Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1900 — MAY SETTLE STRIKE. [ARTICLE]

MAY SETTLE STRIKE.

Chicago Building Contractors Confer with Union Representatives. A conference which is regarded as the first practical step toward a settlement of the Chicago labor troubles was held ■between the attorneys of the building contractors’ council and representatives of the unions Involved in the tie-up in the building industry. Though the meeting was informal and preliminary it was not without results. Men participating in It expressed the opinion that it had smoothed the way for negotiations that would effect a speedy termination of the strife. Attorney Knight, representing the building contractors’ council, laformtd the labor men that the contractors were willing to confer with the representatives of the individual unions and arrange for a settlement of the trouble, regirdiese of the Building Trades’ Council, the final terms of the settlement with regard to the Building Trades’ Council to bj determined afterward. The only stipulation was that the parties to the conference should not be present as representatives of the central labor organization. In St. Louis every street car Tine Is affected by the great strike which was declared some days ago. Both sides remain firm, the strikers refusing to recede one iota from their demands and their employers declining to accede to them. The public suffers great inconvenience as a result' of the strike, having to depend almost entirely on the hundreds of vehicles that’ have assumed the*task that the street car companies is unable to perfom. Many persons use wheels, while others prefer to walk. The owners of vehicles are making money fast, charging all the way from 10 to 50 cents for a trip that cost but 5 cents on the street cars. Circles are being formed by those who sympathize with the strikers for the purpose of influencing every one possible to walk until the strike is over/ The crowded sidewalks night and morning seem to prove that this is working well. Got. Stephens put his foot down on the strike riots and mob violence which have prevailed, and says unlessqdisorder is ptopped by the police he will call out the entire military force of the State At Kansas City a strike was ordered on all the street car lines of the Metropolitan Railway Company. About 500 of the 1,500 conductors, motormen and gripmen responded.