Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1900 — CHICAGO STRIKES INCREASE. [ARTICLE]

CHICAGO STRIKES INCREASE.

Mayor Harriaon Blamfea Both Unions and Contractors. Frank Riepol, a non-union Chicago laborer employed by the Western Electric Company, was probably fatally injured by four men, supposed to be union pickets, who assaulted him, one after the other, as he was gong home from work. The men were not arrested. The Building Contractors’ Council announce that the men employed on the Western Electric building will be housed and fed in the same manner as those employed on the Merchants’ Loan and Trust building. All of the prominent members of the Contractors’ Council are protected by police. Many are also lurrying revolvers. Police Inspector Hartnett supplied them. It ia claimed that the police heard of a plot to assault some of the members of that body. Officers in citisens’ clothes are closely following these men to protect them from injury. An attempt by the contractors to bring labor from other States to work on Chicago buildings was foiled Monday when the union pickets intercepted twenty Italian workmen imported from New Orleans and persuaded them not to go to work at the Western Electric building. The men when they arrived at the building were met by a delegation of their

countrymen, and after a parley were led away. The prospects of working behind a stockade and in fear of violence from union pickets was also a factor in getting them to desert’. Mayor Harrison says that the labor unions, contractors and material dealers are all wrong, but that the workingmen have the least to answer for. The Mayor says that the reports of labor troubles are keeping people away from Chicago. He adds: “It is argued that the labor unions constitute a ’trust.’ Why, the material men and contractors have been the parties who have formed the ’trust.’ Today not a single thing ia bought by the city but we run up against a combination controlling the needed article. I know men who have sent orders from outside points and had goods reshipped to this city at -a cost less than they would have to have paid in a direct purchase. This thing has gone ao far that we have ordered city purchases shut off as far aa possible. We will try the Eastern markets.’’