The Paducah evening sun. [volume] (Paducah, Ky.) 1906-1929, 1907-12-23
RAILWAY STRIKES
SOME INTERESTING FACTS AND
4, FIGURES ARE GIVEN.
Empires Paralyzed and the Cost Has
Been Many Lives and
Much Money.

wounded, property to the value of
30 900 900 pounds burned or other
wise destroyed, and an empire shak-
en- to its foundations.
Such, briefly stated, was the OUT
come of the great series of strikes
among the Russian railwaymen,
which broke out at st. Petersburg on
October 2l. 1905, and was foreibly
quelled at Moscow, amid unexampled
scenes of carnage and red ruin, on
| the 24th of December following.
That any future railway war in
England will be fraught witR horrors
such as these is, of course, impossi-
Bile, our social and economic condi-
tons being so entirely different. New
ertheless, 1t is certain that here, as
| in Russia, trade would be paralyzed,
cities and towns isolated from one
another. and the prices of foodstuffs
and other perishable commodities
enormously enhanced.
There might even be serious riot
ing, as happened at Motherwell dur
ing the strike on the CALIFORNIAN and
North British railways in 1S90e91,
when police and military were in con
nict for hours together, day after
day. with thousands of Infatuated
men and women, driven to despera-
ton BY starvation and the threatened
Iloss of their homes, from which they
were being ousted by the agents OF
the companies.
| In 1877, when the American rail.
way men went on strike. no one an
ticipated any very serious trouble
Nor was there just at first. Then the
strikers realized that they were be
ling beaten, and at once pandemoniun
reigned.
Bridges were dynamited, trains
were derailed and set on FIRE. railway
stations BY the score went up In
flames. At Columbus. Cleveland, Blu
falo, and Elsewhere the fighting wal
of the most desperate character. Blu
the worst scenes of all were enacted
at Pittsburg.
Here the station. which was crowd
ed with fugitive non-unionists. wa
shelled BY the strikers and afterwarS
deliberately set on fire. with the re
suit that nearly all within persisted
Afterward the mob planted cannon
looted from the city armory-a
, the approachs TO the yards and sid
lings, and dared the troops to come oil
The challenge was promptly acceptei
, by the veteran Gen. Sherman VIII
Ilcommanded. and hundreds of the ma
dened strikers fell to the bayonet
and bullets Of the regulars. So wa
order restored. But the damage Z
property in that one city alone wa
estimated at between 100000 an
700. 900 pounds.
Most other nations, too, have sui
fered in like fashion at one time o
another in connection with simila
kidisputes. Germany has twice see
her entire system at a standstill. l
Italy, during one black week in May
l1S9SH scarcely a train was running
and bread became so scarce in conss
| quence that the, frenzied populac
rose in revolt.
Railway strikes in this countr
have, by comparison with these. bee
small affairs. The Caledonian an
North British strike. alluded to abov
was, perhaps, the biggest sffair of tn
kind we have so far had to deal will
And 1t involved only about 500
men, as against the 100000 of tn
American (1S94) strike, and the
600, 600. Cincluding telegraph Opera
tors and others who struck in symps
thy of the great Russian railway al
lfair.-London Tid-Bits.