The Connecticut labor news., 1922-10-27
HOW STRIKE ERE AYERS FOUND
 PRIMROSE PATH TO EASY COIN
 AT COST OF ROADS AND PEOPLE

ployment management and hlmSel an employment manager, investigator and writer of note, went out among the railroad strikebreakers to set what sort of job they were doing He went among them as one of then as strikebreaker, incog He wrot, about his experience for Collier Weekly. Following are extracts iron his article in that magazine, reprinted by permission:
 About three weeks ago." he nut tered conhdentially after we got ac quainted, "I was gettin' AZ cents al hour, like you, but after seein' my buddy mend a, few things like this, blowed. A little farther down tht line l got on as a car knocker Gre pairer)-that's 63 cents. See? Ano when l made my stake there-afte1 IS days-I come here at 70 cents as ( regular machinist" That was hi: primrose path to easy money.
 ''I think I'd know what to do for this machine" one lad exclaimed after he had climbed the locomotive's front end, opened up to let the work CTS into the smoke box, eff the blink ety-blank thing only needed a shavep
 Three of my fellow machinists are taking on a piece of jack" during vacation from their own work of pho tographing blue prints in railroad office.
 "Carpenterin' is my line," said my new boss after 1 was changed to the night shift, "but slack work in my town made me think right smart of this easy money. If you don't take it too easy, they may make you a foreman, like they did me. Last night my two helpers hid themselves after midnight and slept till mornin'. I1 do my best to give you overtime. Sometimes I've worked a plumb 24 hours-and got paid for 32. That's $224o. At that rate I'll clean up around $500 in six weeks-and no place to spend it so long as we're gettin' free board and room at the camp-and takin' no chances on get tin a cracked nut by tryin' to get up- town past these here pickets outside" With our torches, hammers, and wrenches we would sit at the en- trance of the roundhouse stalls and wait until the turntable delivered a returned engine into our hands. Then we inspected every bolt and frightened every loose nut we could find on the wheel trucks or the journal boxes that held the bearings for the great steel axles of the engines tender or tank It is remarkable how much you can tell about the tightness of a nut by the sound 1t makes when you hit 1t with a good hammer. One trouble was to find the good hammer, or torch or wrench, because the tools were laying in confusion among the litter of dirt and waste and ashes all over the house.
 Amateur Car Knockers.
 While we hammered or frightened, others were making sure that the and waste, while up ahead a half dozen different groups were in the cab or down beneath in the pit, or alongside the steam box or the driv- CTS, attending to water, steam, fire, air, or grease.
 Most of these men were as far as 1t IS possible to conceive from pos sessing any degree of either skill or responsibility. Except possibly dur ing the war, unskilled, semiskilled and unattached (not to say foatingo labor has never had such joy ride as this strike gave 1t. Even during the war the average employer could not be as free with transportation as are the railroad employers.
 The trouble is not with the hours of labor, but of leisure The camps sleeping and eating quarters are hast lily constructed. The dozen box cars fitted up with beds look to be the best but these have been reserved for the salaried guards and foremen We common laborerS and helpers of al coolrs-including one from India
  or hundred of us in a bunch. Tn, constant chatter of the colored wait CTS just outside and the swarms O hungry flies within make it plair enough why most of the night work CTS try to do their sleeping in tn roundhouse-on the job-instead o Tn the camp. The more they cal sleep in the house, furthermore, tn more overtime they can stand an, the more pay and half they can ge out of the passing days to build IT their stake.
 Merry Life, But Short One
 Many of these foaters are f1nks- that is, professional strikebreaker. who lead a merry high-spot life an usually a short one
 "Wherever his labor agent tell him, there he's gotta go. See?" on OI lnGlI IIlcnQS eXpld1neQ. Ills dPeT can wire him at any time for any jo at any place. Of course he don't d no more work than he has to. He mainly there to count one so the ps pers can say the jobs goin' on fine that, and to be ready to fight in cas the strikers start something In b. tween jobs he mebbe gets cleaned ol of money. Well, all he has to do to go to his agent and say: 'Gimn thirty dollars on account Just 1ik that. See?-and it's took out of h pay later on. Easy money, I'll sa, The minute things get too quiet her his agent'll probably wire him to be- it out to some place where there more trouble"
 "A lot of these links are Junker =