The Detroit times., 1909-12-04
SWITCHMEN BRAVE
DEATH IN FURIOUS
STORMS
Working Hand In Hand With Grim
Reaper For 80 Cents an Hour,
Their Fight Against Jim Hill
Is For Their Lives.
President Hawley Tells Why They
Refused To Arbitrate Their
Grievances.
BY GEO. 3. NEWLAND.

ST. PAUL, Mimi, Dec 4-Some-
how this big switchmen's strike that
has all hat paralyZed the northwest.
has strong resemblance to the
familiar rescue down In the old
orchard, where swarm of busy.
home-loving bees, resenting the Offices
of a two-legged intruder. gets busy in
primitive fashion TO show its dis
pleasure.
These $4,000 or SO switchmen have
been buzZing about the ears OF one
Jas. ]. Hill. raising such din that
others have stopped TO look on Yes.
there ia a general managers commit.
tee that has supreme charge OF the
situation II includes an array OF Inn
posing names and represents millions
OF dollars but as far as the switch
men OF the St Paul district are con
cerned the railroads are Hill-cool,
crafty, experienced James Hin. win.
ner OF a hundred fights, absolute boss
of the northern transcontinentals. He
Is the two-logged embodiment OF pow
err that the pigmy bees are besieging.
Fundamentally, Their Lives"
What are the switchmen striking
for?
Ostensibly and technically wage
advance OF cents an hour and Inn
proved working conditions-funda-
mentally, their lives
Up in these bleak. wind-swept north
ern regions nature must be taken into
account II is vastly different in Cal
lfornia or Oklahoma. or even in Hi
nois and New York Perhaps 81 cents
an hour is good wages IN these warm
or parts Out i'm North Dakota or here
I'm Minnesota, when the thermometer
is often 40 degrees on, there are soft
or ways OF living than risking your
life in the gray cold death trap Of
a railroads yards.
III is a risk. every hour out of the
ten that the switchman works. Every
time de goes on duty he bets his life.
And the odds are against him-al-
ways. It's one great epic-all but the
music Hardened? Certainly he Is.
Otherwise he wouldn't be in the
game. But that heightens instead OF
minimizes the peril. A veteran takes
risks that a tyro wouldn't dare. And
he does It as a matter OF course
for the 80 cents an hour he gets
The World Doesn't Know
The tragedy of 1t is that the world
doesn't know-never will know.
Switchmen don't have biographers.
They're lucky to leave enough insur-
anCe 10 assure a decent burial
When a miner gets caught below
there are a hundred men anxious To
risk their lives to get him out. News
papers describe 1t with spread heads
If he comes up alive he is hero.
When a switchman misses his foot
Ing and goes under train it's too
late for heroism. There's no romance
there-just sordid, lamentabe ac-
cident. And newspaper space is too
valuable to- repeat the story. II al
ways has the same setting. 1t hap
pens too often. It's not news. The
public doesn't guess.
IF YOU consider a switchmans
wages President Hawley told me,
you want to recall how you skinned
over that little paragraph in your
morning newspaper, telling briefly of
he'fatal accident to John Jones.
Maybe, as 1t happens, he's only main
cd. Then you never read Of it, eX-
oept when the papers very short on
material
NAMED, That's all Hardly worth
writing about. Certainly not; few
people know him. and therefore few
care They take him home, a cripple
for life. The railroad magnanimous-
" pays his surgeons bill. and. maybe,
after he's able to creep out into the
sunshine, gives him an old mans job
Of guarding a crossing An armless
or handless or legless pensioner. He
did 1t for 80 cents an hour. Who's
TO blame? Why. nobody. To be sure.
He just missed his footing.
But the strike Is IL worth while?
Ask Jas j. Hill, the magazine writer
trunk line despOt After consult
ing with NJ. A. Knapp. chairman of
the interstate commerce commission.
in the matter. Hill said:
I'VE are willing to make any rea-
sonable concession as to working
rules and that sort Of thing What
the men want Is more wages. and that
THEY WON'T GET"
And he said IL as if he meant IL.
What That 500 Means.
This general managers committee
early In the strike issued formal
bulletin explaining that the average
wage OF the men under the old scale
was 800 a month. II was calculated
to throw public opinion into the bal
ance against the strikers And II
came nearly doing It, The switchmen
refused To arbitrate. Their holdout
threatened great milling interests. in
turn weighing heavily against general
business. II looked as though the
strikers were really an unreasonable
hard-headed lot. ruthlessly overturn
ing commercial interests.
BIZ what the public needed To 10
was only TO make a few little figures
Here they are: Thirty-two cents an
hour. 10 hours day. six days week
Does that look like an average Of
500 month";" Hardly. without a
lot OF precious overtime. Sundays and
hours and hours away from home
when the wife and babies are expect
Ing you.
Hawley reminded the public that
when the men arbitrated they near
ly always lost, and IL was general.
" agreed that was true. So that
ls the switchmen's side OF IT,
The men don't want TO have to