Cortland Evening Standard, Monday, Aug. 12, 1901.
BREAK IN THE RANKS.
Workers in Illinois Plants Vote Not to Strike.
WILLIAMS' RABID INTERVIEW.
Says If Strike Is Not Settled by Arbitration or Legislation Recourse Will Be Had to the Ballot and If That Fails, to the Bayonet.
PITTSBURG, Aug. 12.—The iron masters are claiming victory in the great steel strike. They base their claim upon the refusal of the Amalgamated men at South Chicago, Joliet and Bay View to obey the general strike order of President Shaffer and their success in maintaining operations in other plants where it was anticipated that there would be serious trouble.
The strike leaders meet the claims of victory with the assertion that their cause is making satisfactory progress and that they will show themselves masters of the situation before the contest has progressed much further. They do not conceal their disappointment at the refusal of their Western brethren to join them in the strike, but none of the leaders would discuss the deflection. President Shaffer refused to meet the newspaper men who sought him and kept within the seclusion of his home. The other leaders who were seen, intimated that there would be developments today and throughout the week that would materially change the situation.
They would not say, however, what they had in mind or how their cause was to gain in strength. It was said that they were counting upon strong aid from the American Federation of Labor and other organizations of union labor, but those bodies have not yet given any public indication of what they will do. The Amalgamated association has developed great strength in the Wheeling district and has made gains in some of the Pennsylvania districts, but it will be some time before the lines of cleavage will be marked with sufficient clearness for a count of the men.
Manufacturers' Reports.
The strike headquarters were closed yesterday and it was claimed that more reports were being received from the outlying districts as to the progress of the strike except in a general way. The steel officials were in communication with the superintendents and district managers and made public the result of their reports. The latter showed that South Chicago, Joliet and Bay View at Milwaukee had voted to stay in; that the Ohio works of the National Steel company at Youngstown and the King, Gilbert and Warner plant of the National Steel company at Columbus had resumed without trouble; that the Homestead, Edgar Thompson, Duquesne, Upper and Lower Union and Howard Axle works of the Carnegie group, employing more than 15,000 men had resumed without trouble; that the converting and blooming mills of the National Tube company at McKeesport had started without difficulty and that Bellaire had been only partially crippled.
They were also advised that the men of the Boston Rolling mills at McKeesport had notified the National Tube company that they would go out today and that while the National Tube plant [at] McKessport would be started it was certain that many would go out. They were also notified that their Wheeling plants were crippled and that it was uncertain what would be done there. Their advices also said that the Clark mill here, which has been running nonunion for several days, would be started up as usual and there was no doubt about the successful operation. The steel officials were elated over their showing at Carnegie plants and in Illinois and Wisconsin, and expressed confidence in speedy victory over the Amalgamated association.
Secretary Williams gave out an interview last night in which he placed the blame for the strike upon the refusal of the United States Steel corporation to arbitrate and declared that before the strike was over thousands of men in other trades would be drawn into it to save the Amalgamated association and the principles for which it stands. He said:
Agreed to Arbitration.
"We agreed to arbitration because the business men and citizens of Pittsburg urged us to do so. We were willing to risk the interests of our organization in the hands of others in this dispute, if there was any prospect for peace. It is practically the first time in the history of our organization that we have gone this far. The effect upon the future would be far-reaching as it would enable manufacturers to ask the same concession from us and in this we have in the past declined to grant, because we feared the results. This arbitration being turned down flat and unconditionally those who have been urging us to submit to it will have a chance to prove their interest and friendship for us in our inevitable battle with the greatest trust that was ever organized.
"Arbitration is what the manufacturers have been asking from us for years. It opens a new phase entirely in the situation. If the manufacturers think they can stamp out our organization they are certainly laboring under the greatest mistake of their lives. If they should defeat us now, it will only cause a new and far stronger labor organization to rise up in our place within a few years that would have graver meaning to it. If the United States Steel trust is wise, it will deal with us. It is to their interest to do so. Men in this country will never submit to being obliterated, you can depend on that. Further than this I can say that the men who come out on strike at this time will not be the last to come out before this fight is over. There will be thousands that will be drawn into the struggle as the organizations of the entire country are vitally interested in the fight we are making and feel that their own future depends on their success. Our position has been fair at all times. There has been no suggestion for peace that we have not considered and acted upon while the trust has from the start declined to even discuss the question.
"I tell you this question will have to be settled in some way, If not by peaceful strike, then by legislation. If that fails, the ballot will be tried. If all else fails I believe that it will result in an appeal to the bayonet. I tell you there is a condition existing today that places this country on the eve of one of the greatest revolutions that ever could occur in the history of the world."
Mr. Williams said that the strike had been studiously avoided by the officers of the Amalgamated association. It had been as studiously encouraged by the officials of the manufacturers' organization. The officers of the Amalgamated association had done all they could and had worked hard to bring about peace. The battle was now in the hands of the men and it was up to them as to what the outcome would be. Every labor organization in the country was with the Amalgamated association in this struggle. The American Federation had taken steps to aid in the fight to the full limit of its power. The Knights of Labor, represented by President Simon Burns, had come forward with money and encouragement. That portion of the same body under Master Workman Parsons had instituted proceedings in Ohio and Indiana to prosecute the trust on legal grounds.
Strikers Try Not to Worry.
Pittsburg passed the first day of the strike in a spirit of calmness. There are strong undercurrents of sentiment and sympathy running through popular feeling, but there were few surface indications of them. It was a bright clear day and the pleasure places were filled with holiday crowds. There seemed to be a general agreement to throw off the worry and evils of the serious labor conflicts for the time being. The strikers and their leaders kept a close watch on the strike situation, however. The early reports were unfavorable to them for they showed that the responses to the general order to go out had not been as large as they had been led to expect. They seemed confident, however, that the showing today would be satisfactory to them. The strikers did not congregate in force at any point and there was not a suggestion of disorder anywhere. The police authorities reported that they had no word of prospective trouble anywhere.
President Shaffer spent the day quietly at his home in this city. He received reports from a number of his lieutenants, but during the day denied himself to callers. He holds rather strict ideas as to Sabbath observance and throughout the strike has insisted that as little as possible be done on that day. When a press representative called at the house he was received by Mrs. Shaffer, wife of the strike leader. "My husband can see no one today," she said. "He is resting and preparing himself for the work ahead of him tomorrow and throughout the week. He will be at the Amalgamated association headquarters tomorrow and anyone wishing to see him can see him there."
The day at McKeesport passed without any startling developments. The indications are that the Demmler plant of the American Tin Plate company will start up soon. Superintendent Pitcock, who had just started on a two weeks' vacation, has been recalled from Virginia and work is being pushed rapidly on high board fences around the plant. Steam is being kept up in the boilers and all indications point to an early resumption.
Many meetings were held yesterday by the workers, but no results are made known except the announcement by the strikers that many new members were taken into the organization.
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| Cortland Forging Co. |
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| Wickwire Works. |
CORTLAND SLIGHTLY AFFECTED.
Sheet Steel Can Not be Obtained by Local Manufacturers.
The sheet steel strike has affected Cortland to some extent and the bow socket department of the Cortland Carriage Goods Co. has got to shut down for a time on account of inability to obtain sheet steel for the manufacture of bow sockets. This company has usually shut down in July for inventory and to give the men a little vacation. This year, however, the orders have continued to come in so that the factory has been operated right along, though with reduced force during the summer months. Now it will be necessary to close down the bow socket department as the last of the steel on hand has been used. Some of the men have already been laid off and others will be in the course of a few days. This affects from fifteen to twenty men. Other departments will be operated without interruption till some more orders are filled when there will be a short rest for inventory. How long work in this department will be interrupted cannot be imagined. It depends entirely upon the length of the strike. The company has had for a long time its orders in for more sheet steel, but it has been impossible to secure any for several weeks now. If trouble of this kind must come, this is the best time of the year for it for this company as it causes the least embarrassment.
The Cortland Forging company manufactures a similar line of goods, but it placed its orders for sheet steel early and insisted upon shipment. The result was that the steel stockroom was filled to the doors, and it now has enough stock on hand to last it through the year, so that it is not affected by the strike at all.
Wickwire Bros. use sheet steel in some lines, but they have enough stock on hand now to last them a number of weeks, and there has been no interruption in the receipt of their orders so far and nothing to indicate that further orders will not come as expected, so that they seem to be wholly unaffected by the strike.
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| Senator Benjamin R. Tillman. |
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| Tully Lake Park Hotel. |
TILLMAN DAY AT TULLY.
The South Carolina Senator to Speak on Wednesday, Aug, 14.
On Wednesday of this week Senator Benjamin R. Tillman of South Carolina will speak at Assembly park, Tully lake, at 2:15 P. M. on "National Conditions and Tendencies." A considerable number of people from Cortland are expecting to attend and hear the distinguished, Southern orator.
TILLMAN SUED FOR SLANDER.
Man Asks $10,000 for Being Referred to as a Crazy Old Thing.
COLUMBIA, S. C. Aug. 12.—J. Young Jones has filed suit against Senator Tillman for $10,000 damages for slander. The alleged slanders were uttered months ago, but Mr. Jones' action seems to have been hurried by the report that Senator Tillman had money to plunge in Beaumont oil.
The complainant is well connected, a brother of an important state official. Senator Tillman in a speech some months ago alluded to him as "a crazy old thing, just out of the asylum," or words to that effect.
PAGE FOUR—EDITORIAL.
Virginia's Proposed Divorce Law.
The Virginia constitutional convention makes an interesting and seemingly practical suggestion concerning the divorce question. The resolution sets out by reciting the fact that the state has made itself a party to and custodian of marriage contracts by making it necessary to get a license from the proper state officials before the marriage ceremony can be performed. It then asks for the ingrafting into the new state constitution of a provision—
Requiring the general assembly to enact laws making the commonwealth a party in all divorce proceedings hereafter instituted in any court of this state, the commonwealth being represented by its city or county attorney, as the case may be, whose duty it shall be to inquire carefully into all the facts, and if it shall be found that either or both parties have been guilty of misdemeanor or crime leading up to the breach of marriage they shall be indicted and punished as the law may direct.
Why is not this sensible and practical suggestion applicable to other states as well as Virginia? When the courts of a state are asked to dissolve a marriage contract because one of the parties to it has been guilty of some misdemeanor or crime which by its laws is cause for divorce and the divorce is granted for that reason, why should not the state take sufficient interest in the matter to punish the guilty party whether the applicant for the divorce does or does not wish punishment to be inflicted?
If cruelty, abandonment and adultery, the chief causes alleged for divorce, are misdemeanors or felonies under the laws of some states, the persons committing them ought to be punished, and the infliction of the punishment might have a wholesome effect on society in the matter of divorces. At all events Virginia's proposed law will be watched with interest.
ELEVATOR ON A RAMPAGE.
Went Up at Full Speed and Mr. Halstead Jumped Off.
Mr. George P. Yager, who was injured at the canning factory on July 22 by having a freight elevator which he was repairing fall upon him and squeeze him badly is slowly recovering. The muscular strains were very severe and it is a long and tedious task to wait for them to get better, but Mr. Yager has now been able to get upon his feet again and can walk about a little in the house. Before long now he will be able to be out again and he is very fortunate in being able to get out of that affair as well as he did.
Mr. W. R. Halstead, Mr. Yager's partner in the canning factory, had an experience with this same elevator the day following Mr. Yager's accident which he kept very quiet for a time, but the details have now leaked out. Mr. Halstead and his son were on the elevator going up to the second floor when it suddenly took a cranky notion in its head to go up at an increased speed. It was impossible to stop it by the usual methods and up it went faster and faster. Mr. Halstead saw that it was bound to go to the top and strike and what the result would be then he could not tell. At any rate he didn't care to be on the elevator when he found out, so when the elevator cleared the gates opening into the elevator shaft on the third floor Mr. Halstead and his son both jumped out over the gates, landing safely on their feet upon the floor which was then only about 4 feet below them. The elevator went on to the top and struck the frame work with a smash. It broke some of the fixtures, but it didn't drop.
The next day an expert elevator man came down from the factory at Syracuse and put the elevator in first-class repair, taking all the cranky notions out of it so that it is now as docile and obedient as need be.
ARTHUR C. SIDMAN.
The Well-known Actor Died at Scarboro, Me., This Morning.
Mr. J. H. Slayton of Tully this morning received a telegram from Mrs. Arthur C. Sidman saying that her husband had just died at Scarboro Beach, Me., and that the remains would he brought to Tully for burial. The funeral will be held at the residence of Mr. Slayton on Wednesday at 2 o'clock. No particulars are known.
Mr. Sidman was a former resident of Homer and was the author of "York State Folks," and some other plays of similar character which won considerable popularity. He was known in the theatrical profession and to his audiences everywhere as Uncle Reub. Mr. Sidman is survived by a wife, one daughter and one son. His age was about 45 years.
MICE AND MATCHES.
The Cause of a Sunday Afternoon Blaze on Garfield-st., Cortland.
A fire alarm was sent in a little before 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon from the box at the corner of Elm and Pomeroy-sts. All the companies quickly responded but their services were not needed, as the fire, which was located in a clothespress in the house at 9 Garfield-st., was put out by water carried in pails.
The house, which is occupied by Mr. James Sheridan, has a bedroom on the lower floor and off of this is a small clothes room. The family was sitting on the front porch Sunday afternoon, and the first intimation of any fire was given by a heavy volume of smoke that poured out of the house onto the porch. There had been no fire in that part of the house, and the family attributes the cause of the fire to matches being ignited there by mice. The loss was very light.
McGRAW, N. Y.
Breezy Items of Corset City Chat.
A large audience of this place filling the village hall to its utmost seating capacity enjoyed an entertainment on Wednesday evening last that was of much more than ordinary internet. It was a stereopticon, illustrated lecture given by Mr. A. P. McGraw in reference to his recent travels from New York to the Holy Land and return. It was not a collection of pictures by different observers, from here and there and long discoursing about them of things that people were supposed to already know, not a set of purchased views of different places, temples, towers and scenes picked up here and there by which we are often sought to be entertained. It was more and better.
Mr. McGraw it seems must have kept "his picture gun" in most constant use and "shot on the wing" about every object of interest in the line of his travels so that he was enabled to give his audience an almost connected view like a panorama of his and his traveling companions (some forty in number) journeyings so realistic, so life like that Mr. McGraw's hearers seemed to be with the party and enjoying the journey with them.
The views for the most part are remarkably distinct, and the great number of them—something over 500—many more than can be placed before an audience in one evening—enabled him to place the scenes on canvas before his audience in so rapid succession and in so connected a line that it seemed almost the moving picture, and the observer seemed to enjoy a journey in an evening that took the traveler weeks and months to accomplish.
The writer does not recall any entertainment of like nature that equaled this of Mr. McGraw's in its realistic features. He often brought portions of his group of travelers into view in connection with scenes represented, but of course we all missed his own face.
Arriving on the other side of the Atlantic we were carried through Gibraltar, yea, into the fortress, though restrictions are placed measurably on inside views. Naples and its bay, Pompeii, by recent excavations resurrected from its tomb of ages buried under the lava of Vesuvius and Vesuvius itself standing still aside from the city with smoking chimney top as if it had not forgotten its old pranks, followed each other in rapid succession, and so we were carried over the Mediterranean to Egypt, the great river Nile, as borders covered with scenes of its present life and multi-monuments of its ancient civilization, the Red Sea, Mount Sinai and onward to the Holy Land, the land of the Patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles and the Savior of the world and bending westward again toward home, to Constantinople, the Bosphorus, the Grecian archipelago, the coast of Asia Minor, etc., numberless points in the story of the world past and present.
We understand that Mr. McGraw will give another exhibition without repeating except by request any of the views before presented such is his supply of scenes covering the route. Let no one fail to hear him. Mr. McGraw retains a remarkable memory of the points of historic interest of the scenes exhibited, talks rapidly with fewest words necessary in their explanation as the views are passing almost constantly before his audience.
BREVITIES.
—Mrs. Edward Keator gave a trolley party this afternoon at party of over fifty ladies.
—Mr. Lucius Davis of 92 Maple-ave. has a sun flower in his garden that is nine feet tall and its face is large in proportion.
—New display advertisements today are—F. Daehler, Clothing, page 6; Cortland Fish & Oyster Co., Fish, page 7; J. W. Cudworth, Optical goods, page 7.
—Dr. F. D. Reese has sold the fine Stanhope wagon, which he recently purchased from the Cortland Wagon Co., to Mrs. John Bingham of Worcester, Mass.
—Any persons who can furnish work to [State] Normal students, men or women, in payment for board either in part or the whole are requested to communicate with Dr. Cheney.
—There will be a sewing meeting of the Ladies' Aid society of the Presbyterian church on Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 14, at 2 o'clock at the home of the president of the society, Miss Martha Roe, 77 Railroad-st. A large attendance is desired as there are special matters to be brought up for consideration.
—An attachment is provided in Sweden by which the secrecy of the telephone line is assured. The apparatus, which is rented at a moderate rate, indicates whether the telephone operator is listening to the conversation or not. This would be an excellent attachment for party lines where several subscribers use the same line.
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