Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1915-01-22
NURSES STRIKE
THREATENED At
CITY HOSPITAL
Trouble Follows Suspension of
Four Members of the
Staff.
ACCUSED OF LUNcHlNG
IN THE TYPHOID WARD"
Anonymous Note TO Training
School Superintendent Leads
to Suspensions.

Fifty nurses at the City Hospital
threatened to strike today unless four
other nurses who had been suspended
Indefinitely for infraction of the regu-
lations were restored to duty. After
superintendent Charles e. Talbot had
talked to them about the responsi.
bility of their duties they went back
to work, and apparently abandoned
the notion of striking.
Trouble has been brewing at the
hospital for some time, according to
rumons current today. Some said
that feud between Louis Kanuder,
known as Louis the Lunchman," and
one of the nurses was the beginning
of the trouble.
Others said there was trouble be-
tween night nurses and day nurses,
while still others said the dlssatis-
faction arose over the quality of the
cooking and that the fifteen internes
are about to take some action to
bring the trouble to a head. All of
these theories were advanced by per-
sons In the hospital, but they would
Miss Mary F. Mason. supervisor Of
the training school at the hospital,
received an anonymous note yester-
day, saying that certain nurses were
neglecting the patients and having
lunches at forbidden times and in
forbidden places, when they should
be about their work.
Miss Mn..u Yaada a fa,fr Of {,ope~.
ton. In Ward she came upon
Misses Elizabeth Allen, Edith Bor-
cher and Anna Kelaher. three nurses
assigned to that ward, having a
lunch of toast and coffee. They were
suspended at once for an indefinite
period, and went to their homes.
Last evening Miss Mason detected
the odor of fudge in the pantry off
ward 6, which is the ichildren's
ward" She found no fudge and did
not know who made 1t or for whom
! This morning she suspended Miss
! Katherine Fleming, a nurse in the
"children's ward" This brought or
the concerted action of the nurses
| To the number of about fifty the,
waited upon Miss Mason and de
| manded the immediate restoration t.
duty of the four suspended.
When Miss Mason declined to d.
this the delegation said that she coull
choose between that action and get
| ting along without their services. The
superintendent was sent for and he
convinced the threatening strikers
that they should not leave the institu-
tion and that Justice would be done
the three nurses under suspension
and they returned to their work.
1t was stated at the hospital that
the suspension was not because the
nurses were having toast and coffee
but because they were eating the
lunch in ward 7. which is the typhoid
ward" and that one of the most i'm
portant regulation of the institution
forbids eating there.
It is said, in behalf of the nurses,
that while ward Is the typhoid
ward" there has not been q case of
that disease in it for at least three
months. and that the nurses were of
the belief that the ban against eat
ing In ward was in force only while
typhoid patients we're being cared for
there
The cause of the trouble is being
investigated by superintendent Tai
bot, who said this afternoon that he
knew nothing about any trouble until
he saw the nurses congregating in
front of Miss Mason's room this
morning and that when he spoke to
them they readily went back to their
positions.