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Show 1 i. Paul would tako away the living of the irr.ao makers, resulted, in a tamult : anions the people. "Ami with one voice they all cried out about the spaeo of two hours, 'Great is Diana of the Kr-he- , sians. ' ' i Four or five thousand years honr?, no doubt sorno curious dtdver into old newspaper liles will come upon accounts of tho present steel strike, the longshoremen's long-shoremen's strike and other evidences of dissatisfaction on tho part of labor, and will find therein material for au i article on tho situation in tho : ' ' ancient 1 ' cities of Pittsburg and I New York. qucutly oiiD of funt, t!; striko is one of tliii 'cry ol'l-'st iii-i'itu'.ions in vhe wurl'l. AuUiL'iitic history hay tLrikes to itli soon as it begins to write i.s i :I i". if we be puidud by Egyptian liii:ro;.'I;-hics and other ancient chronicles, chroni-cles, then v.'C may feci a.-oiired that the striko even antedated history. A writer in the New York Sun has made exhaustive exhaus-tive research into the strike situation of the earliest tin:os, and ho was pardonably par-donably amazed by what lie discovered. The first great strike in the world's history, so far a3 known, occurred more than liuOO years ago, according to the notcl Egyptologist, Mnspero. He records re-cords a strike of masons engaged in the building of pyramids and temples during dur-ing the reign of the Pharaohs, and relates re-lates that the:ie artisans were powerfully power-fully organized. While deciphering picture pic-ture writings of the Egyptians, Maspero oncounlered the following interesting insc ript ion : On the tenth day of the month builders build-ers at work on the tcniplo rushed out :md sat down behind the ciiapel, exclaiming, exclaim-ing, "We are luinKO', and there are yet eighteen days before the next pay day." 'they would not work until the king agreed to hear their complaints. Two days later lJhn.raoh went to the temple and ordered relief fr'ven the masons; but tile sixteenth day they quit aprain, and on the seventeenth and eighteenth days they also refused to work. On the nineteenth day they raised a mob at the governor's paiace and finally got their demands. At least 400 years beforo Christ, Greece had unions of tho Bacehio or Dionysian artists. Dr. Foueher, an authority au-thority on the subject, says that many poets were members of the union, and he ventures the belief that Homer belonged be-longed to the "collegium," as the union was called. A powerful branch of the organization organiza-tion was that of the musicians, who, it appears, wero employed by the Athenian government. Tentmakcrs of the. Dionysian Dio-nysian artists, who furnished the paraphernalia para-phernalia of the theaters and corresponded corre-sponded to tho modern stage hands, were also extensively organized. An interesting account is given by historians of a strike of the Athenian musicians, who refused to perform at tho most important festival of the government gov-ernment because they wanted compensation compen-sation for their services. The musicians of Rome belonged to a powerful political body of many trades. This organization elected the city commissioners of public works. During one of tho Samnite wars, in tho year 209 B. C, and at the moment when the Homans wanted more money than they could collect, the officials of the city refused to permit the musicians' musi-cians' union to play at a festival to Jupiter at the expense of the city. The "lordmaster" of the union immediately convoked the advisory board of the organization, or-ganization, which voted a strike. Forming Form-ing a column, the musicians took up their march to a distant town across the Tiber. Following is an account of the strike and its settlement: The senate of Rome sent a commission to the neighboring town of Tiber to ask the political council of the place its cooperation co-operation and intercession with a view to Induce the musicians to come out of their sulks, return to the feast and give Jupiter the music for nothing. The reception was friendly, negotiations were immediately opened with the strikers, but in vain. All solicitations were refused. It was now the very day before that set for the feast. Fear that the gods would envelop them with wrath began to make the Romans tremble. A stratagem was agreed upon. The musicians were to be asked to give a concert. At that pompous display they were to be inveigled into accepting libations, which they seldom refused. Stuffed with wine, and when all were unconscious with inebriation, they were to be taken bodily Into cushioned chariots back to the Eternal City and landed safely safe-ly at the forum, where all was in readiness readi-ness for the sacrifices of the morrow. The multitude is a greater moral power to the workmen on strike than the councils coun-cils of the great. And when they awoke from the stupor and found themselves suffused .with a friendly hurrah of nearly all the population of Rome gushing with flatteries around them, then they Imbibed the full force of the joke by which they had been outwitted. They consented to play, but not until a stipulation was agreed to, permitting them annually in the future to hold a jubilation on the l:lth day of June and march with then-red then-red flag and carnival uniforms throughout through-out tile streets, clothed with an accredited accred-ited permission to solicit contributions for their benefit. A record of a strike of bakers in ancient times is furnished by Egyptian hieroglyphics. Another account incidentally inci-dentally shows that centuries before the Christian era began bakers were well organized in the old cities. The bakers of two cities, Magnesia and Paros, in Greece, the records show, struck work and refused to bring to tho regular market mar-ket the usual supply of bread, owing to a grievance which is not plain. The city council, after becoming aware of the strike, convoked an extra session, with the result that the strike leaders were arrested and their union disrupted. The governor issued the following proclamation: proclama-tion: Any baker who shall associate himself with meetings, or who shall excite sedition sedi-tion leading to trouble, or who shall secrete se-crete himself, or any one who shall furnish fur-nish another with a hiding piacc, will be severely punished. In the year 413 B. C. a strike of 20,-000 20,-000 miners occurred in tho stato of Utica, whence the government of Athens derh ed its gold and silver. The strikers abandoned the mines and escaped, es-caped, hiring themselves out to another government and arraying themselves against their own country. One of the most powerful labor unions in the Roman empire w-as that of the image makers. The membership was particularly large in Ephesus, the great manufacturing and commercial eiiy of Phrygia, which also possessed many other trades unions. Tho presr-! presr-! dent of tho image makers was Demetrius, Demet-rius, a powerful leader, who exercised great inlluenco over the town clerk, the government and the people of the city. The image makers were also tho jewelers jew-elers of tho time and they made the rings and bra'.-lels fur the ladies of Uoaii: and Ihe d"eora lions of (he pagan god.;. One of the earliest labor i-peeches in histoi'3' was made by Demetrius and is recorded in the nineteen! h chupler of Ihe. Hook of Acts of tho Apostles, In the Xew Testament. The speech, which charged that the doctrine preached by STRIKES IN ANCIENT TIMES In these days of strikes in almost every trade and in not a few professions, profes-sions, wo constantly hear references to Ihe 11 days wh"n tlu-re were no strikes''; ''the good old times v hen strikes were liev'-r ivT'.rd of."' l"'eot..!c v. ho prate of fit nkel''N'i periods cither axe. tens of thousands of years old, which is improbable, im-probable, or they don't know what they arn talking about, which vs more likely. Ah a matter f'i history, anil consc- |
