The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-04-30
TWINE MAKERS STRIKE.
1t May Have Serious Results for
Wheat Growers.

A dispatch from Chicago today brings
an announcement which may be serious
to the wheat growers Of the country. It
IS that the employees of the Deering
branch of the International Harvester
company have Joined in a strike which
may spread TO the Mccormick branch.
These two are among the largest manu-
Iacturers OF binding Irvine in the coun-
try, and serious shortage in the bind
ing Irvine supply may result. The dis
patch is as follows:
Chicago. April 30.-After 4 900 en-
ployes of the Deering branch of the IN
ternationa1 Harvester company had
yielded to the spirit of the revolt and
joined the strikers which began with a
Walkout of metal workers on Monday
morning, the company, unable to con-
IlT1ue the process of manufacture have
smut down the works, and there are now
o2V0 men and women in idleness.
With the prospect of a bitter siege a
serious result OF the strike threatens the
country in a binding Irvine shorta ge
The organization of Deering irvine girls
INTO union pledged to stand by the
other trades in the trouble and the
strenuous effort to duplicate the Deering
situation at the Mccormick branch, will
completely shut off the manufacture of
more than half the binding Irvine an
nually used IN the harvests OF the
United States.''
It is not likely that the shortage will
af1ect Kansas and Oklahoma as much
as II VIII the wheat states further
north Oklahoma dealers ought to have
q good share of their Irvine ordered by
this time, and in Kansas the state peni-
tertiary plant will go a long ways to-
wards supplying the supply for kan
sas- The most serious thing that
threa tens is that it may enable the trust
to put up the price on the supply which
It already has manufactured, and the
farmers who fail to get in on the state
supply may have to pay a much higher
price.
Some time ago the trust made a price
to 10z and 10zz cents in Chicago on its
product, and it is possible that many
Kansas dealers have their orders in for
that price, but it is not probable, for
since Warden Jewett, of the Kansas
penitentiary, has announced a price of
91a and 10 cents for state Irvine at the
Missouri river, it has been rumored
that the trust would meet the cut. 1t Is
quite probable that the majority of
Kansas dealers have been waiting for
the rumored cut before placing their
orders.
If the strike spreads and bids fair
to be prolonged. thereby making the
threatened shortage a reality, the ex-
pected cut in the price of trust Irvine
probably will not come. A rise may
be looked for instead. 1t is not prob
able. however. that the shortage can be
nearly SO great as the dispatch above
would 1nQlCdIo. Inc DinQlnk JWlne
plants should have been in operation
for several months and more than half
of the supply needed for the coming
harvest ought to be already manufac
tured The plants which are not af-
fected by the strike still have two or
three months to run before the spring
wheat harvest in Minnesota and the
Dal1otas viii be in full blast. Then, too
Minnesota has a penitentiary plant
which runs most of the year and goes
far towards supplying The demand in
that state. The dealers up there do not
wait until nearly harvest to buy their
Irvine stock but they order It several
months in advance. North Dakota. also
has a binding twine plant in its peni-
tertiary, and while it is much smaller
than the Minnesota plant. it supplies a
large per cent of the twine used in
that state
Kansas will get the first chance at
the Irvine supply after Oklahoma, so
there is not much doubt but the
state can get all the Irvine it wants
by paying the price asked. The Kansas
penitentiary plant will. of course, be
pushed to the limit of its capacity and
to the limit of the supply of sisal In
order to make good the shortage of the
trust plants to as great an extent as
possible.