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Show I: m :eak in walkout . SCDUTED BY 0I)TIAWS" CHICAGO, April 9. Striking switchmen, who have' been on strike here for nine days, began returning to Avorkl this morning. j Brotherhood officials who have been fighting the! "illegal" walkout of .their men, do not claim that the strike is' broken, but were much encouraged by reports from several! roads that the men, in small groups, were reporting for work, j The Chicago Junction Railway, the Belt line connecting; the stockyards and packing plants with the trunk lines, was, one of the first to report. Eleven engine crews were at work - this morning, the report said, as compared to three yesterday. ' " While the switching and freight situation showed im- j provement, the congestion in the yai'ds grew so greafEKat : seven of the eight railroads entering the Dearborn street. station were unable to run passenger trains downtown. The'; . are discharging passengers at surburban stations' to" complet the-trip on elevated or surface cars. Only the Santa Fc was running into the station this I CHICAGO, April ,9. Continued spread of the insurgent strike of insurgent switchmen and enginemen t on railroads throughout the country -was indicated by reports today showing show-ing that more than 20,000 men had joined the walkouts. Eight thousand insurgents were out in tho Chicago district whore the strike had its inception nine days ago. and reports from a score of cities from' coast to coast predicted additions to the strikers' ranks during the day. Railroad brotherhood officials, who have appealed to loyal union men to aBsist in breaking the strikes, declared the Chicago strike would be broken within 4S hours and said with its abatement the strikers in other parts of the country would end. I Chairmen o the brotherhoods an- nounced there had been an improve- Sent in the Chicago district and that J 2?- men were slowly returning to c. They asserted that freight traf- j ,vas 50 per cent normal. ' fa the other hand leaders of the aLJoUlng yardmen's union declared the; lstYike was growing and that the men, would continue to remain out of the1 parent unions. Threatened With Expulsion. Notices were sent out by chairmen of the Brotherhood of Railroad Train-ment Train-ment to nil strikers reitera'ting their i demand that the men return to work and threatening them wtih expulsion from pe union. Ono thousand brotherhood men from other cities had answered the call for strikebreakers here, it was said. Although it was estimated that between be-tween 40,900 and 50,000 packing house and stockyards' employes had been thrown out of employment today as a result of the stoppage of cattle shipments, ship-ments, packers announced that no shortage of meat need be feared Many industrial plants reported thousands of employes would bo thrown out of work if the freight tio-up continued another week. Nearly -1000 employes of 23 railroads entering Toledo, including switchmen, englnemen and firemen wero reported In. the St. TxjuIs district, including East St, Louis and Madison, 111,, freight traffic was reported virtually at a standstill with yardmen of 27 roads on strike. Southwest Has Embargo. All railroads In Kansas City, Mo., operating under contracts with the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, were affected and the strike had spread todny to Kansas City, Kan., and Rosedale, and industrial suburb. Points throughout the southwest report re-port embargoes had been placed on freight and cattle shipments to St, Louis, Kansas City, and Chicago and freight traffic between New Orleans and Chicago on all lines was Buspend-Rail Buspend-Rail centers throughout California felt the freight restrictions and eastward east-ward along the transcontinental lines severnl terminals reported strikes. ; Sinning at Los Angeles where ap-j proximately 1100 yardmen walked out 1 yesterday, the strike spread to yards in San Francisco and Oakland and other California cities. Company offi- j cials said 4'13 men were out in San; Francisco and Oakland, and walkouts j were reported in Roseville, Bakers-1 field. Mojave and Colton. The Southern South-ern Pacific estimated that 1800 men were on strike on lines in its coast dl-; vision. 1 Unionized railroad workers at Louisville. Louis-ville. Ky., at a meeting yoted almost unanimously against striking in sympathy sym-pathy with the Chicago "insurgents," j brotherhood officials reported. I j CHICAGO, April D. Wage demands i of five groups of railroad employes numbering 980,000 will be pushed "immediately "im-mediately as the result of the spread .of unauthorized strikes of switchmen land enginemen. G. A. Worrell, general chairman o( the railway clerks' origan or-igan ization of the Chicago and North-' western system said today. i Railway clerks, telegraphers, signal 1 men, maintenance of way employes! land stationary enginemen. firemen and 'oilers, the groups Involved, will pre-' I sent demands to every railroad in the United States within a week, Worrell l said. Wage increases of 20 cents an hour and restitution of tho pre-war diuerential wage scale will bo demanded de-manded and fifteen days of grace granted for compliance of'the companies, compa-nies, he said. "The men are at the end of the! rope," said Worrell. "President Wil- I son promised to Increase wages if In I six months the cost of living was not materially reduced. The living costs! are just as high, if not higher. Wei I cannot live on our present wages." |