United labor bulletin., 1914-11-07

ual labor refused to perform their fun
tion. The story is lengthy, but we pub
lish herewith sufficient to furnish the
reader an idea of the authors conclu-
sions. Here is the story:
The world will never forget the great
catastrophe of 1913. By the side of it
the losses of fire, earthquake, plague
and battle in all the centuries fade into
mere incidents. The recovery from this
overwhelming disaster took years of pa
tient and painful labor, but perhaps
the lessons it taught will be worth all
the tragedy that is now passed into the
worlds greatest chapter of loss.
1t began in an absolutely obscure and
unknown man who was shoveling coal
into furnace which supplied power
for machine shop in New York.
The man complained one night after
work of strange feeling in his hands.
1t was not pain or numbness, but an
inability to open and shut his fingers.
When he went to work the next morn
ing he found that he could not pick up
his shovel He was promptly discharged
and another man was doing his work
before he was out of the shop.
The man afflicted with the trouble
went home and told his wife. She could
not see any signs of trouble and scold-
eu Him IoT DtlHS iuZs. Dut belOIe HlSht
she herself was complaining of the same
inability to open and shut her fingers
or use her hands in housework. These
people were too poor to hire a servant
and the wife did all the work of cook
ing, washing and general house labor.
The disease spread throughout New
York and the hands of all the work
ers were made useless.
Twentyfour hours went by and the
third day after the furnace man had
found himself unable to. pick up his
shovel all New York papers were Civ
ing whole page accounts of the new
and astounding disease, if disease was
the right word to use. Every paper in
the city was hysterical over it. For
once every daily was characterized as
redink shrek of mingled sensational
ism and anger combined. One of the
New York dailies contained a 'front.'
page editorial in letters an inch long
demanding that Congress suspend all
other business and that the powers of
the entire nation be centered upon some
solution for what promised to be. if
something did not stop it, the greatest
human tragedy since the world began.
In the first place not single daily
paper in the city was fully printed. The
Times appeared with four pages, and
not line of foreign news. The Trib-
une had an issue of three pages and
half. Subscribers who secured copies
looked in dazed wonder at the blank
spaces. The Sun had started with an
issue that looked like cheap weekly
but the net result was two pages OF
printed matter, nearly every line OF it
a hysterical account of the catastrophe
But the papers We're only an item
l,nf do nf I,ay s..
civilization of ages was beginning to
come to a standstill. Before night that
day not wheel was turning on the
elevated, in the subway or on the sur
face railroads. Not an elevator was run
ming. except in rare exceptions, in any
OF the skyscrapers or hotels. Ocean
steamers lay still at the docks. Others
that had been overdue could be seen
tossing curiously about all over the har-
Dor. The ferryboats were either still in
their slips or floating helpless OH the
river. Automobiles and carriages pre-
sented the same curious picture in
Broadway and throughout all the
streets. Some were standing perfectly
still across the car tracks. Others were
being driven by men who bore on theii
faces marks of white terror that stood
out clear to the bewildered conscious
ness of the multitude.
For, when the next "a hours had
passed, men and women of all ranks
OF life realized that the common, dirty
human hand of everyday toll had ceased
to do its work.
Weeks after, when the regular work
OF the world had been resumed, certain
facts were made clear, among them the
following:
The strange disease, for which no
name was ever found, affected only the
hands OF the men and women who We're
engaged in what may roughly be called
common labor, i. G., labor for which
days wages is paid, or labor which was
daily handling tools. 1t may interest our
readers who have only heard of the
great catastrophe to see list of those
who were afflicted all over the world.
1t must be remembered that the dis.
ease did not impair any other faculty
or organ of the body. These were no
hospital cases. The hands simply ceased
work. They could no longer hold tools
or do the common task required of the
hands.
The people generally affected all over
the world were: Stokers, servants in
hotels and private houses, railroad fire.
men and furnace men, farmers, elevator
men, men in machine shops, newspaper
men in the machinery part of the press
work. cooks and their helpers, drivers
of trucks, carriages and automobiles,
servant men and women in every de-
partment of labor, men engaged in sew.
er and street construction, carpenters
and sailors, firemen, garbage handlers,
and in general all men and women
whose living was made by doing the
dirty, dangerous or common work of the
world which simply calls for physical
labor and the hourly use of the human
hand
1t was noted afterward that men and
women who lived without using their
hands as the first means of a living
were exemnt from the sfranna disoa aa