Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1902 — BIG STRIKE IS OFF. [ARTICLE]

BIG STRIKE IS OFF.

CHICAGO FREIGHT MEN ABANDON THEIR FIGHT. Handlers Accept Plan of the Mediators for Settling Grievances on an Individual Basis Tcumsters Are Blamed for Failure. The strike of the Chicago freight handlers Came to an end at noon Wednesday. At a mass meeting the men voted to go back to the freight yards in a body, ask for reinstatement and on receiving it, try to make such terms as they could with the officials. The result of the strike was a bitter disappointment to the men. They knew that the end had come when they received authentic information that their ranks were broken and that many strikers, acting individually, had gone back to the freight yards and asked for work. President Curran opened the mass meeting and made a long speech, in which he bitterly assailed President Young of the Teamsters’ Union. He took occasion also, without mentioning any names, to say that some members of the freight handlers' executive boar! had played him false. The whole blame for the failure of the strike is laid by the freight handlers at the door of the.officers of the Teamsters' Union. President Young's order to his men to live up to their agreement and to haul freight of all kinds marked the beginning of the end. President Curran told his men that they had no cause to lament the forming of their union. ‘’Since we organized only a short time ago,” he said, "we have secured, through the strength that lies in unionism, two advances in wages. The third time it appears we have failed, but through no fault of our own. In its infancy, as our organization, is, it lias already given $700,000 additional to the families of the freight handlers. If jou vote to go back to work, go back with the full determination to stick to your union through good and through ill.” The decision of tin* men to go back to work in a body was largely the outcome of a meeting between President Curran and the members of the. State board of arbitration held Tuesday night. Wednesday Chairman Job and the other members of the board saw the officials of the union again and told them frankly that the men could not hope to secure work unless they went back as the board suggested and went back at .once. The State board had felt the pulse of the railroad officials and knew that if the freight handlers did not go back Wednesday they could never go back. Chairman Job, immediately following the decision of the strikers to return to work, communicated with the officials of every railroad in Chicago, and asked personally that all the strikers be taken back. The replies were in the main favorable, the general managers saying that they would provide for all that they possibly could. The State board of arbitration was first called into tile controversy, and after trying to effect a settlement it was side-tracked by the Chicago board of arbitration. This board failed to effect a settlement, and the State organization took hold once more.