The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1913-05-23
PREACHERS OUT
FOR STIKERS

DIOhtu llC uOSSCh opil ~ VI w
termination to win is as strong as
ever. The millmen played their trump
card when they induced Sheriff
Cudihee to station deputy sheriffs in
Ballard and it has proved a boom
erang The utter absence of violence
in connection with the strike and the
lice of Seattle at the unwarranted in
terference of the sheriff has turned
the tide of public sentiment more
strongly than ever towards the
weavers. Two of the deputies had
their commissions revoked by Sheriff
Cudihee this week, it developing that
mill owners previous to the granting
of the commissions and were doing
nothing but trying to foment trouble.
1t is costing something to conduct
such a determined fight. Those in
charge of the strike are badly worn.
On the picket line at five thirty in the
morning, talking to prospective strike
breakers, investigating this and that
rumor, encouraging and cheering the
men, pleading with other forces of
society for aid and moral encourage
ment-constantly under strain from
early morning till midnight, is wearing
on the constitution. The strikers are
,,.f f;,s, IL of -
wages with nothing but small weekly
benefit to support them, because the
end of it means continued servitude
or better conditions.
The millmen are paying something
aa we'll, They have lost through this
strike more than enough to pay the
advance asked for many years to come.
They are so brutally Indifferent to
common decency that they have lost
the respect of the great mass of the
public and are fighting a losing battle.
They have tried to carefully guard the
fact that they are butchering inexper-
fenced men and boys, that they have
kept strikebreakers supplied in booze
to keep them in line, but these things
have come out and it has not helped
their cause a bit. The millmen won't
tell you so but strikebreakers assert
that for every two hundred thousand
shingles cut in Ballard today, one man
is cut on the saws or injured by the
machinery.
They are doing all these things that
they may maintain their wage advan-
tage of 10 per cent over the manufac-
turers in every other part of the state.
And they are fighting losing battle
and know it, but won't admit the fact.
Grasping at straws, at the forlorn hope
that the strikers may do something to
turn the tide of public sentiment, they
are learning the lesson that they
ought to have learned long ago.
Organized labor of the state is
watching the Ballard fight and pulling
for the boys to win. The State Fed
Grafton of Labor gave the services of
their state organizer when the strike
was first called and has still further
extended his time.
The atrocities of the mill owners
have disgusted decent people. The
church forces are lining up with the
boys in this scrap as evidenced by the
following set of resolutions adopted
this week by the Association of
Methodist ministers of Seattle. 1t is
the strongest endorsement of the
body other than organized labor forces
and ought to open the eyes of people I
to straits the Ballard millmen are in
and the lengths to which they will go
to beat down the boys.
To the Seattle Methodist Preachers
Meeting:
Gentlemen, Your committee ap-
pointed to look into the Shingle
Weavers' strike at Ballard, beg leave
to report as follows:
On Monday afternoon, May IL, 1918. /
the members of the committee to-
gether called at two of the mills which |
were still running, viz; The Seattle
Cedar Lumber Manufacturing Com
pany's mill and the Campbell mill, and |
were treated with the utmost courtesy |
by the management in both places. I
The manager of the former, told us
that there was something like 500 men
affected by the strike and that his mill |
was running from a third to a half |
time. He said that it was impossible |
for the Ballard mills to pay the ad- |
vance that the strikers demanded and |
gave as an illustration, the isolated |
mountain mills which, from the neces-
sity of the case, because of their loca-
tion, would have to pay more to induce
workmen to leave town Against this
ha set the fact 0f thp neCpssarv larpa