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proved by the crowded conditions of the homes. It was unusual to receive a call for medical advice until the condition of patients was almost hopeless. Many children died from lack of proper medical care, due to the parents' desire to economize.

"Boarders are kept so that the wife may do her share toward keeping the home." The physician asserted that "morally and materially, conditions are much better in Europe than at Roosevelt," and the workers here deteriorate in both respects owing to the surroundings. About fifty per cent. of the single men save money until they adopt American customs; after which there is little possibility of saving. Drinking of liquor, the doctor said, is not common, but there are some who regard it as necessary to keep them in condition for their hard work.

Reciting his experience and observations on the day of the shooting, Dr. Jacoby stated to the committee that most of the men shot down on the day of the clash with the deputies were wounded in the back of the legs, and showed a bullet extracted from the foot of one of the victims.

Other witnesses testified to the depressing effect of the wage reduction and the extent to which it had lowered the standard of living among the laborers. Some families, the committee was told, were unable to pay rent, although it had always been paid promptly before, and that there were no evictions was due altogether to the landlords' kindness. The unmarried men, and those whose families were left behind in the old country, it was said, saved from $8 to $20 per month from their wages. The married men usually save to bring their families here, but when the families come the laborer comes to realize the fact that the wage which he earns is not equal to meeting his greatly enlarged responsibilities, and the wife must help, so far as she is able, to make ends meet, but in many instances there is great hardship because of inadequate means. It is such conditions that induce some families to take in boarders on the terms before referred to, in numbers ranging from six to twelve.

Reverend John Scobo, pastor of a church congregation of Hungarians, confirmed in every essential respect the story regarding the living conditions among the laborers, as stated by the Polish pastor. He told of the herding of large numbers of persons in three or four rooms, the laborers living in this congested condition as the only means by which money could be saved out of their meager earnings. The priest expressed the belief that the laborers were better off in their native country than here. When the strike started, his parishoners had told him that they could not live on the $1.60 a day, to which wages had been cut, and that this was their sole reason for striking. "At no time," he stated, "have I heard any talk about violence on the part of the strikers." "I had no occasion to restrain them, because they are naturally peaceful."

On March 12th, Dr. Joseph Wantoch, a physician of the Chrome section of the borough, appeared before the committee and stated in the course of his testimony, that living conditions among the laborers at Roosevelt up to the time of the wage reduction were about the average which prevailed among the same class of labor elsewhere. In reply to a question

by a member of the committee as to his having noticed any change in the manner of living among the laborers after the $2 daily wage was reduced to $1.60, the physician answered that "they did not seem to have enough to eat." Replying to another question by the chairman of the committee, as to the existence of a condition of actual famine among the laborers as a result of the wage reduction, the physician stated that before the strike, "such a condition did, in fact, exist." Testimony somewhat at variance with that given above was the physician's statement relative to the mortality of the district, in which he said that among adults the death rate was at Roosevelt lower than elsewhere in the State, and that the infant mortality was about the average.

A saloon proprietor, in whose hall the strikers held their daily meetings, said that since the laborers returned to work at the compromise wages ($1.80 per day), less money was being spent by the laborers at his bar than at any time since he started in business there. He stated further that at no time during periods of prosperity or adversity had there been much intemperance among the workers.

Other medical testimony was to the effect that there was little tuberculosis among the laborers or their families at Roosevelt, and that the most prevalent diseases were grippe, colds, and indigestion, the latter trouble being due less to the quality of food than to the habit of bolting it. It was also said that the odors from the fertilizer plants, while unquestionably disagreeable, were in no way injurious to health.

On March 20th, the superintendent of the Liebig plant of the Agricultural Chemical Company, Mr. J. E. Waring, attended the last session of the committee, which was held in the Borough Hall, at Roosevelt, and there testified that the company was not insensible to the distress among its laborers, and that previous to the strike, himself and the company's division superintendent had been devoting much time and thought to a study of economic conditions in the borough, with a view to bringing about some improvement in the conditions of their employes. Mr. Waring stated that many of the men working as laborers had learned trades in their home countries, and were really carpenters, masons, painters and the like. He had planned, therefore, to have these men employed at the trades known to them when there was work of such kinds to be done, and pay them correspondingly increased wages. Continuing his testimony, Mr. Waring stated that inquiries had been made regarding the manner in which the employes lived. It was found that in the matter of housing, they had paid from $5 a month rent for two rooms to $14 for six rooms. Advances in wages make very little difference to these men, so far as the kind of habitation they occupy is concerned. For the most part they continue to live as before. As illustrating this lack of eagerness for better environment, Mr. Waring told of one employe, now receiving $20 a week, who continues to occupy the room that served him as a home when he started working for the company at $1.50 a day.

Numerous acts of violence on the part of the striking laborers were described by Mr. Waring, beginning with January 4th, the day the strike

started, when a gate was torn from its place and a crowd of men tried to force an entrance to the plant, but were turned back by a small body of faithful employes armed with guns the company had purchased during a previous strike. On the afternoon of the same day several new buildings of the plant were bombarded with stones and every window on the exposed side broken.

Other witnesses at this session of the committee were two subordinates of the Sheriff, who stated positively that early every morning and late at night there was shooting going on around the plants in which the laborers had been employed, but the chief of the borough police stated that he had heard no shooting himself, and believed that there had in fact been none, and that reports to the contrary had their origin in excited imaginations. Asked for his opinion of the efficacy of sheriffs' deputies, regular or special, in dealing with conditions of disorder or riot, the Chief said in his judgment a couple of men in uniform could do more than fifty deputies in plain clothes.

No further meetings of the committee were held up to the time of this writing (December 6th) but it was understood that its report would be presented to the legislature of 1916., Such part of the report, if filed, as may be of interest to industrialists, will be noticed in the next report of the Bureau.

Strikes and Lockouts in New Jersey During the Twelve

Months Ending September 30, 1915.

October 1.-Ten iron molders employed in the Snead & Co. Iron Works at Jersey City quit work on this date because of objecting to "piece work." These men had been working for more than a month on piece work and were earning from $4.25 to $6.00 per day. Only one day's notice was given before ceasing work. The firm reports that it was paying at the time of the strike $3.75 per day, although the union rate was and still is only $3.50 for molders in that vicinity. The operations of the plant were not interrupted as new men were easily procured to take the places of the strikers.

On January 1st the strike was still on, and the wage loss was, up to that time, $3,600. The only disturbance that occurred during the progress of the strike was caused by an attack on the new workmen as they were leaving the building on November 17th, by a group of strike sympathizers. Three of these men were arrested, and in the police court one was fined $15.00; the others were discharged.

October 10.-Thirty-four tinsmiths and plumbers employed by F. S. Katzenbach & Co., at Trenton, were engaged in a strike on this date. The tinsmiths acting with others of the same trade throughout the city had begun a strike for a wage increase on June 1st, particulars regarding which were given in the "Industrial Chronology" which appeared in last year's report. The Katzenbach Company was one of a number of employing firms in the city that refused the advance, and on October 10th the plumbers employed by the company joined the tinsmiths in a sympathetic strike. The firm, which had hitherto employed only union labor, declared for the open shop thereafter and took steps to fill the strikers places. The wage loss to the strikers at the time of this writing was not less than $20,000, and the men concerned regarded the strike as being still on.

October 24.-Six stitchers (male) employed by the West Shore Embroidery Co. at West New York, went out on strike against a reduction from 28 cents per thousand stitches to 25 cents. The firm refused to make any concessions and replaced the strikers by new men, declaring that under no circumstances would the old hands be re-employed. Several outbreaks of disorder occurred when the new hands were passing to or from the works, in the course of which several arrests were made of strikers and their sympathizers. The six strikers had lost their places permanently. The wage loss to the strikers was reported by the firm as $2,400.

November.-No strikes whatever occurred in New Jersey during this

month.

December 22.-Seven truck drivers employed by John G. Goebel, of Jersey City, quit work because the manager of the trucking firm of which

Mr. Goebel is the head had sent two loads of cement to New York City on hired trucks driven by outside drivers. The circumstances which led to the strike were as follows: The firm had a contract for trucking cement to buildings which were in course of erection in New York, and the day being rainy, it was decided to stop the carting of the material until the rain ceased. The drivers returned to their homes. Shortly thereafter a peremptory demand for the cement was received from the construction company, and as none of the drivers could be located outside vehicles were hired to deliver the material. Had the manager not acted as he did, the trucking firm's contract with the construction company would have been annulled by the latter and the drivers would have nothing to do. Seemingly the sensible course pursued by the manager which preserved the drivers' employment was the only cause of the strike.

December 27-Sixteen men employed by the Empire Provision and Bologna Company, at Hoboken, quit work because an employe who was a member of their union had been discharged and their demand for his reinstatement refused. On March 5th, the date of the company's report on the subject, the strike was still on. The firm had declared for the "open shop" and declined to reinstate those who refused to work under that rule.

The "open shop" movement spread to other union establishments engaged in the bologna industry throughout Hudson county, and the workmen, suspecting that the associated employers, all of whom had declared in favor of the open shop and the suppression of union control, intended inaugurating a "lockout" at an early date, resolved to anticipate such action by a general strike. Accordingly the workmen employed in the plants operated by George Egner, M. Strohmeir & Bros., and several smaller concerns, all located in Jersey City or Hoboken, about 150 men, including the employes of the Fleckenstein and the Empire Co's, were involved in the strike, which at the date of this writing, April 5th, was still on. Not more than one-half of the employes of the plants involved joined the strikers, whose places were soon filled by new men. The attitude of the Employers' Association was summarized in the following brief statement: "The demands of the union have become intolerable, and we may as well meet the issue now as later on. We have no trouble in getting all the men we want who are willing to work for good wages and leave the management of our business to us."

Efforts were made in Jersey City and Hoboken to establish a boycott of the products of these firms, and saloon keepers in both cities were warned not to place any of them on the free lunch counters under penalty of having their bar tenders called out on strike. Strikers carrying banners with denunciatory inscriptions were kept constantly parading in front of the sausage factories. Several assaults were committed by strikers or their sympathizers and a number of arrests were made. Attempts were made during the progress of the strike to draw the Newark sausage workers into it, and some of the employes of A. Fink & Sons of that city were induced to quit work.

On March 3d, a Vice Chancellor issued an order directing a temporary cessation of the boycott which the strikers were carrying on against their late employers in a particularly offensive manner. The order was issued on March 3d and March 23d set as the time for answering.

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