Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-07-26


to announcement Tuesday by Fred
Wear superintendent Of the Butte
division OF the road. All of the
general locomotive repair work on
the central district OF the Great
Northern, under the Jurisdiction of
General Superintendent w. r.
Smith, with headquarters at Great
alis will be done In the shops here.
Much Of this repairing heretofore
has been done at Havre, HiiIyard,
wash, and st. Cloud MINI. The
new monthly payroll for the loco.
motive shops will approximate $40.-
600 when the normal number of
men Is employed.
1t was further announced by Mr..
Wear that men will be put to work in
all departments of the Great Northern
shops here as rapidly as they apply
and every effort will be made by the
railway company to put its equipment
in shape to adequately handle Montana s
grain crop. the mOvemnt of which
means millions of dollars to the state,
and to transport coal from the mines
TO cities now virtually destitute of
that commodity.
No Trouble With Men
| SO far there has been no trouble be-
tween the men who walked out of the
railway shops here and the railway
company though it has been reported
that Great Northern strikers in Havre
and Wolf Point have resorted to yio-
lence and intimidation keeping others
from doing any work whatever in the
shops. Neither the railway company
officials nor leaders of the strikers an
| ticipate trouble in Great Falls. II is
1JpNarStn II baf NT;la
of the strike committee. has instructed
all of the strikers to refrain from dis
cussing the strike situation in public
and has requested all pickets to use
nothing more than moral suasion in
approaching men who go to work in the
shops in place of the strikers.
At the present time there are less
than 80 men employed in the shops
here, but approximately 700 men are
needed to put the equipment in shape
10 meet transportation demands for
fall. Starting this morning, Great
Northern officials will put every man
to work who applies for job.
Assurance will be given new EN-
ployes. says Mr.. Wear. that the rail- /
way company will use every means at
its command to protect them from any !
violence. Officials of the company do |
NV 'NPtti tHht tlts VIII Dt 6Uit TO ger
back TO normal in the shops for two or
three months. They anticipate that
the employment of such large number !
of men providing none of the strikers
return will require that length of time. !
Welcome Old Men Back
Former Great Northern employees,
now on strike, are welcome TO return
to work any time said Mr.. Wear
tuesday night But they must go to |
work on the same footing as new en- |
ployes. They have foreited their for
mer pensions and seniority rights, and
from the hour they return. !
Great Northern employees had nc
quarrel with the company. Every de-
mand they had made had been met.
They are on strike merely because B. |
NJ. Jewell ordered them out
We are determined to keep our
railway running and to serve the COM
munties through which our lines run
We must keep our equipment in shape.
We gave our former employees oppor-
tunity to return at their former status.
They refused this. They are still at
liberty to return, but only as new en-
ployes. This is our uneQuivocal stand
and the strikers and the public might
as well know it and realize its full
The relations between the railway
officials and the shopmen here. prior
to the strike, were friendly. and during
the strike this friendliness has been
continued"
Strikers Are Rejoicing
Striking shopmen of Great Falls
seemed to receive the news of the open
ing of the Great Northern locomotive
shops here with rejoicing, as their
opinions were voiced by Harry Ludlow,
local chairman of the machinists' union
aud st. Paul representative. He said
that the strike in Great Falls would :
be continued without violence after the
opening of these shops. as previously,
but doubted whether many strike break
FRS could be obtained.
The re-opening of the locomotive
shops does not come as a surprise to
many union men" he said Prior to
the strike we had reason to believe .
hat this would be done. We think
hat the railway officials have conf
Ience in the conservative workers who
now are in control of the union and
EEL that they are men who give a s
rood dollars work for dollars pay. {
For the last 1S months. the work done !
n Great Falls has been at less ex {
,ense than similar work on any other
,oint on the line. It
"Our relationship with the Great I
Northern officials has always been SO ]
one and we have co co-operated I
o such advantage that we want that G
condition to continue. We feel that the c
trike is going TO be settled, and we
will be going back to work soon and i
when we do, we want that same har- b
nony to prevail that was formerly the G
ese. G
Men Expect to Go Back y
'The reopening of the shops is good t
ews to the shopmen who are now on o
trike. the only disagreeable feature n
eing that they are unable to take d
dvantage of it. especially those who a
ave been out of work since the shops {
losed. There are large number of t
hese men, more than 100 in all, and c
p until the strike, they were waiting d
atiently for the shops to resume. just $
5 soon ss negotiations are completed G
! the east, and a settlement made the a