trades Employers
Association, at New York, which was
precipitated by the Housesmiths and
Bridgemen's Union, Local No. 2, Of
which Sam" Parks was walking dele
gate, has begun in earnest, and every
iron worker employed by any member
of either of the two employing associa-
lions throughout the United States is
on strike The Iron League is made
up Of some Of the largest individual
iron contractors in the country and
employ about 10000 iron workmen all
told. So long as the other workmen