Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1921-03-05
The Open Shop
How 1t Came
To So. Dakota Paper

There is interest in this bulletin
| Just received from the American
Newspaper Publishers Association
| relating how the open shop came to a
South Dakota paper.
when union printers comprising
fthe entire force Of workmen in the
composing room of the Aberdeen
Morning American and the Aberdeen
Evening News struck six hours after
giving notice Monday, November Is,
1920, the men fully expected that
their demands would be agreed to.
/ They could not see otherwise, with a
100 per cent organization in control.
"They demanded fiat raise of $40
a week, renewal If union contract
and 44hour week May /, 1921, in
job shops, besides several other minor
changes of contract, all involving
extra costs.
1.-THE publishers of the American
and News had been party to a con-
tract previously and found that the
Aberdeen Typographical union was
unreliable in the execution of. it's
agreements. No more agreements
with the union were to be considered
the pure American plan of employ
ment, commonly called the open shop.
From Tuesday morning until Sat-
urday morning, inclusive, publication
of both papers in the usual manner
was stopped by the strike.
I'm the emergency, resort was had
to a battery of neostyle and mimeo-
graph machines with which loyal
members of the Office force and edi-
torial departments turned out the
daily editions Of the two papers. Six
pages one day, five another but
usually four meant that the daily run
of 100000 or more impressions had to
go through the hand machines for
every 24-hour service 1t was all day
and most of the night for the SPLEEN
did band of young men and women
who handled this remarkable evil
dence of newspaper enterprise.
There wasn't a gutter or deserter
among them. Everyone was on deck
working and boosting for the papers
and helping to get them out and
working IL to 16 hours day.
mot an issue of either The
American or The News was missed.
Readers and advertisers stood loyal
ly back of the publishers in their
fight for their right to run their own
business. The novelty Of the little
imprinted papers caught on and COM
plete files of them have gone into the
archives of many states and else
where. Advertisers clamored for
few lines in the precious space avail
able for ads Readers congratulated
the publishers upon the stand which
had been taken.
"On the second day of the strike,
the Northwest Square Deal, nom
partisan league and labor daily,
which had signed up the scale and
was backing up the strikers, went
into the hands of receiver on petit.
ton of its own stockholders. They
had put up $4,000 for purchase of
the plant and the petition recited
debts amounting to $51,5S5 with a
Sc, 600 mortgage on real estate. A
monthly deficit Of $500 was being
accumulated in addition. The paper
ran for ten months and half. It
cost its promoters 100000 in round
figures.
"The Aberdeen Typographical
union is thing of the past, except on
paper. OF the SO members. three tore
up their cards and stayed at work,
two or three more only, are at work
on union jobs. most of the others
have drifted out to other towns seek
ing work. Several have gone to
places where there are no unions, and
into open shops.
nThe s,1nprinfed naper, Ia dopo For
five days 1t stemmed the gap, the
union tried to tear in the consecutive
issues of the American and the News.
It has served its purpose. 1t gave
the publishers q new vision Of the