Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1899 — BIG STRIKE SPREADS. [ARTICLE]

BIG STRIKE SPREADS.

New York Tractton Employes Dutt Work to SympaOty. Wednesday brought two startling sensations into the great New York traction strike. Brooklyn strikers or their sympathizers destroyed a part of the Fifth avenue elevated road with dynamite, and about half the men on the Secondawvwne line of the Metropolitan system in New York City struck in -sympathy with the Brooklyn strikers. The strike on the Metropolitan system was not authorized by the leaders. Some of the more enthusiastic men who attended the Cooper Union meeting got together and decided that the only thing to do was to strike. They formed themselves mte a committee and went to the Second avenue car stables early in the morning and asked the men to come out. Every car was stopped as it reached the stables, and each man on the car was asked to quit work. The strike spread to the Sixth avenue line of the Metropolitan company, where a number of motormen quit wort. The conductors refused to strike. General Master Workman John M. Parsons of the Knights of Labor, who presided at the meeting in Casper Union, did not want the men to strike. There were disturbances at several places and four men were arrested. It was said that those who were trying to get the men oat were discharged employes. During a conference the men told Mr. Parsoulb that this was only the start of a general strike of all employes of the Metropolitan Railway system. At Cleveland, Ohio, the most serious violence since the street railroad strike was renewed was the blowing up of a switch with dynamite and the burning of a small office and waiting room at Murray Hill Tuesday evening. No one was injured. No clew to the dynamiters could be found.