The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1912-11-02
STATE MUST PAY FOR
CORPORATION sTINGINEss

In the Saturday issue of Dixie"
which reached Ocala this morning, is
given a full report of the causes that
led up to the Jacksonville street car
strike. Dixie shows that the street
car company, though owned by bunch
Of leading financiers in the country,
and making large profits, was paying
it's men only $40 a day. It's pay is
II cents an hour, and according to its
system, a man has to be on duty
twelve hours to put in ten hours work.
A strike under such conditions was
inevitable, and having forced the
strike by stinginess to it's employees,
and importing strike breakers, the
street car company refuses to arbi-
trate. The state must protect the
property of the company and in order
to do so has sent fourteen companies
OF militia to Jacksonville, and must
keep them there indefinitely at a cost
OF two or three thousand dollars a
day. which of course, the people Of
Florida must pay.
So the people of Florida must pay
for the stinginess of a corporation,
which will not pay its men decent
wages.
Dixie says:
There is but one issue in the street
car strike and this is seventeen cents
an hour.
However the company officials may
attempt to divert the public attention
from this, the people get right back
to 1t. and everyone thinking of the
car strike thinks of that $40 a day
for twelve hours on duty paid to a
white man with which he is obliged to
meet all Of the demands of life at this
period when the cost of living in this
country Is the highest it has ever been,
the highest anywhere on the civilized
globe.
Figure This Yourself
Do you know what $40 a day means
when a white man opens his pay en-
velope Saturday night? 1t means that
the average weekly wages handed out
to each man in his pay envelope is less
than $40, making allowances for pen
alties for being late, and lay-offs.
$1.70 a day means that If a man is
single, he lives in the cheapest kind
of a boarding house, herded with three
and four others in room; that he
works all day and Sunday, too; that he
wears the toughest KIND of clothes
with little chance during the week for
a change of linen; that he has no time
for recreation; that he is worse off
than any other class of skilled or part
ly skilled labor, white or black.
i $40 for twelve hours duty and a
man. by the rules of the company
must be on duty to get ten hours pay
Srneans to a married man that his wife
is a slave and his children are ragged
dirty and hungry, and that when they
get sick, they die, and that they have
no home life because they must herd
together in droves like animals to
make their wages cover the bare cost
OF existence. 1t is bad enough when a
man is single, but when a man is mar
ried, $40 wages a day is simply in
describable.
The street car strikers are composed
of a. bunch of Florida cracker boys
who have come to the city because
weary of the farm. They make after
slight training, good policemen and
..firemen. On the cars they have held
sdown the negroes and for this the
fcity of Jacksonville owes them a vote
OF thanks. Only last summer when
mysterious murders were mystifying
the county and city officials-when
numerous hold-ups were being report
ed. a young lad named Smith and a
conductor on street car Killed ne
gro desperate who held him up Other
evidences of man" have weekly been
shown by the old force on the cars.
The strikebreakers who were i'm
ported were supposed to be regular
white Hopes" but on Wednesday,
when a great crowd of citizens block
ed the cars, and a lot of children yell
ed threats at them, three showed the
white feather and beat it" and others
followed. The rabbit" had 'em.
There was disorder on Wednesday
due to the intense sympathy of many
for the strikers. There was some law
lessness, and this was inexcusable
and due to some indiscreet members
OF the army OF encouragers."
During all of this excitement-when
car windows were being broken-when
the lighting men" of New York, were
being run by a lot of newsboys and
merry makers, the strikers were three
quarters OF mile away holding a
peaceable meeting in Central Union
Hall. Not a labor leader was in the
throng because most of them were
either at work or attending the meet
ing OF the strikers.