The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-05-13
WHERE
MINERS MEET is
OPEN SHOP TOWN
Workers And Farmers
Are Disorganized
BY J. A. HAMILTON.


If the Illinois miners, in selecting
Peoria as their 1924 convention city,
where they will convene May 10, had
in mind the doing of some missionary
work for the general laDor move
ment, they could hardly have chosen a
better meeting place.
There are thousands of unorganized
workers in the manufacturing plants
of Peoria and vicinity, and they have
been among the worst exploited in the
country. For some years Peoria had
the reputation of being the second
city in the United States in respect
to the amount and value per worker
added in the process of manufacture.
This was largely because of being one
Of the leading cities in the manufac-
ture of agricultural implements, rank
ing first in diversity of output, and
third in aggregate value of product.
The implement business for time
was one of the most profitable, the
workers being paid exceptionally low
wages at one end, and the farmer be-
ing charged excessive prices at the
other.
However, the financial pirates of
Wall Street, who, of course, have an
interest indirect or direct in the i'm
plement business, overreached them
selves in their efforts to exploit the
| farmers, and have seriously injured
the golden egg laying ability of the
farm implement goose. So many
farmers have gone bankrupt, or near
ly so, that they cannot stand any fur
Their cash or credit burden for ma
chinery. They have seen that merely
to increase the product by machinery
often puts them in worse position
by putting so much foodstuff on the
market that the price drops and they
are worse off with big crops than
small ones. Hence the number OF
farm implements and machines bought
by the farmers in 1922 are shown by
reports to have been only about hall
of the number bought in 1914.
This condition of poor business re
suited in the bankruptcy recently of
the Avery company, one of the lead
ing farm machinery manufacturers in
Peoria, and of course the workers in
the implement factories will suffer
from low wages and unemployment.
Peoria is pretty much an open shoI
city. The street ycar employees are
said to have an open shop agreement
which gives them from AZ cents to 81
cents per hour, the combined conduc
tor-motorman on the one-man cars
getting SIS cents per hour, according
to reports. The factories and mills
are unorganized. An employee of the
Keystone Steel and Wire company re
ported that in seven-day week, work
ing IL hours night turn, he was able
to earn" the large sum of $36.
Peoria has in the past seen stir
ring events in the labor movement
In 1919 the employees of the Keystone
Steel and Wire company and othel
plants in Peoria and nearby citiei
conducted a strike involving som'
5000 men, and lasting for months
The strikers were blacklisted whei
they tried to get work in plants no
included in the strike, and as result
a general strike was called whicl
brought out very large percentage
of all the workers in Peoria, and cul
minated in a monster parade on thu
day before Labor day. Even thu
street car service stopped, it is said
all day.
One thing which handicaps the la
Dor movement in Peoria is the extern
of the commercial business, both il
the hog trade, of which this is a grea
center, and in general wholesale lines
Some $SO,000,0OO wholesale business
is said to be done annually, and abou
$500 travelling statesmen to have theil
homes in Peoria. The workers in the
industry Of trade are VIGOROUSLY back
ward toward organization to better
their condition