STRIKE OF SHIRTMAKERS

Portrait of Abraham Cahn.

Cortland Evening Standard, Monday, October 8, 1894.

Strike of Shirtmakers.

   People who sew for shops for a living have apparently been ground down to the last notch in our large cities. The strike of 3,000 shirtmakers in New York city revealed the fact that they worked from 12 hours upward every day for from $4.50 to $6 a week. They struck to have their pay doubled. Even then it would not be exorbitant. A day laborer in small towns, where living is cheap, gets $1.50 a day for ten hours work in the healthful open air.

   In order to keep soul and body together at all, the people who do sewing for the great manufacturers must put every member of the family at work as soon as he or she is old enough to run a machine. It is slavery. Competition among manufacturers has cut down the price of shirts to the lowest notch, and the reduction all comes off the unfortunate who does the sewing. The only remedy is organization, stiff organization, among these poor creatures.

   At a meeting of striking shirtmakers in New York indescribable scenes were witnessed. Sobs and cries were heard all over the hall from men, women and children while Abraham Cahn, one of the leaders, was speaking. This is the picture he drew:

   What avails all this working of father and mother and daughters and sons? Do they get enough bread to eat? Do they ever rest? Rest means death! Do we live? No! We sleep and work and starve. It is one ceaseless grind. No laughter, no joy, no rest. Nothing but work work, work!

   Can we think over our wrongs? Have we time to attempt to make things better for ourselves? No. We must stitch and stitch. For us it is nothing but the whir-r-r-r, whir-r-r-r, whir-r-r-r of the sewing machines. That is the music, the cruel music that rings in our ears until we die or wish we could die.

   What are we? Slaves in a pen. Human machines to grind out profits. Think? Protest against this slavery? Ah, we have had no time to think.

   Ask any girl here if she is afraid she will sometimes get sick. The poor girl will tell you that a worker has no business to be sick. Tired? We have no right to be tired. The boss says so, and the boss knows. Stitch, stitch, stitch, that is our lot. All our thinking, eating and sleeping should be for work.

   We have no right to think about living, no right to the feelings of human beings. Those fine things are for the bosses. They have the time and the money.

   ◘ One department of country life will benefit to a small extent by the new tariff anyhow. It may be pleasant to creamery men and butter makers to know that salt will come in free. But, on the other hand, the new fad is for unsalted butter, or so called sweet butter, popular in Europe, and perhaps the loss will equal the gain.

   ◘ Already the work on the Co-operative Pullman club's plant at Hiawatha, Kan., is begun. Citizens of Hiawatha took $75,000 stock. The rest was subscribed by the club itself. The workmen did just what Mr. Pullman recommended them to do—quit his service if they did not like it.

   ◘ The sugar bounty division of the internal revenue department has been abolished. The clerks in it have not, however, been abolished. They have merely been turned into the income tax division.

   ◘ Alaska ought to be regularly organized under a strong territorial government. Her magnificent natural resources are being wantonly and wickedly wasted by the various varieties of the scum of creation that always stands on the outer edge of civilization. Alaska will prove one of our richest acquisitions, and before many years it will be a summer resort as popular as Bar Harbor is now. In fact, it will be the Bar Harbor of the Pacific. It has untold riches of seal, salmon and other fisheries, of timber—notably yellow cedar for shipbuilding—gold mines and streaks of fertile land, which the climate is by no means too severe to cultivate.

Textbook Mad.

   "Do you have to study all those books?'' was asked of a little girl going to school and carrying in her arms the volumes from which she conned her daily lessons. "Yes, sir," answered the child. There were about ten ordinary sized books. These she held encircled by her left hand and arm. Under the right arm she bore her atlas and notebooks. Both hands and arms were full. The child was about 13 years old, slight and nervous looking. The weight of the books upon her left arm actually swayed her over to one side like a heavy burden. And a heavy burden it was and grievous to be borne, The physical burden was palpable enough, but the awful load all that pack of trash must have been to the child intellectually was worse still.

   The school authorities of America seem textbook mad. One cannot repress the thought that these drayloads of volumes the children carry to school are issued more in the interest of the schoolbook publishers than of the pupils themselves. It is nothing less than monstrous. Really live education, improving and filling with power and enthusiasm the quick heart and brain, is choked out. It is replaced by lifeless formalism and word memorizing. All is of a piece with the little girl's definition of the word "nuptial," which occurred in her spelling lesson. "What does it mean?" she was asked. "Pertaining to steamboats," replied the child instantly.

   What is the result of the present textbook stuffing? We affirm, without fear of contradiction, that the children of today from 12 to 15 years old do not know half so much as their American parents did at the same age; that what they do know is not so clear and distinct in their minds; that they cannot write so well; that they are not such good arithmeticians or geographers, and that they cannot begin to spell so well. They have not nearly so good an idea of practical life and work. Their exhausted minds are a ragbag of muddled book knowledge. They have been cheated out of the best part of their child life, the outdoor part, by the attempt to swallow the textbooks; they wear glasses from babyhood, and their digestion has been permanently impaired.

   A few textbooks for the simple, common school branches, the fewer the better, are all the common school pupil needs. All the rest should be learned from observation and oral instruction.

Mrs. Mary J. Weaver.

   About 150 ladies and gentlemen were present at the reception given Saturday evening to Mrs. Mary J. Weaver, national superintendent of the evangelistic work of the W. C. T. U. The guests had nearly all arrived at 8 o'clock and Mrs. Weaver gave an interesting account of the state convention at Jamestown. Music was rendered, refreshments were served and a very pleasant evening was spent till 10:30 o'clock, when the affair broke up.

   Mrs. Weaver also delivered a fine address at the East Side reading room yesterday afternoon.

   Mrs. Weaver will be in Cortland next Sunday and conduct a union service in the Presbyterian church in the evening.

BREVITIES.

   —A gloom has been cast over police court hall by the death of the horned toad belonging to Justice Bull's collection of curios.

   —A meeting of the trustees of the Universalist church will be held to-night at 8 o'clock.

   —The watering trough in front of the Squires building on Tompkins-st. was ready for use this afternoon.

   —Regular meeting of the board of directors of Young Men's Christian association at 8 o'clock this evening.

   —Canton Cortland, under Lieut. G. E. Ingraham, will meet at 7:30 o'clock to-morrow morning and march in a body to the special train for Binghamton,

   —The regular assembly of the Union Veteran legion occurs on Thursday evening of this week, Oct. 11. The attendance of every comrade is desired.

   —The Masonic excursion to Binghamton to the laying of the corner stone of the C. T. A. home occurs to-morrow. The train leaves Cortland at 8:10 A. M.

   —Mr. Henry Kennedy has just had his stone walk on Railroad-st. relaid. There are other walks in town which would be much improved by a similar process.

   —The Cortland Wheel club will hold races at the Cortland Driving park on Saturday afternoon, open to Cortland county riders, These will be the last races of the season.

   —Perris E. Mudge died at 6 o'clock this morning, aged 79 years. The funeral will be held from his late residence on Fitz-ave., Wednesday at 11 A. M. The burial will be at Taylor.

   —Mr. E. B. Richardson has completely changed the interior of his bicycle house on Railroad-st. so that it presents a much neater appearance and is also much more convenient.

   —The adjourned regular meeting of the Cortland Athletic association will be held this evening at 8 o'clock. Important business is to be transacted and every member is requested to be present.

   —A number of wheelmen who think that they are pretty fast challenged Daniel Riley for a race to Tully and return. He was at the appointed place on time, but the others failed to put in an appearance. He started off and made the thirty-two miles through the mud in two hours and two minutes.

   —On Saturday evening Officer Jackson arrested a man who was too intoxicated to tell his own name and who said he was lost. Officer Jackson escorted him to the "cooler," where he remained till this morning. In police court he said that his name was John King and that he was employed in the Solvay works at Syracuse. Justice Bull gave him three days in the county jail.

  

A Fine Wheel.

   Mr. G. F. Beaudry had on exhibition Saturday one of The Cortland wheels, manufactured by the Hitchcock company. It was their latest pattern, finished in nickel between the joints. The spokes were of the highest grade piano wire and everything was in keeping with its fine appearance.

Successful Armor Test.

   BETHLEHEM, Pa., Oct. 8.—At the Bethlehem Iron company's proving ground a piece of side armor for the battleship Texas was tested, resulting in the government's acceptance of 300 tons of plate. The plate was a Harveyized side armor 18x6 feet and 12 inches thick.

   Two shots were fired from an 8-inch gun. Holtzer projectiles, weighing 250 pounds, were used. The first velocity was 1,678 feet. The second was 2,004 feet per second. Neither shot cracked the plate and neither penetrated to any extent. The point of impact of the second shot was within three feet of the first, but had no more effect than the first. Commodore Sampson is greatly pleased with the success of the test.

David B. Hill.

Senator Hill at Albany.

   ALBANY, Oct. 8.—Senator Hill spent the day at Wolfert's Roost, his home, just outside the suburbs and had but few callers. John Boyd Thacher and a few Albany politicians called during the day. Today he will map out his campaign roughly and submit it to his conferees. He was to have begun his speechmaking in this city on Wednesday night, addressing a mass meeting arranged jointly by the two Democratic factions. But there is a hitch about getting the hall, it being engaged by a religious body for that night. For the same kind of a reason the Democrats had to use the rink in Saratoga. Senator Hill said there was nothing new and that he was taking a little rest before the battle.

The Most Dangerous Man in Public Life.

(New York Post.)

   The nomination of Hill makes a sharp and clean division between the vicious and reckless elements who supported Maynard last year and the decent people who buried him under 100,000 majority. The impudence and fatuity of the Democratic party in nominating this man for governor of the state surpass belief. Such an act can only be explained on the hypothesis that the party organization is thoroughly depraved and corrupt; that it is a menace to society and that truce or peace with it or its leaders is impossible. 

   We consider Mr. Hill the most dangerous man in American public life. He is a daredevil, and be likes to be considered such. He is attractive to Tammany Hall and all the bosses and bad elements of society because he represents what they all aim at and strive for.

   Looking back at the list of Democratic leaders in New York, where do we find his likeness? Where is his place in the list of Van Buren, Marcy, Wright, Seymour, Tilden, Cleveland? What has David B. Hill done or aimed to do that entitles him to a place in that procession?

   The people of New York owe themselves the duty of putting an end to his unprincipled career and bad example. That they will do so in the coming election we have not the least doubt. The majority against him ought to be larger than that against Maynard, because he was the principal, where Maynard was only the puppet and the tool.

HOMER DEPARTMENT.

Gleanings of News From Our Twin Village.

   Mrs. W. H. Crane and Miss Maude Crane left town for New York this morning.

   The construction of new track for the electric street railway has been completed to the corporation limits and by to-morrow will be within the town boundaries. The work is being rapidly pushed and will soon be completed to the end of the line.

   The grand Masonic excursion to Binghamton takes place to-morrow. The train leaves this station at 8 A.M. and returning leaves Binghamton at 9 P. M. Round trip tickets $1. The day will be a gala day for Binghamton and all who attend the celebration. Chauncey M. Depew will deliver the address at the laying of the corner stone of the Commercial Travelers' Home and the largest parade ever seen in this part of the state will be held during the day.

   Mrs. F. H. Nichols left town this morning for Syracuse where she will reside in the future. Mr. Nichols will remain in town for some time yet, settling his hotel business.

   At the close of the morning sermon at the Congregational church yesterday, the pastor, Rev. E. C. Olney, read his resignation as pastor of that church. He gave as his reason, increasing physical inability to perform the duties of the charge. The resignation is to take effect November 1. The church is called to take action in the matter, after the regular church prayer meeting which will be held on Thursday afternoon at 2 o'clock.

   The baseball game between the Truxton and Homer nines was played at the Academy grounds on Saturday afternoon. The visiting team took the field at the opening of the game and the home team, after selecting Mr. Thos. Danes for umpire, proceeded to bat. The first three men were put out before reaching first base. The second half of the first inning resulted in a like treatment of the visitors. It was again repeated in the first of the second and not until the visitors batted a second time was a score made.  Up to that point it looked as though an unusually close contest was to be witnessed. In the ninth inning the Truxton team made a very grave mistake in changing their battery and allowing their opponents to score ten times while they only scored twice. The total was Truxton 10, Homer 22. Among the brilliant plays during the game were Bosworth's catch of a foul in the second inning and W. Beattie's three-base hit in the fourth inning. Foster and Stevens of the home team sent two base hits and Davis stole home in the fifth inning in a clever manner. The visiting team played good ball but were just a little slow in their movements to successfully compete with their opponents.

A Small "Jack Pot."

   At about 2 o'clock yesterday afternoon Chief Sager found a party of five young men indulging in a game of poker on Court House hill. On seeing him they all ran in different directions, scattering the "jackpot" on the ground. Chief gave chase, but the boys were too fast for him. As he knows the names of two of the party he advises all to come to police headquarters and settle before warrants are issued. The eleven-cent jack pot, which he afterwards found scattered on the ground, will hardly pay the bill.