Putnam patriot., 1915-12-03
THE VIEWPOINT
 OF TIE STRIKERS
Correspondent Gets Mems Side
 of Labor Struggle
ElGHT-H0UR DAY WANTED
Ten-Hour Scale Leaves Worker Physi- eaily and Mentally Worn Out at End Of Day, Says one-Won-
 ans Side of the Strike

Especial Hartford Correspondence
 Hartford. = The paades of the strikers are over. Keller committees and tag days have taken the place og brass bands and spread-eagIe oratory. The cold weather is coming and the coal man is just around the corner. How do the strikers feel about t9
 The unions say there are over 2.50e men and women out on strike in Hart ford The manufacturers affected dc not give exact numbers and some de. cline to make a statement of any sort. but an estimate of the number out. from the employers standpoint. is placed at 1.700. To qualify this state. ment the union officials add that 1.70d men have left town to work in other cities, and that 900 from the Pratt & Whitney company alone have gone to Bridgeport, Under these conditions which are. perhaps. the most novel that have ever confronted Hartford employers. or labor men, either, for that matter, it is naturally difficult to 3tain an expression from strikers of their opinions concerning the success of the strikes and the effect these have had on them as individuals. An effort to approximate this opinion brought forth some rather interesting state ments from the strikers. All the men and women of whom inquiry was made were the ordinary, everyday strikers. not those who might be term ed radical or extremely conservative
 Out Three Weeks
 q have been out three weeks" said one, and l will stay out three months and longer, if necessary The one thing that keeps me up is the eneour agement l get from my wife. Some of the strikers are really up against it, for they reach home every evening only to have their supper tables reg ular battle-ground. with the wife ask ing her husband why he doesn't go to work. and why doesn't he do this and why doesn't he do that. My wife ia as interested in the outcome of the strike as I am and so is our 11-year old daughter.
 was tdIHtuS SsO lO 9OV d Woth as an expert mechanic. l have been out three weeks and have not received a cent of relief because l did mol want it. l expected for a long time that these troubles would break ant prepared for them. We saved a littlt money and we can meet our landlor and keep things going for some time But it is for the girls of our shop tha I am out. They were getting $4, & and S6 week. That is not enoug and told the president of the eoneer so. The girls cannot lose much an if were to go back now I would no. feel like the same man.
 As for the unions, it was not q question of agitation. It was the question of a concrete wrong existing and the strikers attempting to cor rect it. Some of the girls since then have even been fired from other shops in which they attempted to work When manufacturers carry on a fight like this against women l say it's go ing too far. am a union man because ! was educated to it by the manufac turens. For several years have been working in Hartford. but before that time 1 was employed as an expert me ehanic at one of the steel plants in Bethlehem, Penn. There were times Nhen hundreds of school children would gather outside the gates wait ing to see if we had anything left over from our lunch. The average pay as the government soon learned bs investigation, was $1.75 a day. l tel you, it was no joke, with only twen ty-fve minutes for lunch. Men would be killed day after day in the plant and nothing would appear in the news paper about the accidents. It was be cause of the workmen's ignorance and their lack of organization that such things were allowed. It has seemed to me. after watching the Hartford situation for some time, that the man ufaeturers here. without really know ing it, are drifting toward similar conditions by introducing cheap help It may be a startling thing to say, bui a lttle trip around town would do any body good.
 Wants Eight-Hour Day
 "NeYt to seeing the girls bettered want the eight-hour day Before go ing to the shop, from which l walked out with the rest, l was a nine-hour man. After going to the shop. which is a ten-hour shop, I worked with en thusiasm for a month, every hour oi the day, because it was new. Then l Jagged because I could not help it Before going out l talked with the president. I told him the working man who could go home early in the evening, read his paper have shave and dress without hurry to go some where in the evening, could do more work in eight hours than in ten hours He admitted it and said he would like to grant it. but his company was not able to do so because of arrange ments with other manufacturers. As for the girls. it is hard to tell how