The Gem worker and the Idaho labor herald. (Boise, Idaho) 1914-1917, 1916-09-28

NcW 1OIk- ne otreeI Railway
men of New York City are now wag-
ing the greatest fight for trades
unionism and industrial freedom that
this year of great victories and trades
unionism has produced throughout
the nation w. B. Fitzgerald Nation
al Organizer for the Amalgamated
Association of Street and Electric
Employees, backed by the American
Federation of Labor, and especially
by the organized labor movemen 90
Greater New York, has come to a
clnich with the marlborough and
allied Street Railway Companies,
backed by the Morgan and associated
financial interests" says a report to
the Committee on Industrial Rela-
tions, by Dante Barton, member of
the Committee, who has Investigated
the strike situation
From Wall Street has gone forth
the order that trades unionism in the
City of New York and in the nation
must be crushed, the report contin-
ues This is national decree of the
incorporated money power of the ma
ton. The evidence are multiplying
that all the forces in the United
States that are lined up in the bank
ing head quarters of New York have
drawn together. OF are drawing to-
gether for an industrial war on the
workers who are seeking the oppor-
tunities of prosperity to free them-
selves from in dustrial servitude.
The challenge was thrown down
to labor here by the marlborough
and the Morgan interests, as eli
max to the declaration of war ON or
ganized labor in California, to the
increasing efforts of the steel trust
to beat down the organization OF the
workers in the Pittsburg district, in
Youngstown and in the Minnesota
Mesaba Range 1t came in response
to the efforts of the National Asso-
citation of Manufacturers to break up
trades unionism. and finally it was
thrown down in desperate resistance
to the great victory for the eight hour
day, won by the four Railroad Broth
erroods.
"The fight on the Street Railway
employees and the Amalgated was
forced by the marlborough, and its
controlled New York Railways Com
pany. after those corporations had
treacherously lead its employees and
the Amalgated to believe that its hos
tiiity to them had ended. They vio-
lated both, legally and morally. the
contractual pledge that had been Civ
en-. that they could go about their
legal and moral right of organization
without hindrance or interference,
Imposing on the good faith of the
Amalgamated and its leaders. the Of
fcials and interlocked directorates of
these corporations secretly imposed
upon their employees a fake service
contract. which violated both the
spirit and letter OF their former
pledge. When confronted with this
fraudulent master and servant con-
tract the officials of the railways cor
porations cooly said that they would
agree to nothing. except to have the
fraud tested in Court of law. know
ing that to establish the fraud in
legal trial would require two or three
years, in each OF many hundreds OF
cases.
"The thing was palpable trick to
drive self-respecting men into revolt,
and when the revolt come, as the
coropration interests had designed
that it should come, advantage was
then taken of their own fraud, to is
sue the defiance to trades unionism,
net only in the transportation busi-
ness of New York City, but in all
fields of organized labor.
The organized labor movement
OF New York City has responded to
the challenge in way that assures
victory for the trades union move
ment Of the United States. A par
ade Of the men who struck at the cali
OF Organizer Fitzgerald, showed ap-
proximately ten thousand men in
line. The strike order, which thus
completely paralyzed the New York
Railways and Interborough trans
portation, except as professional
strikebreakers could keep it in Grip
piled service, was approved instantly
| by the labor federations Of nation,