A Strike

Modern civilization in its complicated forms is built around the press. A city without newspapers is like a room without air, and the larger the gathering in the room, the less can air be dispensed with. Yet last week New York City underwent a pressmen's strike and still breathes. And this is the story:

The public went to their beds one night confident that next morning the sun would rise and their newspapers appear on the breakfast table. Next morning the sun rose. But it was not until three the next afternoon that their expected newspapers greeted them. And then in what form! Four-leaf, eight-page papers, bearing the heading COMBINED NEW YORK EVENING NEWSPAPERS. The only other journals to be had were a few hastily rushed in out-of-town papers and the Socialist-Labor Call. On the following morning the " Combined New York Morning Papers" appeared in the same form. Most of the usual news was present, although in more or less condensed form. All the old newspapers were present in reduced quantity, wearing the " combined " head. Those who knew their favorite paper's type could usually find it-- but it contained only a modicum of news and a somewhat diminished supply of comics and scandal. Heywood Broun, the famous wit, remarked: " Not within our time has there been a period in which a citizen might become embroiled in a scandal with less abashment."

The newspapers, on the same night that the public went confidently to bed, were confidently going to press. At midnight almost without warning, the pressmen suddenly abandoned the presses and " tore " off the " webs," destroying the evening's work. By the next afternoon enough men had been mustered to put out eight-page editions. The reporters functioned as usual; the editors then deleted most of what was written; the paper was set up in diminutive form and run off. The " combined " heads of ten morning papers and eleven evening papers were used as a joint protection so that if one shop failed to produce a paper, every newspaper would still technically appear. Just seven days after the strike began the newspapers achieved 16 page editions. (They are normally 32 or 40.)

The pressmen struck because of a long-standing grievance. It was, however, an outlaw strike in breach of contract. President Berry of the International Union dischartered the local, and made a new wage agreement on more liberal terms with the newspapers. The outlawed union's members were invited to resume work as members of the International Union, but, thoroughly angered, refused. One man was killed working for the New York Evening Journal (Hearst). Reporters who tried to attend the strikers' meetings were roughly expelled.

Business went on as usual in offices and stock exchanges. The department stores were hardest hit, because most of their advertising was crowded out of the papers.

But the world rolled on.