Denver labor bulletin., 1916-09-30
(From Committee on Industrial
Relations).

Relations).
NEW YORK, Sept. 25.-"The Street
Railway men of New York city are now
waging the greatest fight for trade un-
ionism and industrial freedom that this
year of g:eat victories and trades union
ism has produced thruout the nation. W.
B. Fitzgerald, national organizer for the
Electric Employees, backed by the Amen-
can Federation of Labor, and especially
by the organized labor movement OF
greater New York, has come to a clinch
with the Interborough and allied street
railway companies, backed by the Nor
gan and associated financial interests"
says a report to tht Committee ON In
dustrial Relations, by Dante Barton.
member of the committee. who has in
vestigated 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 continues. This is
national decree of the Incorporated
money power of the nation. The evil
dences are multiplying that all the
forces in the United States that are
lined up in the banking headquarters of
New York have drawn together. or are
drawing together for an industrial war
on the workers who are seeking the on
portunities of prosperity to free them
selves from industrial servitude.
War On Organized Labor.
"The challenge was thrown down to
labor here by the Interborough and the
Morgan interests, as a climax to the dec
laration of war on organized labor i'll
California. to the increasing efforts OF
the steel trust to beat down the organ
ization of the workers in the Pittsburg
district, in YOUNGSTOWN and in the Min
nesota Mesaba Range. 1t came in re-
sponse to the efforts of the National As
soc'ation of Manufacturers to break up
trades unionism, and finally it was
thrown down in desperate resistance to
the great victory for the eioht-ho day
won by the four railroad brotherhoods.
"The fight on the street railway EN-
ployes and the Amalgamated was forced
bv the Interboropgh and its controlled
New York Railways company. after
those corporations had treacherously led
its employees and the Amalgamated to
believe that its hostility to them had
ended They violated both legally and
morally. the contractual pledge that had
their legal and moral right of organiza.
tion without hindrance or interference.
Imposing on the good faith of the Anal
gamated and its leaders. the officials
and interlocked directorates of these cor
pora ions 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
contract. the officials of the railway
corporations said that they would agree
to nothing except to have the fraud
tested in court of law. knowing that
to establish the fraud in legal trial
would require two or three years, in
each of many hundreds of cases
"The thing was a palpable trick to
drive self-respecting men into revolt, and
when the revolt had come. as the cor
poration interests had designed that it
should come, advantage was then taken
of their own fraud, to issue the defiance
to trades unionism. not only in the
transportation business of New York
city, but in all fields of organized labor.
Morgan Refuses to Arbitrate
"The organized labor movement of
New York city has responded to the
challenge in a way that assures victory
for the trades union movement of the
United States. A parade of the men who
struck at the call of Organizer Fitzger-
aid, showed approximately ten thousand
men in line. The strike order. which
thus completely paralvzed the New York
Railways and Interborough's transporta-
tion, except as professional strikebreak-
ers could keep it in crippled service was
approved instantly by the labor fed
erations of nation. state and city. When
4 L \
TO arhitrate at the call of the Public
Service Commission. all the trades al
lied in anv wav with the transportation
business of New York. declared their
purpose to stand with their brothers of
the Amaloamated. Back of this imme-
diate demonstration of labor's power and
ri"ht was the explicit warning. that the
whole trados union movement of Now
York, embracing nearly one million
workers. would refuse by all means AZ
their command to permit the street rail-