Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1896 — MILWAUKEE STRIKE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MILWAUKEE STRIKE.

ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE ON RECORD. Street Cars Are Running on Schedule Time, bnt People Refnae to Ride, Ont of Sympathy for the Strikers or Fear of the Boycott. Business Tied Up.

XE cannot help being impressed with a condition of affairs that will lead almost an entire community to voluntarily undergo the discomforts of stage coach days for the purpose of helping workingmen win a strike, yet that has been the situation in Milwaukee for more thni-n a

week. The employes of the Milwaukee Electric Railway Company are at variance with the corporation and quit work two weeks ago. The company secured men to run the cars and the strikers offered no interference in the running of them. The ears are.going on schedule time, bnt they are empty, for the people sympathize with the strikers and refuse to ride. The street railroad system of Milwaukee is one o£ the best in the eouutry. The employes in the past have been picked men. If a conductor or motormau was found to be a drinker, or wanting in qualities essential to satisfy the public, he was discharged and a courteous, sober man took his place. The force came to be recognized as a body of gentlemen. In their tidy uniform, thoroughly disciplined, always courteous and accommodating to patrons, it is not strange that they made tlie people their friends—men, women and children, in all ranks. When, therefore, the 1,000 employes, wept on strike, on account of a reduction in wages and for other causes, men and women manifested their sympathy in every way. Several picnics have been behl and enough money realized to give’the strikers the necessities of life. Burt the refusal to ride in the cars is the most remarkable feature. As before said, the company is operating all its lines on regular time, but the ears carry no passengers. The strikers brought several hundred busses from Ohicngo and are carrying on a regular line of traffic. In spite of the fact that it takes a bus from two to three times as long to make a given distance as the street enrs, the busses will go along with heavy loads, while the ear going in the same direction Will not have to exceed a half dozen passengers, and more likely will not have two.

To some extent this, failure on the part of citizens to patronize the more rapid mode of transit is due to fear, but the percentage of loss from this cause is very small when compared with those who do not ride on account of sympathy with the strikers and a desire to help them “down the company.” Three-fourths of the citizens of Milwaukee are working people, and every one of them is on the side of the strikers. Even those who are not working people, the business men in the outlying wards, have to affect a feeling of sympathy for the strikers, whether they feel it or not, lest the boycott be extended to their business. To run counter to the prevailing sentiment in their section would mean to ruin them and therefore they are even more strong in their utterances than the working elnss. Nor is their fear without reason. The boycott is being vigorously prosecuted, nnd any one who, through necessity or otherwise) takes a street ear is a marked man. Women and even children will urge anyone taking a car to wait and take a bus. A Remarkable Boycott. • The boycott is even extended to those merchants that sell anything to the company or who do business with it in any way. In the neighborhood of the barns

not a particle of food can be purchased, as it would be as much ns a merchant’s business is worth to sell to the company. The wife of a baker in the northwest part of the city was so indiscreet as to ride down town in one of the cars, and since that time the bakeahop has been free of customers. Some of the sympathizers with the strikers go to a great deal, of personal discomfort. Workmen' who have work to do several miles out bf the city will walk out in the morning and back in the evening rather than patronize the street cars and their connections.' If the thing keeps up much longer ahy one seen speaking to one of the members of the Board of Directors of the street car company will be liable to have the boycott placed on him. No one who has not come in conflict with it cfco have any idea of the strength of the grip which the strikers and their Sympathizers have on the business of the 1 city. Within a day or two several manufacturers were notified that some of their employes had been seen riding on the street cars, and if this was repeated a boycott would be placed’on their goods. They heeded the warning and now see that their men either walk or patronize the busses. Not a thing can the company buy in the city for the subsistence or comfort of the new men whom they have to feed in the barns. Wholesale grocery firms do not dare sell them any supplies. The new men wanted some washing done. The company gathered up the soiled clothing and sent it to five different laundries and in each instance it was refused. Finally it had to be sent to Chicago. The idea of the strikers and their sympathizers is to isolate the street cars until the company comes to terms asd takes the old men back.

The Prince of Wales gave a dinner party at which were present all of the ambassadors of foreign powers in London, the ministers of the government, many exministers, the archbishop of Canterbury, Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley and other prominent personages. Will Derby, of Knoxville, Tenn., who killed his chum, Elija Cross, and threw him in a well, confessed the crime and was given a twenty-year sentence. They, quarreled about a drink of water, and the murder was a mystery for weeks. One kind of the medusae has, It is said, eighty ears.

EXPRESSMEN REAP A HARVEST.