AM AMERICAN STRIKE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 69, 16 March 1912, Page 8

AM AMERICAN STRIKE.

TOWN UNDER MARTIAL LAW. San Francisco, February 7. TJie most bitterly-fought strike of the last few years in the United States is now being contested in Massachusetts, whore about 30,000 employees of the textile mills are idle and seven large mille are either closed down or running part time. The of Lawrence, where the trouble centres, is under martial law, two regiments of soldiers having been ordered there by the Governors of the State. Encounters between the strikers and the military have been frequent in the last three weeks, and although the soldiers have in most instances dispersed the rioters by firing over their heads, there have been several fatalities, line labour employed in the textile mill: of Massachusetts is mostly of the foreign class, and is poorly paid compared with the average of remuneration received by the working class oi America. It is computed that some 45 different nationalities are represented by the strikers, and daily speeches are heard in the streets ii English, Italian, Lithuanian, French, Belgian, and Syrian tongues. The cause of the strike was the passago of a law by the State Legislature limiting the working hours of womei and children in the mills to 54 pe: week. On a previous occasion tin hours had been reduced by law fron 5S to 56, and at that time the wage l ' were not reduced. The operatives ox pocted the same thing would happen union another two (hours a week won clipped off, but the millownors, wh< strongly opposed the Bill, evince: their dissatisfaction when it becaim law by reducing wages proportionate!, with the reduction of hours. Further more, although the law applies onl; to women and children, the millown ers limited the working hours of mei to 54, contending that different set; ol incurs for different classes of lab our was a virtual impossibility. Ihe operatives were not informed ur. til pay-day came round that the of hour week meant a 54-houi; rate o pay. Coming, as it did, unexpected ly, the information maddened them and they left work by the thousand Mobs stormed the mills, injuring tin property and those who still kept a work, and the police of Lawrence wa. quite inadequate to the maintenance of any semblance of order. The militi, was ordered out, and then Governo Foss dispatched twelve additional com panics of infantry and two troops o cavalry to Lawrence. More than onethe infuriated mobs were charged wit •bayonets, but only two deaths-thu occasioned have been reported. .j just as effective method for kcopim the violent mobs away from the mills which they were bent on destroying it possible, was turning the fire hocon tlhom. The weather is bitterly coh at this'time of the year,; with snow o, the ground and the river frozen ovm otreams of icy water proved as irresi: tible as voleys of bullets. “Plantsof dynamite have been found in diffe; enfc parts of the town, and there i nq dcubt that the strikers, or soiii of them, would gladly destroy tl. mills by explosion if they could.