THE DETROIT STREET CAR STRIKE

The Cortland Democrat, Friday, May 1, 1891.

THE DETROIT STRIKE.

Rioters Stockade the Street Car Tracks and Stop Traffic.

   DETROIT, April 28.—The street car strikers were active last night and persuaded all those still remaining faithful to desert their posts. This morning the roads were closed up tight. Rails were torn up in places on most of the city lines and barricades whole blocks in length were put on the tracks. Patrol wagons were kept going from place to place, but the police were totally unable to cope with the trouble. To-day the employes of the Michigan and Detroit stove works, numbering 3,000, mingled with the strikers and encouraged them in every way.

   A conference was held this afternoon between the police, sheriff and railway officials, and it was decided to give the company support of the whole police department. Nearly the whole force was out this afternoon during a monster labor parade. After the parade it was decided to start cars on Woodward avenue.

   The first got away all right followed by a patrol wagon containing ten officers. A second car started immediately after without protection and the strikers threw it on its side. The attempt to start cars was given up, but the first car continued on its course, being the target of missiles the whole length of the route. Two policemen were on every corner and the car reached the river front safely. As the car started on its return trip a burly man stopped a dog cart directly across the track. The police led his horse away. A man overtook the car and got across the track again in front of the car team. His buggy was smashed and he was thrown to the ground and was finally arrested.

   As the car kept on the crowd sent a few stones after it. A car lying at the river front all day was then started up the hill. Soon 15,000 packed the avenue and closed about the car. A man leaped from among the crowd and grasped the team's bridle. The driver whipped the horses and the man was dragged from his feet. But he held on, ran the horses into a buggy and stopped the car. Buggies, trucks, etc., were run across the tracks. The policemen on the car tried to remove them, but could not.

   Then Stephen Hendry, treasurer of the company, got on the front platform. Pulling out a big revolver he pointed it threateningly at the crowd. Cries of "Kill him! Hang him," etc., went up. Bricks began to fly through the car windows. Hendry's discretion got the better of his valor and the car was started back to the river. The crowd pursued and would have run the car into the river had not a ferryboat come into the dock and prevented their designs. The crowd was then charged by the police and clubbed unmercifully. Revolvers were drawn and it looked as if there would be bloodshed, but the police presented a steady front and effected [sic] some arrests which quieted the crowd.

   It began to rain and no attempts being made to run the cars, the crowd dispersed.

THE FARMERS' ALLIANCE.

The Tax Listing Bill Denounced—A Set Back for the K. of L.

   HORNELLSVILLE, N. Y., April 23.—Having consumed all of yesterday in fruitless skirmishing, the delegates of the State Farmers' Alliance convention finally got down to business this morning and the proceedings were opened in Metropolitan hall.

   In the afternoon the report of the committee on permanent organization of which Frank R. Hullett, of the Arcade Leader was chairman, presented the ticket and it was carried unanimously. It was as follows: President Harvey Arnold, of Arcade; vice-president, Charles Moore, of Canisteo; state lecturer, W. C. Warner, of Yorkshire; secretary Geo. A. Scott, of Belmont; treasurer, F. E. Henderson, of Rose, Wayne county. The executive committee appointed was Giles Shaw, of Yates county; Harry Shallis, of Cattaraugus county, and J. Gale Wales.

   The St. Louis platform was adopted as a whole. There was not a dissenting voice and those who had laid their plans for the state offices were not given a show. The committee on the Cantor tax listing bill denounced the bill in terms most emphatic. A proposition was put forward to assess the mortgage against the holder in the town where the mortgagee resided, the amount being not assessed against the land.

   The Knights of Labor and greenback elements received a most generous set back, and will not be heard from in Alliance matters for many days to come. The committee on resolutions reported in favor of state control of the canals.

   A resolution calling for the fraternization of all societies founded upon the theory of the St. Louis platform was carried amid applause. The committee declared against the third party movement and maintained that the work of the Alliance could be carried to more advantage by non-partisan voting. The return of the direct tax money was demanded and the bill of Assemblyman Johnson, of Wyoming county, indorsed. The resolutions were carried in an enthusiastic manner and met the universal approval of the delegates. At 5 o'clock the Alliance adjourned to meet again on the second Wednesday of November at some place not yet selected.

Curlew.

NEIGHBORING COUNTIES.

   CHENANGO.—Henry Bates, of Greene, has a sow that has given birth to 4 pigs during the past 19 months.

   Alex. Roes has purchased the Sherburne Manufacturing Co.'s plant for $6,000, and will put in new machinery.

   Lightning struck Amaxiah Tracy's barn near Norwich, Saturday, killing one horse and badly injuring another.

   A company has been formed for the purpose of building a fine opera house on the site of the one recently burned at Sherburne.

   R. W. Sherman and James R. Allen arrived in Norwich last week with some twenty Italians, who are to be employed in completing the new reservoir of the water works, constructed last season.

   Freeland H. Hubbard, of Pitcher, was arrested Thursday, on a charge of assaulting his step-daughter, Ella Finch, aged 12 years. He gave bail to appear before Squire Terrell for examination, which may be delayed by Mrs. Hubbard's illness.

   While digging in a ditch on Hubbard avenue, where the Norwich Water Works Company are laying pipe, Wednesday afternoon, the earth caved in upon an Italian named Giovani Natole, breaking his right leg in three places. He was removed to his home in the east part of the village and Dr. Brooks reduced the fracture.

   Considerable curiosity was manifest last week over a strange bird in the possession of Joshua Pierce, of Bainbridge, which was called by various names. Competent authority pronounces it a curlew, a bird of wide geographical range, but of extreme rarity in these parts. It is now in the hands of an Oneonta taxidermist for mounting.

   MADISON.—Teacher's Institute at Oneida May 25th.

   Brookfield has organized a tennis club with twelve charter members.

   Mrs. Elmira Frank, aged 73, broke an arm at Oneida Tuesday, by a fall.

   Thomas Baker, Sr., of Cazenovia, dislocated a hip by falling down stairs.

   C. N. Cady, of Canastota, is making twenty of the Justin dynamite cartridges.

   Some new summer residences are to be erected on the shores of Cazenovia lake this season.

   Myron P. Byaski, of North Brookfield, was fined $100 at Morrisville Monday, for watering his milk last September.

   There are many pike being taken from Oneida lake with hook and line, notwithstanding the law forbids it until June 10.

   James D. Niver, of Cazenovia, has added to his stock of carriages in his livery a new three-seated platform spring wagon with canopy top, made by the Cortland Wagon Company, of Cortland, N. Y.

   Willie Stafford of Earlville, got his coat sleeve caught in the strews of a drill at the "Low Down" Wagon Works, a few days ago, and only for the sleeve giving way he might have been seriously injured.

   TOMPKINS.—Cornell University buildings and their contents are insured for nearly a million dollars.

   A million and a quarter dollars have, in the aggregate, been given to Cornell University by Henry W. Sage.

   On Monday an ox was driven to Ithaca from Etna, which weighed 2,240 pounds. It was raised by Omer Rhodes.

   Rev. Annis Eastman has just closed her labors at Brookton. She has occupied the pulpit of the Congregational church of that place for two years very successfully indeed.

   Ed. Fish, of McLean, has made 1,500 pounds of very fine maple sugar for which he has found ready market at one shillings per pound; some has been sent to Nebraska and some to parties in Connecticut.

   Dr. B. L. Robinson, of McLean, caught a trout Monday that weighed one pound and five ounces. Tuesday morning our ex-postmaster was seen fishing at the first peep of day. Carlie does not intend to be outdone.

   The salt enterprise at Ludlowville station is now an established fact, so far as the test well is concerned. On Saturday last three carloads of machinery arrived and operations will be commenced at once. The well will be sunk west of the gravel bank on the lake side of the railroad. Geologists have long contended that Myers Point was the most likely place to find gas or salt, as the strata for these desirable articles was nearer the surface here than anywhere else in this locality. The result of the test well will be awaited with interest.

PAGE SIX/EDITORIALS.

   The editor of the Standard indulges in bits of genuine wit this week. He imagines that [Cortland Democrat] Editor Jones called at Thompson's grocery store and insisted on paying the latter 7 cents per pound for sugar when the dealer asked only 5 cents, because the editor didn't believe the McKinley bill would lower the price of sugar. The DEMOCRAT never claimed that taking the tariff off would not reduce the price. The price of sugar was 7 cents per pound whereas now it can be bought for 5 cents. Isn't the tariff a tax? Who paid the tax, the producer or the consumer? Ask any consumer what he thinks about it.

   There is a deadlock in the State Senate and very little business has been transacted for the past two weeks. If the Republican majority in that body cannot run things to suit themselves they block the wheels and put a stop to all business. Many important bills will be hung up by the adjournment and it looks very much as if a special session will have to be called to finish the business. While the State went Democratic by a large majority two years ago, owing to the Republican gerrymandering of the Senatorial districts, they succeeded in electing nineteen of the thirty-two Senators. If the State was properly redistricted the Democrats would have a majority in the Senate to which they are entitled by reason of having a majority of the voters of the state. The Albany Argus feels confident that the next Senate will be Democratic notwithstanding the fact that the districts are made up to favor the Republican party.

   The Cortland Standard takes us to task for intimating that Senator Edmunds resigned because he was not in entire accord with some of the weak partisan measures of the party, and insists that Edmunds was so much of a partisan that he would vote for any measure that bore the party label. The DEMOCRAT is entirely content to leave the Senator in the lower strata where our neighbor insists on placing him, and begs leave to assure the latter, that it will not in the very near future, again attempt to lift even so distinguished a Republican as Judge Edmunds, from the dirty mire of Republican politics to the lofty plain of true patriotism. In the language of the small boy: "They are not in it." The reference to Aesop’s fables is opportune. If there be a person anywhere, who may be said to be familiar with that work, and all others of the same character, our neighbor is the individual.

Item.

   When Senator Palmer of Illinois takes his seat he will find as his colleague a man whose father he once arrested, Senator Joe Blackburn of Kentucky. The senior Blackburn, when escorted before Gen. Palmer during the war, was asked if he was a loyal citizen.

   The Springfield Republican thus narrates the answer: Blackburn replied that, considering his surroundings, he was tolerably loyal.

   ''What are your surroundings?" inquired Palmer.

   "Well," said Blackburn, "I have six sons, all of them grown to manhood, and all of them in the Confederate army. They are bad rebels. All their wives are now at my house. The wives are 100 per cent worse rebels than my sons. My wife is there, too, and she is about 1000 percent worse rebel than her sons and daughters-in-law put together, and I think, with these conditions surrounding me, I ought not to be expected to make a very large display of my loyalty."

   Palmer thought so, too, and he let the old man go home to look after his rebel family.