The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1907-11-28
Chicago Employment Bureau Sent
Three Hundred Men to Pleas.
ant Prairie Without Order
WALKING BACK TO CHICAGO
Claim That They Paid Man in Chicago
From So to $40 for Jobs at Pleas
ant Prairie Powder Mills
and Found No Work

The village of Pleasant Prairie,
which usually gets on the map only
when the Powder Mill exp1odes, made
new bid for notoriety late Monday
evening when the village was picked
out as the objective point for crowd
of men claimed to number over three
hundred who were sent out by an al
legged fake employment agency in
Chicago. The men reached Pleasant
Prairie just after dark coming in a
number of special cars on the North
western train. AS the men piled out
of cars the people of the village began
to rush from their houses believing
that the town had been over run by
tramps.
The men asked the way to the plant
of the Latin & Rand Powder COM
pany and we're directed by the station
agent TO the offices of the company a
quarter of mile from the station.
The whole army of men marched up
to the Office and reported for work.
It was about this time that the peo-
pie began to discover that all was not
well. It was evident that the men
were working men and that they had
come to Pleasant Prairie with the in
tention of working. AT the Office of
the powder mills the men presented
credentials which showed that they
had been employed by man giving
his name as Frank T. Anderson and
address at Sc West Madison street,
Chicago, and the understanding was
that they were to go to work for the
powder making company at salary
of $3 day. It didn't take long to dis
cover that the men had been duped
by the smooth Chicago man and after
little time they told the story of
their troubles to Postmaster HI. A.
King. The men claimed that they
SIS to $40 each to secure jobs for them
and that the men had sent them all to
Pleasant Prairie. Forty of the men
were to have worked as watchmen
while others were to have found
pleasant and profitable employment
as metal workers.
The crowd was cosmopolitan one.
nearly every nationality and every
trade being represented. There were
old men and young men and boys and
1t is supposed that every one of them
had paid the usual fee for the job
which was not ready for him. Some
of the men took the swind1e good
naturally, but others were violent
and it is pretty certain that could the
man who hired them have been found
on the prairies about the village there
would have been one grand celebra-
ton over his death. The coming of
the men brought new proposition
for Pleasant Prairie to deal with.
There was absolutely no place in the
village to house such an army of men
and many of them had no money with
which to pay their fares back to Chi
cago. Some of them went to sleep in
the churches and school houses at the
village, while others took the affair in
philosophical manner and started to
walk into Kenosha in hopes of getting
train into Chicago.
More than a hundred of the men
reached Kenosha before midnight
Monday evening and they all being
comrades IN a common sorrow the
money in the party was so divided as
to purchase tickets for the men so
that they could get as far as Evans
ton on the electric line. President
Frost, of the Chicago and Milwaukee
road, heard of the plight of the work