The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1916-06-27
A Biqqer Slice of the Melon
What LOngShOrelnen Are Asking

SAN FRANCISCO, June az
A larger slice of the melon they
helped to raise. That's what &c.
600 longshoremen of the Pacific
coast are striking for.
An unprecedented condition
exists in Pacific shipping, due to
the amending call of the war for
bottoms of any sort that will hold
a cargo.
Freight rates have gone soar
ing.
Earnings have jumped 900 per
cent over the scale in effect be-
fore the European trouble began.
The price of available ocean
going craft have doubled and
tripled in value. Fortunes have
been made on the purchase and
resale of vessels, with scarcely a
turn of the hand.
New ships are on the ways and
contracted for at figures that
make Croesus and his bank ac-
count look like a third rate piker.
w 1til tui SUD III n Ills III bhu
fortunes on every trip across the
Pacific and back, the ship owners
are reveling in an extraordinary
prosperity.
Since the scarcity of craft has
caused many an old tub to go to
sea again, the same opulent con-
ditions hold good in the coast
wise trade and the river and bay
traffic up and down the coast,
for business is rushing all along
the Pacific, whether out on the
blue or coastwise and up the wa
terways.
The shipping melon, sweet and
juicy with 800 per cent increased
earnings, makes a luscious dessert
for the owners. This product of
the commercial garden was never
more tempting and delightful to
the financial palate.
But in his enjoyment of the
melon, the big ship owner has re-
fused to consider the demands of
others who have an appetite for
the same sort of delicacy. The
stevedores, for instance, the
husky, brawny men who go down
in the hot holds of ships to wres-
tie with tons and tons of cargo,
asked the owner for a more salts
factory slice and the owner re-
fused.
The stevedores did not ask for
the whole melon. Their capacity
is not that large. They merely
asked for a little larger chunk
than that which has been doled
out to them annually since 1853,
when they first began helping the
ship owner in melon culture.
Now they are saying to the big
ship owner: IF we hadn't helped
you all these years, you'd never
have any melon today. We want
bigger chunk and we're going
to get it."
And that's the way things
stand today between owner and
stevedore on the Pacific.
Railroads controlling the short
haul from San Pedro to Los An
geles. and the Ship Owners as
ISOLATION of the Pacific, repre-
senting about $50 steam lumber
schooners, seem to be largely re-
sponsible for the failure of arbi-
tration. They flatly refused to
consider the demands of the
strikers and declared themselves
unalterably opposed to the estab-
lishment of closed shop rules in
the present open ports of San
Pedro, Crockett, Tacoma and
Port Costa.
The real object of this strike"
declared lumber schooner own
ers, sis an attempt to enforce the
closed shop on all vessels sailing
out of ports on the Pacific coast.
This the employers cannot and
will not grant.
Employers of labor in the
lumber trade will not give in to
the longshoremen. The only terms
under which they can return to
work are those they were working
under when they went on strike. 4"
On the other hand, the strik-
ers declare they intend to carry
the fight to the last ditch in
their effort to obtain what they
term a Just increase in wages.
They believe they are entitled to