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The day book. (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917, April 28, 1915, NOON EDITION, Image 3


Persistent link: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1915-04-28/ed-1/seq-3/

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say the labor
Indictments which implicate 18
labor officials, 41 contractors and 41
contracting corporations were re
turned yesterday by a federal grand
k jury which has been investigating for
' months. Eight separate indictments
were returned charging: Conspiracy
and combination in restraint of trade,
interfering with and restraining in
terstate commerce.
If the government gets court con
vilctions it will mean the practical
annihilation of unionism in Chicago,
say union men. This is not an ad
mission) that the contentions of the
government are true for some of
them are denied in toto but the men
declare there is need for some action
to keep low-wage made materials off
the Chicago market.
Chicago pays its shopmen wages
which are now deemed inadequate to
keep a working man and his family in
more than the bare necessities of life.
Many shop men are now seeking
wage increases, some have been
forced to strike for more wages be
cause they know they can live in only
the meanest manner on what they
have. While these conditions obtain
. here, there are country cities, like
those of Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, etc.,
where living expenses are compara
tively low and where men can live
better on half the salary than they
could in Chicago.
"If Chicago cannot have protec
tion against the low-wage factories
. of other cities then Chicago factories
employing tens of thousands of un
skilled workmen will have to go to
the wall. If a manufacturer is pay
ing $4 a day to his skilled workmen
and a similar manufacturer at, say
Lafayette, Ind., is paying $2 a day for
the same kind of workmen, the Chi
cago factory man cannot; long keep
the wheels running. At the same time
the Chicago skilled worker cannot be
.. asked to suppprt his family on $2 a
J&y, t&ough, that ajnojuit -might- J?e
ample in Lafayette,"
"Again, there are in other cities
sweatshops, child-labor factories,
pauper-wage factories. These kind
of shops can turn out material some
times at a fraction of the cost of a
Chicago factory, because in Chicago
factories .there is no exploitation of
child labor, no sweatshop conditions.
To meet the prices quoted by these
abominable outside shops Chicago
shops would have to do away with
their good working conditions, reduce
wages from 50 to 66 per cent and de
pend on children of school age and
low-paid girls to do the work."
Simon O'Donnell, president of the
Building Trades Council, aptly puts
it: "It may not be a good law to say
we must not protect union workmen
from pauper labor of other cities. But
the same honest purpose that ani
mates those who are making the hit
ler fight on child labor governs the
union men in opposing cheap-labor.
These men who sought indictments
employ cheap labor. They cannot
get their products into Chicago, so
they have secured the indictment of
100 persons who stand in their way."
The men indicted are:
NO. 1
John J. Stretch, business agenl of
Bricklayers' union; Michael Artery,
business agent Machinery Movers'
union; Christopher Timmins, former
president Hod Carriers' and Building
Laborers' executive council, and Joe
Gagliardo, successor to Timmins.
They are charged with preventing
the unloading of a boiler shipped by
S. Freeman & Son, Racine, Wis., to
the Viviano Macaroni Co. from Dec.
31, 1913, to April, 1914.
NO. 2
John Dohney, business agent Boil
ermakers' Helpers' union; Michael
Artery, business agent Machinery
Movers' union, and Simon O'DonnelL
president Building Trades Council,,
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