Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1905-10-24
RUSSIAN STRIKE SPREADING
Traffic On All the Railway Lines Is P1s-
tiCally Suspended.
MOSCOW is COMPLETELY ISOLATED
onIy One Line from Capital to
German Frontier f. open and II
VIII Probably He Closed
Today.

ST. PETERSBURG. oct. A-@:ls a. m)-
Tht railroad strike situation has now en-
tered on a highly serious phase. The strike
is spreading rapidly to all the railroads of
the empire. and apparently cannot be
stopped. while in many cities 1t is com
municating itself to the military and fac
tory employees. The strike in all branches
Of labor which the socialists planned for
the end OF this year is seemingly bursting
forth of its own volition.
Minister of Finance Kokovosoff yesterday
| received telegram from the governing
| committee of the Moscow bourse which
said that a continuation of the strike for
a week longer would force every shop in
the Moscow region to shut down owing
to the lack Of coal.
The same condition OF paralysis threatens
| all the trade and industry OF Russia unless
| the strike is speedily settled. The in
habitants of Moscow were already feeling
the effects of the strike in the increased
prices of food and they are even con-
fronted by famine.
AS the demands Of the men are purely
political It seems impossible to satisfy
them by economic concessions. Prince Hill
koff, minister OF railroads, yesterday vainly
appealed to the Moscow strikers on the
basis of his own experiences in England
| and the United States, but he spoke to
deaf ears. The men talked Of nothing
| but their political rights which, Of course,
the prince was powerless TO grant
The situa ton is apparently at a deadlock,
| from which egress can only be had by the
surrender Of one side or, perhaps, the
proclamation of martial law on the rail-
roads
Tie UP in other cities.
A flood Of dispatches yesterday from
Simbirsk saratoff, vyazma, Poitava.
Nizhnl Novgorod. Kharkoff, smolensk,
kieff, Elizabeth read. Kazan and other
railroad centers all over Russia reported
the complete tieing up of all transporta-
ton.
The last link that bound Moscow. the
commercial center of the empire, with the
outer world was broken yesterday after
noon when the men on the Nicholai road
connecting Moscow with St. Petersburg
went on strike. The engineers shut of
steam in their engines and Prince Hilkoh
had great difficulty in obtaining a crew
for the special train which brought him
to st. Petersburg at midnight.
st. Petersburg has one line to the frontier
and the employees of this line held a meet.
ing late last night to decide whether OF
not they should participate in the strike
movement.
Brigadier General Thomas H. Barry and
Captain Sydney A. Cloman of the United
States army. who have been with the Rus
sian army in Manchuria, left late at night
for Vienna on what was perhaps the last
train out of st. Petersburg. Railroad trains
are now running only in the border regions
of the empire.
Pathetic scenes are reported from Mos
COW, where thousands of the poorer in
habitants Of the adjoining provinces have
| been waiting for four days for trains Il
take them home. They are camping GU
near the railroad stations and in the streets
I and many of them are without money anC
the necessaries of life. ,
5 Moscow COmpI eteIy Isolated.
/ MOSCOW, Oct z.-A meeting of railroa,
: men held in the university today adopte,
: a resolution to continue the strike unit
their demands are satisfied and the ar
] rested members of the union are released.
E Forty detachments of the railway hav
e arrived here for locomotive service on tn
I Moscow-Kazan line.
Trains on the Windau railroad hav
!. ceased running and Moscow is completel
t isolated from the rest of the emf ..
- There is only enough meat in the cit
e of Moscow to supply the demand for
|
to be conducted by telegraph.
d Prince Hilkon, in receiving the member
:. of deputation sent by the strikers, talke
. to them Familiarity. He said that when 1
5 England and the United States he worke
s sixteen hours daily in order to increas
3 his salary, and pointed out the superiorit
of the production of foreign workmen
r quantity and quality at the same wage
received by Russian workmen.
A The deputation entered a protest agains
any man being compelled to work sixtee
hours day, because the long hours pre-
cluded the opportunity for educational I'm
l. provement Prince Hilkoff, in reply, sal
Il that even with sixteen hours a, day 1t wa
e possible to devote at least one hour
l. reading and to other forms OF improvement
= KALUGA, Russia, Oct. 2.-The strik
10 here has spread to all the factories. Di.
Al orderly crowds are parading the street
d and stopping the street cars. The en-
ployes Of the Syzran-Vyasma road, and in
IS portant connecting link in the TranscoI
t. tinental system struck today All traff
ID has ceased.