The Labor enquirer. [volume], December 16, 1882, Page 8, Image 8

About The Labor enquirer. [volume] (Denver, Colo.) 1882-1888

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8
Co-Operating Shoemakers.
From the IsWYork Sun.
“It is a fact that in ladies’ fine shoes
New York surpasses London, and even
Paris,” an expert in one of the leading
Broadway stores said. “The long, slim
feet of American women lose nothing by
comparison with those of the high-born
women of Europe
• Our women have pretty feet, and they
like to see themselves well shod regard
less of cost. Just look at that riding
boot, made to fit like a glove to the knee,
a model of elegance and durability:
How dainty is this satin slipper, with the
Louis XY. heel, which adds an inch and
three-quarters to the stature of ,the
wearer, and makes a number four slipper
look like a number one. That heel is
constructed on the same scientific prim
ciples as the leaning tower of Pisa. Co
long as the center of gravity falls any
where within the heel and not on the
instep it is all right. Women’s fine shoes
in this city have about reached perfec
tion. Although we .do a large business,
we do not have an establishment where
all the work in making a shoe is done.
We cut out the uppers and linings and
the kid, and tie them all together, and
they are then sent out to the fitters.
Cutters receive from §lB to §3O a week.
The fitters employ twenty or thirty girls,
according to the size of the establish
ment. One pastes, another turns in the
kid around the edges, another sews in
the linings, another sews the outsides,
another works the buttonholes, and,
finally, the operator on the machine sews
the whole together. The girls’ wages
vary from $o to sls a week. The uppers
are then brought back to the store, and
we send them out to the shoemakers with
the leather for the soles and heels. These
men usually work togetherin large shops;
which they hire on shares. Just now,
before the holidays, we are very busy,
and these shops are usually Open and the
men at work on Sunday! You ought, to j
go there and take a look at them some
Sunday morning.”
“What nationalities are mostly en
gaged, and is there any preference as to
their work?” s
“Swedes, Irish, Scotch and English.
The Swedes are the most steady and re
liable men. They attend closely to
business, and make the best average
wages the year round/ With the others
liquor is their worst' enemy. If they
would only work steadily they could
make good wages. On some classes of
work I have seen a man take work away
in the morning and bring it back finished
in die evening, tor which he received §4
or $4.25; and I have seen some smart
fellows make at times as much as S3O or
$35 a week.
AVhat is known as the Twenty-fourth
street community shop is near Eighth
avenue. It occupies a large upper story
divided into two rooms. On entering
the rooms, about twenty men were seen
on Sunday morning tapping, heeling,
sewing, bulling, and lasting a variety of
work. One man was sitting in the mid
dle of the large room reading aloud the
news of the day in the Sun.
“This is a community shop, 1 ’ Mr. Rich
ard Parker said. “All sitters here be-'
long to the Ladies’ Branch of Boot and
Shoemakers for the City of New York,
and have to conform to the wages state
ment issued by the society. I was one of
the original incorporators of this shop
About twelve years ago eight of us took
this place, paid all expenses, and charged
every sitter so much a month; After two
or three years, as we were not making
any profit, and the scheme was favorably
regarded by the rest of the sitters, we
turned it into a community shop. Each
man pays $1.50 a month. We have
. thirty sitters in this shop, and as our
rent amounts to S3O a month there is
alway a small surplus, out of which we
pay for fire, newspapers, etc. We have
about all we can accommodate now, and
usually have the year through. We
have a president, secretary and treasurer,
all in one, who collects the dues, pays.the
rent and whatever bills there may be,
makes, the fires in winter, opens and
closes the shop, and is allowed for that a
seat and $1.50 a month. His accounts
are audited once a quarter. At present
that office is vacant. The shop is open
from 5 a. m. to 10 p. m. on week days,
and on Sundays from 5 a. m. to 2 p. m.
Where there is any choice of seats, the
rule is first come first served. The men
in this shop are English, Irish, Scotch
and Swedes. The wages earned vary
from $lO to S2O a week. Some men make
$25, but they- are smart workmen, and
they work long hours. There are about
200 men in the Ladies’ Branch of Boot
and Shoemakers, who w r ork either in
community shops or shops run on a
somewhat similar principle, but by one
man, who charges so much to each sitter.
But the community plan most men think
1 better. We are now several hundred
dollars ahead, which money comes in
Lvery handy in case of certain contin-
Ikoncies. According as work is from first,
or third-class stores, the prices
vary. The wages statement provides for
seventy-five different kinds of work.”
Mr. August Oelsen, a Swede, who rents
seats to men in a shop in Twenty-fifth
street, said : “There are thirty sitters in
this shop now. They are mostly Irish,
Swedes and English. Two are Germans.
Each sitter pays $1.75. My rent is S4OO
a year. I started here last May. lam
rnyfielf a shoemaker, and work at the
bench. There is not enough profit for
me to do otherwise. All the men in this
shop belong to the society, afid they
charge society prices. The busy time of
the year is from October to the holidays,
and from April to July, but a good work
man can get pretty steady work the \ eai
round. There are about half a dozen
shops like this in the city. I believe sev
eral are run oil the community plan.
The men here earn from sl2 to $25 a
week. It is customary for some man
who is not busy to read the daily papers
aloud, and one of the rules of the shop
| is to keep order while any one is read
* •
ing. r
Denver’s Boilers.
From the Evening World.
The latest and prevailing visitations
are fires and fatal boiler explosions.
Each day's telegrams have conveyed for
weeks past intelligence of widespread
and disastrous conflagrations all over the
world, and boilers bursting in almost
every direction, and attended with most
j frightful results so far as the sacrifice of
| human life is concerned. Few losses of
j life, happily, have attended the fires al
j luded to, but the boiler explosions have
resulted in numerous shocking deaths
and incalculable grief and distress among
the friends and relatives of the victims
I who have been cruelly cut off and hurled
into eternity in (he midst of health and
prosperity, without a moment’s warning,
while earning bread for families and
j friends dependent upon them.
It is in reference to this series of
blood-curdling, so called accidents that
I this article is written, and for the purpose
of calling the attention of the local
authorities to a matter of gravest impor
tance, affecting alike the monetary
welfare <Sf the proprietors and the more
vitally important welfare and safety of
men employed in establishments where
' boilers are used. 1 It may be said here
| that it is proverbially and singularly
seldom that the owners or proprietors of
mills and other places where these
j essential apparatus to the creation of
j steam are used are numbered among the
I victims of explosions. Such a case,
however, did happen in the East a couple
of weeks ago, when two brothers, propri
etors of a saw mill, were instantly killed
by the blowing up of a boiler. Propri
etors are seldom in the mechanical parts
of mills, and consequently enjoy immu
nity in case of disaster, while unfortunate
employes are sacraticed on the altars of
industry on one hand, and indifference,
meanness and negligence of proprietors
on the other. Hence it behooves the
state and city legislators to enact laws
which shall, as far as possible, prevent
loss of life of those whose daily calling
requires their presence in contiguity of
these mines of steam and ofttimes of
wholesale death.
The record for a few days past is
fearful, and ought to prompt the author
ities without delay to take up and act
upon the subject. At Middletown, Ohio,
two men were killed and several injured :
at Mauayunk, Pennsylvania, two men
were killed and eight or ten injured; at
Montrose, Colbrado, two lives were lost
and several workmen hurt, and at Osage,
Kansas, two men were killed. The most
appalling in the list happened at Shaw
neetown, Illinois, where eight men were
killed and three maimed for life. The
details of this awful disaster as published
are simply sickening; stout, able-bodied
operatives being blown to fragments or
mutilated horribly. The above list
comprises but a very few of these occur
rences which have wrought death and
misery the past three or four weeks. So
far Denver has escaped, and the “acci-
have, with one exception—that
at Montrose, Colorado—been confined to
the East. “It is pretty near home,”
however, when the “murrain,” or “epe
demic,” breaks out in a neighboring
town ; and, as a well knowm and. promi
nent engineer said to the writer this
,morning, “There is no telling when it
.may strike us.’ > the past, three
or four years, in keeping with the growth
and importance of Denver, a large num
ber of factories and other places, where
it is necessary to generate and employ
steam, have sprung into existence. Every
kind of boiler almost has been adopted,
and is in use, the horizontal, the vertical
—internally and externally fired—plain,
multitub'lar and tubulous; most all con
structed of iron, but a few of sheet steel.
They are to be found inside mills and
factories, in hotels, theaters, under side
walks, in cellars all over the city. One
concern has eighteen boilers, another
eight, and so on down. A very large
number, of course the bigger buildings,
are the horrizontal or locomotive boilers,
THE LABOR ENQUIRER.
which most engineers say is incalculably
more dangerous than that of vertical
construction. It is said that the greater
proportion of these boilers are made in
Denver and there is no reason why they
should not be equal, in point of general
excellence, to the article turned out
elsewhere. Granted this be the fact,
what is there to prevent their blowing
up if engineer be incompetent and
cheap, or the proprietor, should he have
a reliable and capable man at the valve,
be too niggardly to expend requisite
money for cleaning, repair and safety
apparatus, with which the mechanical
market to-day abounds ?
Proprietors are to blame for the great
number of deaths that have occurred by
explosions and accidents of a like char
acter, and while in case of explosion
they may be able to repair damage to
material and premises, cannot bring the
dead to life, nor console with dollars and
cents the forlorn widow and the father
less children of the victims of their
penuriousness.
Now, there is one method to adopt as
prevention, which is for the legislature
to enact laws covering thfiTlnTp aidant
matter. It is a little singular that this
paternal provision should have been
overlooked both by the state and city
authorities. The state should by special
act provide forthe appointment of an in
spector of steam boilers, generators,
super-heaters and all other apparatus
employed in the creation and use Of
steam; for his fees, duties and rules of
inspection, compel examination of en
gineers, prescribe duties of owners of
boilers, penalties for defaulting owners
and licensed engineers, etc. This act
should be made applicable to the city of
Denver and all cities over a certain popu
lation. The city authorities, in their
wisdom, might take the matter up, but
it would probably become—in the ap
pointment of an inspector —a mere
piece of jobbery and political huckster
ing. and would lose its force and virtue.
Our representatives at the coming ses
sion of the legislature ought to consider
this subject. Every machinist and boil
ermaker spoken to on the subject favors
it in unqualified terms, and will head the
passage of a competent act with pleasure.
If something be not done, it is impossi
ble to tell where the lightning may next
strike, and some blood-curdling catastro
phe send 'a thrill of horror throughout
the continent. The workingmen em
ployed in places where boilers are used,
alone should .seek self-protection by agi
tating the matter.
Local Legislation.
At a meeting of Union Assembly No.
2327, Knights of Labor, Denver, Col
drado. held Decembers), the following
resolutions were adopted :
Whereas, On December 1 a code went
into effect in the state of New York,
prohibiting employes from consulting or
combining with each other for self-pro
tection under pain of fine and imprison
ment ; and
Whereas, The capitalists of that state
have, through, a venal legislature, suc
ceeded in denying, under the penalties
ol the law, the rights of combination
and co-operation, which they arrogate to
themselves, thereby reducing American
workmen to the level of slaves; and
Whereas, Such laws are designed to
define more closely the line between
master and servant than is consistent
with a spirit of liberty, and to foster a
feeling of caste which is opposed to the
principles of freedom ; therefore, be it
Resolved, That;we view with alarm
such an encroachment on personal lib
erty’, and denounce such legislation as
partial, unjust and oppressive ; and
Resolved, That we call on the work
ingmen of this city and state to watch
closely the actions of the persons they
have placed in power by their votes, and
to hold them to a rigid account if they
dare to infringe on our liberties in any
similar manner.
The Robbers’ War.
From the Press Dispatches.
Tire sub-committee of the conference of
northwestern railway managers, in their re
port to the conference on Tuesday, recom
mended that there be no more railroads
built in the northwest, and that tire St. Paul
railroad leave the Omaha territory. Both
these recommendations, it is reported, were
accepted. This settles the territorial ques
tion.
The committee then adjourned till Wed
nesday, when the question of rates and divis
ion of business will be considered. Trouble
is anticipated in the adjustment of these dif
ferences. There will be, it is thought, an
immediate restoration of rates, and the ques
tion of division will be arranged without
delay.
President Porter was asked Tuesday night
whether it was true that in the event of Van
derbilt having purchased a controlling inter
est in the Omaha road he would resign his
position as president of the company. He
replied: “I have not yet given the matter
any thought. The fact is, I look upon the
report as an idle rumor.” Notwithstanding
this rumor, it is generally believed changes
will take place and Marvin Hughitt* be
elected in the place of President Porter.
“At Tuesday’s conference,” said Porter, “it
was verbally understood that no more rail
roads should be built without due notice
being given to the conference by the com
pany wishing to establish additional sections.
The committee will consider the settlement
on a traffic basis. An agreement covering
St. Paul and Minneapolis business will prob
ably be made and a pool establshed for di
vision of business to the above points, and
also for the maintenance of rates. The
Rock Island road will ask for a portion of St.
Paul and Minneapolis business.
General Manager R. R. Cable, of the Rock
Island, said he was anxious to restore rates,
but before he could consent to do so there
must be some definite plan agreed upon.
Both of them said after the meeting that
they hoped and expected to terminate the
war at once. Other officials of the road said
the war might be ended and rates restored
Wednesday. No trouble was anticipated in
settling traffic matters. If no other way was
determined, there would be little difficulty
in making a compact to maintain rates while
each road took what business it could secure.
Keep was confident peace was a question of
a short time, and the crowd of speculators at
the Windsor generally understood that the
war was as good as settled.
A Hall Wanted.
From the proceedings of the last meeting
of the Trades Assembly,published elsewhere
it will be seen that there is a scarcity of good
halls in this city, and to us it seems a first
class investment for some one erecting a
. business bloQk to put in a hall, to be let to
societies tor meeting purposes. The Trades
Assembly is now in a position to contract tor
the lease of such a hall and pay a rental
which wiil yield a large per cent on the
investment. Through the assembly the use
of such a hall can be let to some eight or ten
organizations in the. city, who now meet at
various places, and by this plan there will
be no uncertainty concerning the safety of
the step on the part of tne assembly. The
market is gorged with offices aud sleeping
rooms, and have heard a number of
builders say tbatlt was now a bed investment
to put up a large building with nothing
above the ground floor but .rooms of such
a character, and all have agreed with us in
the idea of making a large hall for the pur
pose mentioned. Who will make the move
und reap the benefit?
MOLDERS THIRD ANNUAL.
Its Successful and Enjoyable Enter
tainment at East Turner
Hall.
Last evening the Iron Molders union
gave one of the finest balls of the season
at East Turner hall. All the representa
tive men of the various trade organiza
tions in the city were present, accom
panied by their handsome wives and
cousins, and —well, sisters. A bounteous
supper was spread in the banquet room,
which all seemed to enjoy after five or
six hours of dancing. After supper
dancing was resumed and continued un
til the customary hour this morning, and
the memory of the pleasant affair will
live long with those who participated in
it. The music was furnished by Kcenigs
berg’s excellent band was of the finest
character. John Lewis filled the box
of the prompter in his usual satisfactory
manner. The party Avas a thorough suc
cess in every sense, and The Enquirer
takes pleasure iijt congratulating 188 and
particularly the committee having the
affair in charge, (upon the happy result
of their efforts lin giving their third
annual ball. Among those present were
noticed Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Godfrey, Mr.
and Airs. George Sweet, Mr. and Mrs.
Robert Jacobs, Miss Maggie Ducey, Miss
McCurdy. Misser Mary and Nellie Crow
ley, Misses Maria and Mollie Gallagher,
Mr. and Mrs. Will jam Marsh, Miss
Anna Smith, Miss Murphy, Misses Ful
mele, Mr. J. Lynch and wife,
Messrs. John Savage, Stephen Taylor,
James Young, William. Ferguson, L. W.
Smith, John Boland, T. W. Day, A.
Bowers, O. Smith. S. Doyle, P. W. Smith,
T. Halloran, H. Smith, E. P. McPhillomy,
J. Sullivan, J. Hanson, A. Gungberg and
Mr. and Mrs. Cordingly, besides a great
many others whose names we were
unable to procure.
• -+•. -,
Andrew Bigger, the marshal of Ophir who
killed Harry Deihle last summer, is to be
hanged next Friday at Ouray. A petition is
now before the governor, asking that the
sentence be modified and commuted
to imprisonment for life. The ap
peal is supplemented by a mother’s and sis
ter’s tears and entreaties. Yesterday the
mother and daughter called upon Lieutenant
Governor Tabor, presenting' their case in
plain words and asked that he be merciful.
He offered no encouragement, but did not
leave the ladies to linfer that there was no
hope.
The head for Tub Enquires was tele
graphed for a week ago. It arrived this
morning, but it read “The Labor Engineer.”
The error was traced to the cheap operators
employed in the telegraph office. Our
friends helped us out until the head arrives.
AMUSEMENTS, .
Standard Hall, 1
1
December 29 and 30, \
TIE NEW OPERETTA^
OF* '\ '
“LAILA” \
\ ; I
WILL BE PRODUCED BY
'\ |
PROF. S. H. BIRDSALL, j
Assisted by |
TIE BEST TALENT II HE CIMUIIITI/ ,
Tickets ate on sale at all the drug
and book stores of the city.
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TIE CHOICEST IMLIMIIIIS MUTTER.
JOBS mi JR.,
Manufacturer of
Fine Cigars, *
I manufacture my euars from fir-t class
stock, and can guarantee satisfaction, as T
employ none but the best workmen.
Remember my place,
m H UIIMEI SHEET,
DENVER, - COLORADO.
Self Inkers.
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