The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1912-02-10

he must learn a new way to fight
this power. He began to suspect that
before he could free seamen from
physical bondage he must help free
landsmen from political bondage
Trumped up Charges.
They arrested seven seamen on
trumped-up charges and put them in
jail.
Then they sent for Furuseth to
come and give cash bail for them.
Their plan was to shanghai the sea-
men for a long voyage when they
We're released, and then, to confiscate
and divide the Union bail money.
Furuseth was too wise. You will
have to stay in Jail, boys" he told the
seven.
piled. Don't bother about US. Send
us some tobacco and something to
read, and come to see us once in a
while, and We'll be very comfortable"
Seven months they stayed in Jail.
Then a disgruntled judge DISCHARGED
them and assessed the heavy costs up
on the county. That broke UP the
arresting of seamen in Port Townsend.
The Seamen's Union gave each man
800 for reward; and Furuseth had
learned something illuminating about
like searchlight into the dark places
of San Francisco. He saw that this
game was the result of connivance
by organized power, and, at least in
directly, by society at large.
Furuseth was reaching out. He
allied himself with the national labor
leaders, and his Seamen's Union with
the American Federation; and this
enabled him to go we'll equipped to
fight Big Business in it's own head
quarters. The big men, in unionism
found in him not. only an equal but
a leader of unusual power, of clear
insight, and, thanks to his incessant
study, of wide learning in their own
field. With their support he carried
his struggle into Congress-; but he
went unaided, except by his own sea-
men, into the Supreme Court in a.
brave attempt to destroy the laws
that held them all in bondage.
He has become a familiar sight in
that committee room in his long con-
test. And through it's discussions he
has won many encouraging amend
ments to the laws controlling seamen
He has had the imprisonment of sea-
men in the domestic service ended,
probably forever; and the arrest of
American fOreign-going seamen stop
ped in our own ports though we still
pursue and return the seamen of other
nations. He has had the advance
wages entirely stopped on the coast,
and cut to- one month in the foreign
trade, thus striking a crushing blow
at the crimps and utterly ending
changhaing in the coastwise service.
Great Wage Advances.
With these laws he has SO formly
established his Union that he has ad-
vanced an able-bodied seaman's wages
in the coastwise trade Of the Pacific
from eighteen to fifty dollars per
month. Home and family life-im-
possible for seamen before the forma-
tioin of the Seamen's Union-has
made a beginning among his men.
They vote. And year after year many
Of them sail upon the same ships,
with increasing efficiency, and to the
great improvement Of the service. He
has built up corps of not less than
fifteen thousand American seamen, a
larger corps of efficient seamen than
the nation has ever before possessed.
The points he and his Union are
demanding now mainly are these. To
stop catching seamen as fugitive
slaves, to give all seamen the right
that other men have to sue for wages,
to require every ship entering Ameri-
can ports to carry crew that un-
derstand the language of it's officers
and to require that the crew shall be
efficient as we'll as sufficient, with
some form of insurance and pension
combined for the sailor.
Furuseth was lately asked to speak
at an artists dinner in st. Louis. He
was introduced in humorous speech
and expected to make a humorous
speech.
Furuseth is Power.
only landsman sees the humol
| in our life he said. He held out his
| powerful right hand.
I'VE are pleading with you, with al
! of You, We seamen, for the right to
! this hand, the right to own it, to use
J it for ourselves. We do not own it.
| The law sells it away from us.
| He put his hand in his pocket and
drew out pamphlets document
which in various languages has been
presented to every nation In Europe
| and which, in our own Congress last
spring, by showing the true state Of
| the forecastle, ended all efforts tt
| bring out of committee the ship sub.
| sidy bill
When he had finished reading
silence brooded over the Guild. Every
member Of it was deeply stirred-ex.
cept. apparently, the chairman. He
! addressed several sarcastic sallies tt
the speaker and then, calling upon a
we-known artist, introduced again the
humor- producing topic of the evening
The artist rose slowly. My min6
does not run to hu1nor after listening
to Mr.. Furuseth," he said. II had al
ways thought of the sea as a pleasant
place, of the sailors as a happy lot