Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1888 — THE INDUSTRIAL EEALM. [ARTICLE]

THE INDUSTRIAL EEALM.

The antic pate 1 spread of the trouble with the Burlington switchmen occurred on Thursday afternoon at Chicago, says a dispatch from that city. An engine was sent to the Milwaukee and St. Paul yards, at Western avenue and Kinzie street, to transfer a train of new cars just turned out of the manufactory. A mob of about two hundred switchmen and their sympathizers made an attack on the engine and drove from the cab the Pinkerton officers stationed there for protection. The officers, though well armed, refrained from firing on the crowd, and for their leniency were rewarded by having their revolvers taken away from them and used to beat them over the head. Superintendent Besler, of the Burlington, was attacked and seriously beaten. The mob was dispersed by the arrival of a platoon of city police, and a switchman who had attacked Mr. Besler was taken to the station. Th.a was the signal for the St. Paul switchmen to quit work. They went in a body to the station, and when bail was refused they went out on a strike, being joined by the switch engineers and firemen. One hundred and fifty conductors and brakemen from the Reading system passed through Pittsburg Thursday en route for the West They expect to take the places of strikers on the Burlington system, and confess that the strikes on the latter road and on the Reading have been failures. The engineers, firemen, switchmen, brakemen, and a large number of the conductors of the Chicago, Milwaukee ..ad St. Paul struck at midnight, says a Chicago special of Saturday. Jho strike includes the employes of all the divisions centering in hicago, both freight and passenger. Thia bold move was made at a special meeting held last night at No. 762 West Lake street The leaders of the striking freight men were busy all day notifying every St. Paul employe, and insisting upon his attendance. The incoming trainmen were znet at the depot and hurried over to the hall. Fully 700 men were present. This includes all the freight and switch engineers and firemen living in Chicago and many points a hundred miles away, all of the local switchmen and brakemen, and a large number of freight con luctora. The meeting was an exciting and enthusiastic one. As speech after speech was made the excitement increased,

and when a motion waa made to stop every wheel on the road at midnight it waa carried with a whoop that waa heard blocks away. A Chicago special of Saturday morning states that all the engineers, firemen, switchmen and brakemen on the Panhandle Road went out on strike. Fully 350 men stopped abort at a given signal The engineers and fireman jumped down from their cabs just where they happened to be on the tracks, while the switchmen and brakemen adjourned to the side of the track.