People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1896 — WICKED COERCION. [ARTICLE]

WICKED COERCION.

PRACTICED UPON EMPLOYES BY BIQ CORPORATIONS.. <• Compelled to Work for McKinley or Lose Their Job*—An Agent of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company Who Would Not Be Bulldozed. The whelesale bulldozing of their employee by the railroads and other great corporations, to compel them to vote for McKinley, is a new feature of American politics, and is as infamous as it is new. Weak attempts are occasionally made by the Republican managers to deny that such outrageous methods are being used to secure votes; but the proof is so plain and overwhelming that denial is Impossible. The Chicago Record, itself a strong advocate of the gold standard, and, therefore, not disposed to misrepresent its own side, contained the following dispatch on the morning of the 19th, from Cobden, Ills., amply, confirming this charge: "Cobden, Ills., Sept. 18. —James Davis, William Wilker, Thomas Smith and ‘ Charles Fuller, residents of this place, employed as track layers by the contractors laying the steel of the new double track of the Illinois Central between Makanda and Dongola, were notified this morning by their foreman, McCoy, to report to him and receive checks for their time. Twelve non-resident laborers received the same notice. McCoy informed them that the only reason that he could give for their dismissal was that they were advocating the cause of Bryan and free silver too freely. Their places were promptly filled .by Italians. As soon as the news reached this place the Bryan followers became very angry and excitement is at fever heat tonight" On Sept. 10 the MCCormick Harvesting Machine company of Chicago sent the following circular to all its agents throughout the country: "Dear Sir: We sent you by express yesterday a package of sound money literature. We want by return mall an estimate from you as to how much of this can be used in your territory, and an enumeration of the kind that will be most effective. We will then send you another supply by express, and will request in advance that you supply it to your travelers and instruct them to use it just the same as though it were advertising matter for the sale of our machinery. “ We surely have a right to expect that all McCormick employe* have the interest of the company at heart, and will take up this matter and carry it out a* requested. Your* truly, “M’CORMICK HARVESTING MACHINE COMPANY.” The idea that a corporation has the right to the votes of its agents and employes, and to make mere political servants of them, has not heretofore, we believe, been advanced' in this country. Men who sell their labor have not heretofore been compelled to sell their votes with it. < They have still been American freemen, at liberty to affiliate with any party and cast their votes as they might please. But the encroachments of modbrn corporations, organized to promote party selfish interests do not now, it seems, stop short of attempts to make political serfs of their employes. Upon receipt of the above circular the agent of the McCormick Harvesting Machine company at Carthage, Mo., who seems to have an idea that he is still a free and .independent citizen, in matters political, at least, replied in the following spirited manner: "McCormick Harvesting Machine company: Dear Sir—l beg to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the lOthe Inst. You are on a cold trail. Missouri will give Bryan 60,000 majority. If these letters are written by authority of your company, every Missouri farmer who uses a McCormick harvester, deserves to sell his wheat for 40 cents a bushel. [Signed.] “J. H. WILSON.” This is a most appropriate reply to such a circular. It is strange beyond comprehension that the McCormick Harvester company, of all the corporations in existance, should attempt to coerce its agents and employes to support the existing gold standard system of finance. It has grown enormously rich from the sale of its machines to the farmers of the country. It has no business relations with any other class of people. One would think it would naturally oppose ~ the gold standard, under the operations of which agriculture has suffered most and the prices of all farm products have fallen even below the cost of production; and that it would favor the remonetization of silver, the Immediate result of which would be to make agriculture once more prosperous and profitable. But it has as little regard for its cusomers as for its employes. It will excite no wonder that the agent at Carthage, Mo., should protest against farmers harvesting 40-cent wheat on McCormick machines. Other instances of the attempts of •orporations to coerce their employes are numerous. A few days ago Martin Spangler,- an . expert electrician, called at National Democratic headquarters and stated that he, with two other employes of the General Electric Light company of Chicago, had been discharged because they refused to i join the McKinley club. According to I Mr. Spangler’s statement, the foreman ; of the company approached them last - Friday and asked them to join a McKinley club. Spangler and two of his i fellow-employes, refused to do so. more was said at the- time and , they Were paid off as usual on Saturi day night. On Monday morning when ‘ they returned to work they were informed by the foreman that their services were no longer needed. Mr.' Spangler has worked at his trade through- ; out Mexico, Central and South Amer- ■ lea, and in China, Japan, India, and [ several European countries, and speaks i seven languages. He is thoroughly i posted on the effects of a gold standard as compared to bimetallism in the countries he has visited, and has been giving his fellow-workmen some object lessons that could not be answered. For this reason, added to his refusal to wear a Mark Hanna collar, he was thrown out of work. Mr Spangler owns property in DemCol., and enjoys the friendship cf G* Thomas Patterson of The Rocky , tain News. Hon. Charles H. Tho

Senator Teller, and Chairman L N. Steven* of the Silver party uauonai committee. He will talk to workingmen during the campaign. A. H. Spindler, a conductor on the South Halated street line of the West Chicago Street Railway company, reported at National Democratic headquarters that he had been discharged by Superintendent Fuller of the West Chicago Street Railway company decause he would not wear a McKinley button. According to Mr. Spindler’s statement Superintendent Fuller gave every employe of the company a McKinley button, and ordered them to wear 1L Mr. Spindler threw his button away, and was promptly discharged. He states that the barn bosses were directed to pin McKinley badges and buttons on the conductors and drivers. Mr. Spindler has been in the employ of the company three and a half years. His only offense was-that he would not wear a McKinley button. "It is safe to say,” said Mr. Spindler, "that more than three-fourths of the street railway employes in Chicago are for Bryan, yet they are compelled to join the McKinley clubs and wear McKinley badges or lose their jobs. I know what I am saying when I assert that threefourths of the members of the street railway "McKinley clubs, and so-called sound money elubs, will vote for Bryan. They say they are compelled to submit to coercion on account of their families, but when they get behind the Australian ballot-box curtain they will avenge the wrong." It has also come to the knowledge of the labor organizations in Chicago that a number of the railway corporations have detectives employed whose busi-

ness it is to circulate among employes and “spot” those who are talking for Bryan and free silver. Whenever an employe becomes "spotted” by this secret political inquisition charges are trumped up against him and he is informed that his services are dispensed with. In this way the corporations hope to avoid charges of direct coercion. Yet such is the reign of espionage and terrorism' practiced by the corporate allies of McKinley and Wall street that thousands of employes are forced to stifle their convictions, join McKinley clubs and wear McKinley badges for fear that starvation to their wives and babTes may be offered as A brutal alternative. They will avenge the insult of monopolistic tyranny when November comes. A delegation of Chicago railway employes called at National Democratic headquarters and informed National Committeeman Johnson that they had been ordered to get ready and go to Canton tonight with the McKinley railway employes’ excursion on pain of being discharged in case of refusal. ThSy further claim that more than .fifty Bryan men at work for the company were thus forced to go to Canton. And all of this is free America, too! Such methods of coercion and intimidation as here described, subtle and insidious, are more wicked and heartless than if these corportlons should take shotguns and seek to compel their employes to go to the polls and vote for McKinley at the peril of their lives. The spirit of American manhood would revolt and oppose physical resistance on an equal footing to such an attempt at coercion as that. But it is a thousand times more difficult to resist that more subtle and inhuman species of intimidation that throttles the and children of laboring men with hunger and cold and homeless wandering, if they do not assent to the conditions of political serfdom Imposed. But if this kind of coercion is more wicked it is more effective in arousing popular indignation against those who resort to it. An accounting will be had in due time. These guilty corporations are laying up wrath against the day of wrath. The time will come when those who would set up a system of slavery here immeasurable worse than that from which the blacks of the south were liberated, at such an immense cost of blood and treasure, will be brought to a strict accountability for their wicked and criminally selfish actions.