The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1911-12-22
BATTLE ON TN
MUSCATINE
BUTTON WORKERS IN IOWA
WAGING A MAGNIFICENT
FIGHT FOR LIVING WAGES
AND THE RIGHT TO ORGAN
IZE.

AIuscatine, Ia, Dec. 21.-This city
has been in the throes of a lockout, and
later a strike involving the pearl button
factories for nearly u year. Notwith-
standing that at one time it was thought
settlement had been reached, the own
ers of the factories violated their part
of the agreement, and, as a consequence,
the employees rebelled. The button
manufacturers are united in close as
sociation and have been ever since the
button workers were locked out last
spring, when they attempted to form a
union. The number of men and women
now involved in the strike is approx
matetly 1900. The newspapers of this
city have refrained from printing the
actual situation as it really exists, save
one. A few days ago one of the news
gathering associations sent Neal Jones
to this city, and, as a result, five IL
ustrated articles are to appear in a
large number of papers distributed
throughout the country. In the first
article, which has just appeared, the
writer says:
1.-TWO thousand people, mostly button
cutters and their families, have left the
town, Fifty small merchants are
pinched for money. Men and women
are going underfed and pale faced chill
dren are shivering from lack of proper
clothing. And all on account of nine
bull headed button manufacturers.
These nine manufacturers have turned
the little corn belt city upside down,
and for many months have held Musca-
tine in a state of civil war. Many of
the people carry guns. Everybody here
knows it is a downright shame, and now,
at the eleventh hour, figuratively, they
are awakening to the fact that the man
ufacturers themselves are almost entire
ly to blame. These manufacturers say
that there is no way to settle the
trouble, but there is always way, just
as in the Des Moines railway strike,
and the people of Muscatine who have
previously backed the manufacturers are
beginning to realize that the manufac-
turers are gold bricking them. The
manufacturers have bluffed their way
through inspiring the police, sheriff, and
hired Chicago thugs to bust the heads
of tottering old men. They have Of
fered no remonstrance to the jailing of
women and girls, deluded through some
strange process of reasoning into believ
ing that brutality will bring the strikers
to time. 1t is amazing to note that even
here and there can be found otherwise
reputable citizens of Muscatine, who be-
lieve that this sort of anarchy is the
way to settle labor dispute. Yet good
citizens are found encouraging lawless-
ness, and even the dignified Commercial
club has passed resolutions heaping emb
ers on the flames. Men who stand high
commercially, professionally, and social
ly have so far forgotten themselves as
to encourage, in the name of the law,
crimes that ordinarily send men to the
penitentiary. A crime is crime, wheth-
er it is committed by a button manu-
facturer, patrolman, police judge or
a sheriff, and the sooner Muscatine real
ICES that they are hypnotized into con-
doning worse acts than any they are
able to lay at the door of labor, the
sooner it will regain its feet. They
have only to ask themselves just how
much more consideration should be ex-
tended button manufacturer than the
average business man, and the strike
will end"