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Show . STRIKES AND STRIKERS. Before the forms of this paper were placed upon the press last week, one article announced the end of the great strike in the packing houses and gave details of proposed arbitration, which promised reinstatement re-instatement of all the strikers at a given date. Before Be-fore The Intermountain Catholic reached its constituency con-stituency north to Montana and south to Colorado, the strike was resumed. Conditions now are' as they had been before the plan of arbitration was submitted sub-mitted and its terms appareutly accepted ,by employer em-ployer and employe. Indeed, they are worse, for along with enforced idleness there happens,, too-frc- ,t- qnetly, riot, bloodshed, and in some instances loss of life. It is charged by the butchers that the owners of the packing houses wont back on their agreement agree-ment to reinstate the strikers. A published denial of this charge is made by the packers. The merits of the butchers' strike are based, not upon a strike for a higher wage, but a strike against a lower wage. In some departments of the industry where unskilled labor is available, the packers proposed a cut in wages but gave no corresponding increase to skilled labor. In fact the packers sought to de-moralize de-moralize the wage scale all around. The, butchers presented a scale of their own making. It is said that if the packers accepted tin'.-, scale, the aggregate aggre-gate of money paid out would iit exceed the amount paid out before 'the trouble began. Xo matter, the strike is on again and promises to be the most desperate struggle between organized capital and organized labor the world ever witnessed. wit-nessed. Vexed over the confusing claims and misleading mis-leading statements of butcher and packer, the consumer con-sumer hardly knows upon whom to rest the blame. But if he stops u moment for sober reflection, glances over' the market reports which give him the price of dressed beef and compares it with the quotations quo-tations of beef on tho hoof, he can readily puncture punc-ture the skin game of the packers. It is "heads 1 win, tails you lose." -.Higher prices exacted from the retail butcher; lower prices paid to the cattle owner; lower v.agis paid the employe. All this goes on while we are literally smothered with laws against combinations and trusts, and officers to execute them as plentiful as blackbirds. Another great strike is in progress. Thirty : thousand textile operatives in the mills of Xew England are walking the streets. Butchers, bakers and grocers who supply i his vast number with food, many times on credit, are paralyzed. What is to be done? Xothing. Xothing until, exhausted end hungry, the operatives return to work at a reduce re-duce scale of wages, and the saints know it was little above the pauper's stipend before. The manufacturers manu-facturers have closed down the mills. They can afford to take a trip to Europe, or plant their capital capi-tal in tho Southland, where poor children endure the hardships of factory life, more exacting in its demands than the old conditions of African slavery. slav-ery. Oh, the shame of it all; the sin of it all! A land filled with milk and honey turned into a land of discontent, and revolts against labor oppression. oppres-sion. The" while paid shouters for organized greed go about proclaiming "prosperity, prosperity," and simulate astonishment because you do not see it. |