Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 February 1903 — LABOR FAMINE IN THE WEST. [ARTICLE]

LABOR FAMINE IN THE WEST.

Railroads Arc Compelled to Abandon Large Improvements. Because of difficulty, amounting almost to an impossibility, in obtaining competent unskilled labor, the western railroads are seriously hampered in their efforts to improve their lines. Officials of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, for this reason, have abandoned temporarily nil contemplated improvements that afe not absolutely necessary to the physical well being of the system. Most important of the improvements which will be abandoned is the double tracking of the St. Paul from South Milwaukee to La Crosse, a distance of R>7 miles. Of this about ?K) miles has already been completed. The same policy will be pursued in regard to other extensive alterations that were planned. It is understood that the Kansas City extension is so nearly completed that it will not l>o abandoned. On the contrary, an effort will be made to complete the work as rapidly as possible. The improvements that will be given up call for the expenditure of nearly $3,000,000. The same situation that has so handicapped the St. Paul also confronts the other railroads of the Middle West. The complaint is made that laborers who apply for work in Chicago are little better than tramps, who find it easier to be transported from one place to another as employes for a railroad than to follow the customary mode of travel adopted by the vagrant. After they have reached the desired goal and have worked fur a day or two they draw their pay ami leave. The difficulty in obtaining laborers has driven up the wages of this class of workmen to such a point that railroad operatives have decided to decrease the demand for labor that the price of this work maydecrease. The Chicago and Alton Railroad, following the example of the St. Paul, has ordered work stopped on extensive double tracking that called for an expenditure of approximately $2,000,000, and It is expected that other lines will adopt similar measures.