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Newspaper Page Text
ORGANIZERS SAY THE MERCHANTS WILL RETRENCH ON 'LABOR AS LONG AS GIRLS ARE NOT ORGANIZED The Women's Trade Union League held the fourth organization meeting of the department store clerks in Schiller Hall last night. There was an attendance of about two hundred and fifty men and women. Mary Anderson in addressing them stated that a great many of the clerks who recently have been discharged have not even attendjed the organi zation meetings, but that owing to dull business there is a general re trenchment in all department stores. She said, too, that it was an ad mitted fact that the State street mer chants had received what might be called, a 'general thrashing" from the Vice Commission, and they had felt its effect on the trade. "They must retrench, because they demand the same profits on their business," she said. "And they can not retrench on' the goods, or on the rent, but they can retrench on labor, so long as .you are not organized to prevent this." Miss Agnes Nestor of the Glove makers' Union spote at considerable length on the discouragement that organizers always meet in the begin ning. She told how many girls, be lieving themselves skilled and well paid, will not consider it necessary to organize, but she showed how the skilled labor of today may be the un skilled of tomorrow, when new con ditions arise, new machinery is Jn staljed and the only safeguard is to unite. Miss Nestor told how the glove makers had signed an agreement which abolished the worst features of their trade,. but had neglected .to" ask for Saturday half holiday. Afterr ward they took it up with the' employ ers as a favor that might be granted them. The employers replied that in the glove trade a half holiday was utterly impossible or it would have been granted long ago. Yet when the. agreement had ex pired and- a new one drawn demand ing this Saturday half day the em ployers just brushed by it and said: "That is all right." "You will have to understand, girls," she said, "that you can get nothing from your employers by ask ing for it as a favor. You have got to demand it. "And you must not be discouraged if you do not always-have a big. meet ing., Today you may be weak and tomorrow some peculiar turn of af fairs may bring girls in by the hun dreds. "It was that way with us. We started with about two hundred, .but -as we did not Vapidly increase some got discouraged. And then conditions in a certain shop changed so" that -every worker there joined us, and" we were strong enough to demandevery thing that we desired." Miss Mary Anderson and Miss Ag nes Nestor went to Springfield, at the close of the meeting, to be present, when the proposed eight-hour law comes up before the legislature. o 6 HOYNE MAKING COMEDY OUT OF VOTING MACHINE INQUIRY Maclay Hoyne, who possibly was elected state's attorney last Novem ber, is making an "utter farce out of his alleged grand jury inquiry into the voting machine scandal. Hoyne called his first witnesses be fore the grand jury late yesterday afternoon. ' They were Howard P. -Taylor; Hearst-Harrison election commissioner; William H. Stuart, Hearst-Harrison chief clerk of the election board; van& Isaac ft. Powell, who held Stuart's position- under, former County Judge Rinaker. The nejEt witnesses Hoyne intends to hand over to the grand jury are'' Charles S. Kejlerman and Anthony t Czarriecki, election commissioners, and Charles H, Mitchell, the Hearsfc-