The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-07-28
BOSTON NEWSPAPER, REFUSING
 GOMPERS DENIAL, WON'T LET
 GERMAN INFLUENCE GHOST LIE


 ter and wiser for them to make their some other city and to make the strike appear only as labor move ment.
 ITO do this would have been easy There are hundreds, perhaps thou sands, of workmen who have come to this country from, Europe since the war began. Some, of them are Ger mans. Others are German sympathiz- CTS. Still others are susceptible to pe- cuniary and other influences.
 ''Tt Is significant, so far as concerns this phase of the matter, that most of the men who went out on strike i'm mediately left the city, presumably going to some other place where a. similar strike has been planned, with the idea of following there the same course they had pursued in Bridge port.
 by some of the, labor leaders or agi- tators (not for publication, but in pri- vate), that they were more concerned in stopping work at the Remington plant than in securing concessions for the workmen. That in itself would in dtcate that there was money on call to compensate the worknen for lost time in the event that the works should be closed.
 ''It was the apparent purpose of the agitators to close the works. They began operations among the we'll paid naachinists and tool makers because if thep ceased work the entire operations of the factory would stoI. If the Rem ington works could be stopped the cause of the allies would suffer, and suffer seriously. Work among the bod carriers the structural iron workers and the girls employed at the old plant of, the company was entirely subordi- nate. The arms and munitions work was the important matter to be con sidered.
 There is always certain contagion of hysteria when a labor trouble is started, and that was counted on, with reasonable good effect, to aid the initial purpose of the agitators.
 There is a diplomatic phase to the situation which has been considered in Washington. The government. sent no representative to Bridgeport be- cause they could take no official ac- ton. But it is known that there have been conferences in Washington and that the government officials were anxious to avoid the closing of the works This was not from any official, sympathy with the allies, but because a cessation of work would be an aid to Germany. While this government has no such possibility of control over private plants as have foreign govern ruents, any failure to prevent a. cessa- ton of manufacture of war muni- tfons might have been looked upon abroad as an admission of weakness on the part of this government. To. cease making or shipping munitions would in effect range the United States as a potential ally of Germany, and so far as the government could be held responsible, would constitute a departure from the policy of neu- trality, formally and officially an- nounced.
 '.In reality the making of rifles, bayonets and ammunition is no more aid to a beI1igerent nation than the making of shoes and blankets. There lis a speciousness in a protest a gainst the rnanufa cture of munitions, the ac- tive agency in hostilities, which would not appear in the case of spp1ies of food or clothing. A strike directed against a factory furnishing such supplies might be expected to receive greater sympathy than one in a shoe or blanket factory.
 s.The action of the Remington com pany in announcing a reduction of the supposedly important demands of lance took the wind out of their sails There was nothing for them to do but to protest that the announcement had no validity, that the men could not trust it. And when the company met that phase of the situation by af- fixing a formal signature to the agree -ment it had already announced as MT. Keppfer says it has done, the labor men had nothing left on which to stand.