The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1909-08-20


And before the compelling fire of ar
gument like that delivered by a man in
his shirt sleeves what laboring man
could lay down on the strike and give
in to the double pay, and the promise of
a pension that had been held out?
Pratt started a strike in Philadelphia
Knowing that the director of Public
Safety was reputcd to be among the
largest owners of transit stock in town,
and also could control the policemen.
fremen, and men employed in the water
works. He started it when he had
less than twenty five per cent of the
men organized into u union lie
preached his way into the hearts of the
other seventy-vve per cent in just four
days, and in five days had preached his
way, through signed statements given
out to the press, into the hearts of the
people After things were settled the
carmen gave dance and the traction
officials were almost ready to attend
and make the handshaking unanimous.
One of the city papers had caught the
infection to such an extent that it ran
two whole pages of type on Pratt per
sonaly. with five pictures showing
different phases of his work.
TO personally conduct big strike in
a town where one has no local standing
especially in a town like Philadelphia
where most of the peoples grandfathers
were we'll known residents-brings ON
complications. And they came in Phil
adelphia when the mayor got out Il
statement mentioning "outside agita-
tors" It's from complications that
Pratt draws most of his inspiration. He
answered the mayor to the effect that
he was laborer in the service of his
felowman-that these poor devils of car
conductors We're being inhumanly treat
ed, and could get no hearing. Hear
their grievances and he would disappear
in minute. This was no issue of Pratt
it was an issue of Justice and humane
treatment of employees by their employ
ers.
And the people could see the point to
a thing like that. 1t put the admins
tration and the company in the deepest
hole of the strike, for the public got its
back up. Strikebreakers had been i'm
ported They were running the cars,
but the public was walking and was put
ting little sign on its cap; 1--WE Walk
and We Need New Mayor
Each day the company said it was
gaining-it was putting more ears to
work. But it tried to run them through
the textile workers district one night
exactly at the same hour as a Standard
Oil wagon tried to drive through. The
combination was too much for the tex
tile men. They had heard some of
burned so many cars that next night the
company sent them to roost with the
chickens, and awoke to the fact-as its
spokesman put it-that this man Pratt
was no cheap labor skate"
The textile workers went after camp
of strike breakers. They had walked
to work and back, were proud of it, and
they felt they needed some recreation
with which to top off the days excite
ments. So they collected in such num-
bers that three riot calls and a mob call
went into police headquarters, and a
large squad of brownies special
police of turbulent days-came down.
The thing Pratt feels so strongly is that
mass of unorganized individuals is as
foolish in trying to meet the large en-
ploying unit as were the old behelmeted
soldiers who rushed out in armor suits
to meet the first armies of artillery and
gunpowder. The thing that the police
and administration of Philadelphia We're
doing was to meet the modern strike,
as developed by Pratt into fine science,
with the weapons that conquered
against the old fashioned strike of blind
violence and angrily heaved brickbats.
The policemen who came to club Pratt
remained to cheer him. At one meeting
held in hall because the streets had
been forbidden to Pratt, a policeman,
who had been ordered there to use his
night stick on Pratt if he got a chance
to do it in the line of quelling a riot.
slipped him such a hearty handshake as
he left the stage that he complained of
sore kmckles as he stepped into his au-
tomobile.
"Why shouldn't he?" asked Pratt,
'he's human and no man who earns his
daily bread will ever say our cause is
not just"
Pratt worked out the philosophy
which has sent him from city to city
organizing street-ear strikes, while he
himself was motorman on the front
end of a Cleveland car. Il hated to
see MS men still drawing the pay we got
when the cars were run by mules he
said. while the cars had advanced in
style until to run them right required
the skill OF our brothers on the steam
cars. | made up my mind we'd never