The Fulton County Glove Cutters' Strike of 1914 - Board of Mediation and Arbitration Hearings
The Glovers of Fulton County

The Glove Cutters' Strike of 1914: New York State Board of Mediation and Arbitration Hearings,
October 6, 1914 ~ Opening Session


ORIGINAL TEXT OF DOCUMENT STARTS BELOW

[Original manuscript pages 1-51]


In the matter of the striking glove cutters
of Gloversville, Johnstown and vicinity.

Hearing before the

STATE BOARD OF MEDIATION AND ARBITRATION.

Council Chamber, City Hall,

Gloversville, N.Y. Oct. 6th, 1914.

P R E S E N T :


Mr. William C. Rogers, Chief Mediator.
Mr. James McManus,
Mr. P. S. Downey

---0---

MR. ROGERS: This is a session of the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration, convened pursuant to the State Labor Laws, Sections 141, 142 and 143, under the direction and order of Hon. James M. Lynch, State Commissioner of Labor. I wish to read into the record his official order convening the Board.

STATE OF NEW YORK

Department of Labor,
Office of
Commissioner of Labor,

Albany, October 1st, 1914.

Mr. Wm. C. Rogers,
Chief Mediator,
Labor Department,
Albany, N.Y.

Dear Sir:

Beginning Monday October 5th, you are directed to convene the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration at Gloversville, New York, for the purpose of inquiry into the causes of the strike which now interrupts the glove industry in that city. This order is as provided as section 141 of the Labor Law. Mr. P. J. Downey and Mr. James McManus, Mediators of the Department of Labor, are hereby designated with yourself to constitute the Board. Please consult with me regarding the attendance of counsel, stenographers and investigators, whose services the Board may desire.

Yours very truly, James M. Lynch, Commissioner

Pursuant to those instructions the Board has secured from Attorney General Parsons the services of Deputy Attorney General McMahon as counsel for the Board, and the Board has engaged the Capitol District Reporting Company as official stenographers, and Commissioner Lynch has assigned to the services of the Board in this investigation the help of the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Labor through Mr. L. W. Hatch, Chief Statistician, Mr. E. B. Patten, Chief of the Division of Special Investigation and six investigators of that Bureau.

Mr. Ehrlich, will you take the stand please. J U L I U S K. E H R L I C H, called as a witness, being first duly sworn, testifies as follows:

BY MR. ROGERS:

Q. What is your full name? A. Julius K. Ehrlich.

Q. Where do you live in Gloversville? A. 22 Steele Ave.

Q. What is your business? A. I am a table cutter, glove table cutter.

Q. How long have you been engaged in doing that? A. With my apprenticeship and all, 24 years last May.

Q. During that length of time what firms have you worked for? A. Littauer Brothers about ten years; fourteen years rather for the Littauers. I can not tell the years at the other places, but at Rose's, Fownes Brothers and Dempster and Place where I was employed previous to the strike.

Q. You were employed at Dempster and Places up to the time of the strike? A. Yes, sir.

Q. How long did you work for them? A. About 34 months I should think. I started on the 24th day of October and we went out on the 21st day of August. October would have made it three full years.

Q. You are a member of the Conference Committee of the strikers? A. I am.

Q. I wish you would tell us in your own words, as briefly as possible, what the strike is about and how it happened to take place? A. The reason and the cause, or the cause and the reason - well do you wish me to rise?

Q. No? A. There are times, gentlemen, if you will please indulge me once in a while that I stutter and if you will overlook that part of it before I start you won't embarrass me if you should happen to laugh, because I have got used to it, but I had rather that you did not laugh. It seems that as near as I can say from my point of view, the reason for this strike and why I am out on strike is this, that it seems that ever since I can remember in the glove business, in the 24 years that I have worked at it, it has been a continual strife for a living, and up to 1897, being a young man then as you could see, I did not take much notice of strikes or works, but in 1897 we went out on a ten weeks strike and there we practically got a ten percent increase at that time, and from then until 1903 and 1904 there have been little reductions and little increases from that time, but in 1903 and 1904, I think it was the 19th day of December 1903, a strike was called. That was an open shop strike practically. For six months we struck, and lost. There is no use going into that detail but from then on, 1904 until practically Aug. 21st 1914, there has been to my knowledge three or four times that we have made a request for an increase in wages, claiming each time that the work was getting more and more difficult and that they were more exacting and our conditions of living were being altered, prices around us were soaring, and in that time we have not received any increase. Each time, the manufacturers, I mean, had told us to continue to work and when the time came they would consider giving us an increase in wages. We have waited ten years for that until the 21st day of August of this year. We thought perhaps that the right time had come to again ask for an increase of wages. At that time I didn't know much about it. I went to the mass meeting to hear this discussion as to the advisability of making the request - - not ordering a strike but making the request. It was finally voted by a mass of men that they thought the time was right to make the request for an increase of wages of 25 cents on mens and boys and 20 cents on ladies gloves for all styles and all grades of cutting. A resolution, or an ultimatum as one side seems to call it, to the manufacturers was made asking for this with a 48 hour notice - an answer in 48 hours. At the end of that time we had received no answer, and it was on Friday then I think we had a meeting again and brought up the question of enforcing our demands by calling a strike.

Q. May I interrupt; can you furnish us with a copy of the requests or demands that were made on the employers at that time? A. The first time?

Q. Yes? A. The 48 hour request?

Q. The 48 hour request that you made? A. I believe that we can. I will have to ask Mr. Wilkins. I was not in the movement at that time, Mr. Rogers.

Q. If you can hand that copy to me I will be very glad to have it incorporated into the record? A. I will certainly try; but that Friday morning we discussed the advisability of enforcing our demands by calling a strike. It was thought inadvisable at this time but we thought we could grant another 12 hours to see if they would say anything. It seems that through one of the members of the Board at that time - - he had got in touch with Mr. Littauer - - and he told him our case, and as near as I can word it - - we have the copy of his answer - - he said that if we selected a representative from the floor of the body of men of the strikers that he thought that he could arrange a meeting with the manufacturers Association, the Glove Manufacturer's Association. It was thought that that would be a good idea and I was one of five selected from Gloversville. We met the manufacturers that afternoon, Friday, I think it was August 21st. I am not sure but the calendar would show that date any way. It was on a Friday we met the manufacturers. We met seven of them I believe in the Masonic Building and we discussed our reasons for wanting a raise. We heard their reasons why at this time they did not think it was advisable to grant them, which was practically the same answer that they had given us gentlemen for the last ten years; to go back to work and when the opportune time comes the wage schedule will be considered. We talked there, perhaps, as a conference, the manufacturers and the striking cutters, for perhaps an hour and a half, but that was the final result of that meeting. Then we went back to the body of men and reported that and they thought we should make a further effort - that was on Saturday - further effort to get in touch with the manufacturers again, which we did. From the drift of their argument on that meeting of Friday we had taken into consideration that a part of what they said might be true and we wished to be fair to both sides. They said at their meeting of Friday that they had on their books several legitimate orders that had not been filled at the old price and they did not feel like driving the advance on that work. That was the sum and substance of that. Between that meeting and the meeting on Monday, which we made an effort to get with them. We thought over that proposition, that perhaps they were right on that part, so we went to them on Monday with what we thought was fair on the part of a body of men. We went to them and asked for a meeting and through Mr. Walversee it was arranged. We met them on Monday afternoon, August 24th and our proposition was on the part of the cutters practically like this: an increase of 25 cents on mens and boys and 20 cents on ladies for all grades and styles of cutting, any increase to take effect October 1st 1914, cutters to resume work immediately if we could come to that agreement. They considered it and thought it was a fair proposition, but they told us, gentlemen we can not do it or they could not do it. Well we went back to the body of men on Tuesday morning, put that case to them, and they voted to strike and struck we have for six weeks. Now my personal reasons for being out on strike are these, that in the last ten years, as every other man knows, in the business, skins have got so that they are poorer. There has been more work exacted from us. Our taxation system has been so that it seems at times that even the sanest man of us would go crazy trying to figure out how he was going to get them of the quality that was required. I have worked as a pretty steady man. I am not the fastest man. I am not the slowest man. I am an average man. I have worked I can truthfully say, on the average, for the last ten years, nine hour and a half a day when I have had the work to do, and in that time - - I don't bring up the question of my average wage in that time now - that will be perhaps later - but I have seen that with all these exacting things that I have had to do additional caused by higher taxing, poorer grade of leather, the new styles and kinds of gloves, which demanded more leather for that glove that came in vogue, that all of this was being taken out of my little wage, and for that reason I could see around me my living growing up, so that I could not keep up my family decently on the wage that I was getting, and I thought that it was time to make a request and if necessary a forcible demand - by that I mean strike for an increase - and I have struck for six weeks. My conditions are not quite as good as they were six weeks ago, because I have been out of work, but we have struggled, I have sacrificed and there is no doubt that all of the fourteen or fifteen hundred cutters have sacrificed greatly in order to get what we think is a just increase, and to our minds, or to my mind rather, for I am speaking as one now, I think that we have tried to be fair with every proposition, and there has not been any but one that they called a proposition to give it any consideration. We would be and we will give any proposition consideration whereby I can be assured that I can better my conditions - better than they have been in the last seventeen years.

I am speaking of seventeen years this time for this reason. In seventeen years, and here is the schedule, there has been practically no increase per cutting in the glove business. A few years ago they granted us - I think it was in 1910 - now I would not say that positively but I think it was in 1910, they granted us two cents on suedes and kids; six cents and a half on mochos; in other words from 88 to 90 cents and from 932 cents to a dollar, but at that time for the dollar work we had what are known as rag mochos, pieces, that they paid at the rate of 30 cents an hour for, or if you cut them by the dozen ten cents extra. Just as soon as we had received that two cents on these grades and six cents and a half on the other we were immediately reduced five cents a dozen on what is termed in our trade a silk lined glove, a glove that has a silk lining. It makes extra work because there is extra stamping, there is extra trimming and extra work to it in fact. They reduced that five cents. Some of the shops brought in vogue at that time, which I believe is practiced throughout the state now - not every glove, but some of them - a cutting that had a special binding and they reduced that five cents a dozen, making that two cent raise a three cent cut. Since that time they have added a class of gloves that require instead of the regulation binding of about twenty inches for a pair, ten inches on each glove, they make them now where you cut practically thirty inches in some factories and twenty-eight to thirty inches in some factories, that you don't get anything for, just the regular price, ninety cents a dozen with this thirty inches of binding, where the old schedule for 1897 calls for extra binding five cents.

We have from that time worked up into the automobile business. I call them a back seat automobile glove for it is not a real heavy automobile glove, but it is a glove to wear in the back seat. It requires a long gore. In those days gores were five centers. In those days there was a lined glove that had a gore four and one-half inches long. With the automobile glove they have a gore that extends instead of four inches and half up to six and some seven and I have out some eight inches. I have the same five centers. I have cut anywheres from 66 to 96 inches of binding for five cents. This is what I have done. Other shops are doing the same thing, which perhaps in the course of the hearing will be brought up, and in view of all of these facts, this raise of 1910 to my mind was not a raise. You can call it what you wish; I call it a reduction. For that reason gentlemen I have been an ardent striker but I have been a peaceable striker and have advocated peace. Every one knows it here in the city and we have tried to use judgment and common sense in settling this strike, but I for one think that our demands for an increase of wages are just, and that is all for present unless any one wishes to bring out any one particular point.

Q. I would like to have you give us as accurately as you can, a statement in regard to your own wages?

A. As near as I can state, gentlemen, I have what I call the best evidence in the world, my firm's own writings and envelopes.

Q. Won't you read the amounts? A. Will I read them?

Q. Yes? A. Yes.

Q. And mention the dates too? A. January 10th 1914, - there are practically one or two missing from the 10th of January until August 22nd of this year - my last year count I was working then by the day at $16.50 a week, doing everything, that was last year, but this is my piece work for this year. Previous years were practically a little more because of the lighter taxing. A man could really get what they were up for. January 10th, $12.17; January 17th $18.47; now perhaps you think that is a jump, but here is the reason and you will find it right along here. We finish up on a specified day, say from Friday to Friday. Work that is not done Friday night or Friday noon you don't get paid for that week. It may make it that a man may have half a lot done. He would not turn it in until it is all done. That makes one week here short and the next week big, so you can strike the average. January 17th, $18.47; January 14th $16.58; January 31st $11.78; February 7th $17.29. There was another incidence of half a lot done again. February 14th $13.53; February 28th $12.70; March 7th $17.79, fetching up that short week again. March 14th $14.39, and by the way gentlemen I think you will find that that is about the average of all of this I have given in. March 21st $13.00; March 28th $13.20; April 4th $14.50; April 11th $13.14; April 18th $13.49; April 25th $14.63; May 2nd $16.54; May 16th $15.21; May 23rd $14.38. Those are the months now, gentlemen, where the days were getting longer and work was getting more busy, but the taxing had got tighter for those same reasons. May 30th $13.28; June 6th, $11.67; June 13th $15.04; June 20th $15.66; June 27th $16.61; this was Fourth of July week. We had two or three days out. We were paid on the 10th of July $8.49; I had to live all that week just the same. There is evidence here on the part of whoever wrote this out - one is marked the 10th and one the 11th - I believe it ought to be the 31st, but that does not make any difference. Here is there writing $12.32; July 18th $15.12; Aug. 8th $14.50; August 1st $13.28, and now we are coming up close to the strike situation $10.05. Here are my last two pays, one was $7.20 and one $3.00.

Q. $7.20 and $3.00? A. The way we figure it, my work up to Thursday, at the time the strike was called had been $7.20 and I had had practically these $3.08 cents worth of work done, but it was left pending the strike settlement. It went over the Friday, so they did not give me this $3.08 only a pay envelope to settle up my account with that firm. That week practically was $10.28 and this is not my figures. These are their own of what I received. As I said, the year before last, I worked by the day, ten hours a day - not every day. Some days were short and some days were long, but I never got more than 30 cents an hour. That was the price as I have said for day work, and previous to that time, I think I could dig up, but I believe to the best of my knowledge for the last ten years to strike an average I do not believe I have average $14.00 a week for 52 weeks in a year which I have had to live and I have had to bring up a family, and if it was not for the assistance of my wife we would not have brought them up.

Q. How much of a family have you? A. I have a wife and two children, one ten and one two.

MR. McMANUS: How about that taxing; have you explained all there was to that?

THE WITNESS: The taxing business, I don't know whether the Board would understand it, but the rank and file of cutters and manufacturers understand it. A manufacturer buys a skin at a certain price to cut a certain number of gloves. They will give those out to the cutters the expert workmen in the glove trade, as I once before stated and before a manufacturer knows whether he has won or lost on a dozen skins it has got to go to the cutter first. They are taxed up so many three pairs, so many two pairs, so many one pair, so many four pairs, if there be any in it, and sometimes, very often they are squeezed up pretty tight so that you can get what we call tranks, - the informed in the glove line would call it the hands without the fingers. The fingers are the forchetts and the extra leather - - there are times you can get tranks but there are times that you can not get fingers good enough for tranks and you have to look around under other peoples tables all over the factory and often times you have to go down stairs and have the foreman get you a piece of leather that he may have down stairs in the stock room to match up this work. That taxing system to my mind has got so that it is impossible at times to get the proper tranks, put the proper leather into the glove, and some firms have inaugurated a fining system that if after that taxing a cutter has been forced to put in some thumbs for forchetts on part of the glove that is not up to quality he is fined and he is fined anywhere from forty cents up for this error, they call it, and it keeps a cutter looking around as I say and there is constant worry whether he is going to be fined this week or fired. It is one or the other. It seems strange, but there are some shops that are a little more lenient or reasonable, as I have heard the word used quite often lately in this controversy, in the leather allowance, but on the average wage that helps to lower it. It makes it lower because you have to look around, you have to patch here or yank there. We realize it is leather that is worth money, but we are not getting any more for it. They are getting, perhaps, the increased price. In the way I have expressed it, and they have heard it often, a manufacturer has brought a number of skins at a certain price to cut out a certain number of gloves and he has got stuck and he is going to try to get it out of the help. That is the way it seems to me.

BY MR. ROGERS:

Q. What you wish us to understand is that in taxing it is the expert in the shop handling a dozen skins - in handing that to the cutter he estimates as best his skill allows him to how many pairs of gloves that ought to produce. A. Yes, sir.

Q. Say for instance the dozen skins are supposed to produce thirty or thirty-two pairs of gloves it is the duty of the glove cutter to get that number of gloves out of the skins if it is a possibility?

A. If it is a possibility to get that number of gloves out that will sell. If they are gloves that do not sell and they are bad fitting, as I have said, they have inaugurated in some shops a fine on that. Now the glove cutter, being the expert man in this line of business, the first man after the foreman, he does the sorting. Some firms have taxers. Some call them sorters - different name by the thing is the same. He hands out these skins and a certain number of skins to cut a certain number of gloves. That cutter gets those skins. 992 percent are conscientious workmen. They get their living by it and they try to get the best they can, and then it goes to the man that sorts them after they are slit, sometimes before they are slit. By the slitter I mean the man who works on the press and presses out the exact form of a glove in that shape. Then it goes back to a man that sorts the tranks. He throws out some that he thinks are too poor for that glove or too good for it. Sometimes they throw out four assortments and some times two, the good and the bad. Then the manufacturer figures up and only from them does he know that barring reasonable accidents in the course of manufacture of a glove, he knows from that minute whether that dozen of skins has produced a profit or a loss, and for that skill of the table cutter we average up somewhere hear that wages, and for that reason I am out on a strike.

Q. Do you happen to recall what the wage was in your earlier experience for men who were working by the hour?

A. You mean the men who were working by the hour?

Q. Yes? A. Ever since I can remember those who worked on rag mocho, that is pieces, ever since I can remember it was thirty cents an hour, but then we used to work Saturday afternoons making $18.00 a week. That is as long as I can remember back in my time or taking any notice. Of course in the first few years of my apprenticeship, I am 36 now, I have worked since 1890 as a boy, and then you don't take much notice.

Q. How do your weekly envelopes compare now as they did right along in the course of your employment?

A. As I have stated, last year it was day work mostly. By that I mean I was employed at the rate of thirty cents an hour, but the year previous to that, I think, that I averaged a little better than I did here. Now I am not positive because I have not dug up my books. I believe I could find my book but if I could not the firm that I worked for, Fownes and Rose's they could produce it, but I think it was a little better than this, because as I say they were not as exacting in their taxation. The taxing system has really been the whole cause of the men demanding more money because with the increase in the cost of living and with the same schedule of wages that was adopted when any sane man knows that things were not as high 17 years ago as they are today, but we have stood still. We do not lay it to the trade. We do not lay it to us. We don't know what to lay it to, but we have realized that we have got to such a stage where we ought to have more money.

Q. Will you explain to us whether there is any seasonal variation in the amount of your work and when the poor and slack times come, if there are any such times? A. Well, as near as I can judge from the way business comes, from my point of observation, not being on the inside of that, they really get orders - - I don't know when they get orders or when they ship them, but I have worked in these factories all these years and I have been more or less observant of when times were rushed and when they were poor, but it seems they get orders in the first part of the year for delivery from September to November 1st. It is according to the heaviness of these orders when our busiest time is. If the orders are heavy for fall delivery we are more or less busy for practically the greater part of the summer, and by November first or October first, if the season has been so that business conditions have been great then we are busy again until about the holiday times, and there is some flurry in some of the factories, not all of them, because some supply to jobbers and some to retail houses. The retail house is pretty busy a couple of months before Easter time. The slackest time you might say would be to my mind from what I can see of it after Easter until about June, from what I have observed in shops where I have worked. Every factory as the Board will find out - some are jobbers and some retailers. A jobber would know last January how many gloves he was going to have where a retailer would not know.

Q. During the past year about how many hours a week have you worked? A. You mean when I have had work and no work or when I have had the work and did not work or could not have worked?

Q. I would like to have you explain all of that to us? A. Well I have been fortunate myself. There has not been any particular reason why I should have had to lose a day, and I haven't lost a day, only the holidays. However, in our factory there are times where it has been really slow work, where they have laid men off and given us to understand that cutters were not to rush through, but we have had work up to six o'clock, barring days that it gets dark, dark at five o'clock and we don't light up. I don't remember, in fact I don't believe that we did. There are times that it is dark mornings that you don't start early, say February month. It is dark mornings. It broadens out on the other end, but I should think that on the average for the whole year from when we start to work, I think the fifth of January, after our Christmas holidays, I believe that is the date up to the date that we quit, taking into consideration the short days - - by that we mean darkness - - that I think that I have averaged without holidays and enforced idleness, I think that I have averaged probably - well I wouldn't know how to get at it, but to the best of my knowledge I will say, gentlemen, that I think that I have averaged about eight hours a day, but you want to understand that in factories where sometimes they light up as we call it - sometimes they do not - - and these dark days you have to go out anywheres from four o'clock down, sometimes five, sometimes four, but in that time I think it has been about eight hours that I have averaged.

BY MR. DOWNEY:

Q. What we want to know is what time do you go to work in the morning when business is good? A. When I go to work?

Q. The shop as a rule? A. I am usually in the shop at least five minutes to seven, unless I have sickness at home, but on the average it is never later than quarter after six if I go into the factory at all.

Q. And you quit at twelve? A. I quit about five minutes to twelve and start ten minutes to one and quit about ten minutes to six in rushing normal times.

BY MR. ROGERS:

Q. That is five days a week? A. Five days a week.

Q. How about Saturday? A. Saturday mornings I am there the same time but I may quit at eleven that morning in order to go to the barber shop and take a bath and all of that business.

BY MR. DOWNEY:

Q. You made a statement in your testimony that when you met the employers the committee representing the manufacturers what other reason did they give you than conditions did not warrant it; is that the only reason they advanced? A. I haven't it all down in detail, but they mentioned that on account of the European war and the trade conditions in the country and they quoted a mass of figures which we could not dispute or confirm, in regard to importation of leather and gloves, and they mentioned the war in particular, that the stock exchange being close, made money tight and business uncertain, and that is about the drift of their argument. Where they told us that they felt that we were justified in asking for an increase in wages, one of the gentlemen on that board put it more plainly that there would be work, and he says why don't you men go back to work and there will be plenty and ample work for three or four months at a fair wage, and I asked him this question - - "what then?" He said that was problematical. I said then for one if there is going to be plenty and ample work for three or four months I would rather make my demand now while we had the three or four months work than wait until the three or four months work was done and then not get it, where now we might have a chance to get it. That was at the first meeting. I believe it was Mr. Littauer that made that remark. At the second meeting they practically told us the same arguments, that on account of trade conditions and when we had proposed as a compromise offer to give them practically five weeks to fill any legitimate orders they felt so disposed before the raise, if any, was to start, they practically told us then that they had very little new business on their books, which perhaps was right. I can't dispute it, but the indications were to us and are still that Fulton County has no reason in the world whatever that we are not the busiest little towns in New York state.

BY MR. ROGERS:

Q. Do you think of anything further that you would like to inform the board about at this time. We will be glad to give you an opportunity to testify again if anything occurs to you?

A. If anything further occurs I will be glad to. I was speaking why I am out, and that is what you asked me, and the mass of men are out practically on the same conditions, because it seemed it was the thought of every man doing the two styles of cutting that this was psychological moment to ask for an increase, and I have looked at it from all phases, I can assure you, and I believe that every other man has thought of it too. In this industry here it seems we do not strike every five minutes over nothing. It has been 17 years since we have an increase worth mentioning, outside of those two cents and then the five cents off, and now it seems that we have not been out on a strike only as I say in 1903 and 1904 and then went out practically on an open-shop strike. Then we were all in the union, perhaps 98 percent of us were, and we were out six months and loss on that phase. We have not been out on a wage strike, for more wages, since 1897.

Q. You spoke about last year working on an hourly rate, so much an hour? A. Yes.

Q. Are most of the men employed by the piece or by the hour? A. 99 percent I am pretty sure employed by the piece, I believe. In our factory I was the only one that was working by the day outside of the foreman and the regular day help. By day help I mean slitters, trimmers, and that kind, but of glove cutters I was the only one outside of the foreman for a long time. Then they put on one more and his duties were to cut samples, that is do tranks or odd gloves, what we call sample gloves, men who have deformed hands. They do not really want to shove it onto a man working by the dozen. I was hired to repair stuff that came off the road, that needed new parts, or to fix up anything that had gone wrong after it had left the cutter and been made up, because accidents happen in the making where they run off or cut it and there I have to cut new parts, and while I was not doing that I was cutting out everything, I was cutting regular work, poor work that was assorted out on purpose because on the tickets are marked "D" meaning day work. I was doing everything that happen to come along, little splashes of here and there, and in that time I figured out, Mr. Rogers - I haven't got it here, but in that time I cut I think about $400 worth of gloves. If I had been getting paid by the dozen for that at the regular rate of 95 cents and 90 cents I would have had about $400 in money, but I had those other hours. I received that year in wages, through lost time, not on my own account but enforced idleness - I think I had $742.00. So in our trade we have it on a schedule that if you have one pair or a single pair it shall be paid for at the rate of 15 cents, but I put all of this down in my book at the rate of 95 cents in order to give myself a fair idea of whether I was making money or losing money by working by the day, and I discovered that I was making money and I tried to get the job this year but could not.

MR. McMANUS: Now the demand was for an increase of 25 cents per dozen all around on mens gloves?

THE WITNESS: Mens and boys gloves.

BY MR. McMANUS:

Q. Table cutting? A. And pull down cutting.

Q. What is the price paid for table cutting? A. Imported or domestic kid and suede we get ninety cents, and in pull down cutting, "A" class cutting 70 cents, 20 cents difference. There are four or five styles of leather here. All mocho or mocho reindeer or friezed lamb of sheep origin cutting less than a pair of gloves may be included per dozen $1.00 per dozen, and there is only one style of cutting, mochos, pull down cutting, according to the schedule of the manufacturers association, and that was 80 cents. Craven tan, nappa, or dipped lamb or sheep 95 cents. Craven tan where lined ten cents more at $1.05. Kid and suede mochos and Craven tan, nappa or dipped lamb or sheep 95 cents - a table cutter gets 95 cents. The pull down cutter gets 75 cents.

Q. Now that shows a greater percentage of increase demanded in wages between those two operations. For instances for 25 cents increase for the 75 cent operation is a greater increase than the other; will you explain why that is; whether it is intended to equalize anything?

A. Now the reason why I have for one stuck for an equal increase in wages between the two kinds of cutters is this; now my argument may be all wrong, I don't know, but the manufacturer himself made the difference between the pull down cutter of the "A" class. He was the one who inaugurated the "A", "B" and "C" classes, we didn't, and he made the difference in price between a table cutter and an "A" class pull down cutter twenty cents. He made that himself 17 years ago, practically, and we have thought that if some of those pull down cutters, and there are many of them that have cut gloves in that same 17 years - haven't they in God's name become proficient to cut gloves when a 17 year practical experience, so that instead of being dragged further apart from the style of table cutting and pull down cutting, didn't it stand to reason they should be drawn nearer together. We can understand on the other grade, perhaps on the 55 cent cutter, he is a man who is practically learning pull down cutting and he learns it in a short space of time, I wouldn't want to say how short because I don't know, and for that reason, between the two classes of "A" class cutting - here is the definition of the manufacturer - of the American "A" class cutting and every table cutter would recognize it as practically the same thing. The following is required of "A" class cutting; lined, unlined and silk-lined. There are three lines of gloves we cut as a table cutter. Tranks accurately measured crosswise or lengthwise if fault should make it necessary. Now that is practically how the table cutter cuts gloves, lengthwise or crosswise or sidewise or catecornered. That is "A" class cutting. And here are the thumbs on that "A" class. Thumb tranks accurately measured and sputtered, numbers, size, and punched or not as required. "The "B" class cutting consists of tranks measured and sputtered; comes not measured but so worked that they will be in due proportion to the size of the glove, numbered, sized or punch or not as required. "C" class cutting calls for same trank measurement but not as careful workmanship as class "B", number not or sized as required, tranks not sputtered, thumbs not measured, friezed and punched as required, so it leaves it to the judgement of the foreman whether or not the man has been careful enough in his workmanship to be called a "B" class cutter or "C" class cutter, and up to that time in these years we have not had any opportunity to say whether we liked it or didn't like it. The fact remains that we did not strike for an alteration of the schedule in that time to my knowledge, and I have been here and I have been working.

BY MR. DOWNEY:

Q. How many dozen of gloves can you cut in a day?

A. Well that would be problematical because there are different styles of cutting, different styles of gloves, but I should think that I would average as my pay shows, cutting at the rate of $1.00 a dozen, I cut mochos that I cut between as you have heard here, between 11 and 18 dozen a week. Mine has been mostly mochos this last year and that is a dollar a dozen.

Q. If you are working on a cheaper grade of glove you cut more of them? A. When I cut on a glove that is supposed to sell for $9.50 of course you realize that the skins are bought for that style of glove, and I do not make as much money as when I cut gloves out of skins that are supposed to sell for $13.50, because there are faults there, and almost every conscientious cutter tries to maneuver those faults so that they will come out, and on the cheaper grade of skins I do not make as much money, but mochos, being practically a mocho cutter, where the skins are rougher or are smoother, the fact remains that they are about all the same shape and that is not any one particular shape. In the milling of them there are bad spots that fall out in the drumming or the workmanship of the finished stock. The nap on them is more or less smooth, but we can not control its imperfections. There may be a callous or scratch, where the animal has scratched itself, or a crack or a break or a hole. That is what we call faults or imperfections. As to the nap on a skin we can not control that. There is no way of getting away from a rough nap. Only in the belly or legs sometimes they run very rough and in a soudan skin we are cautioned not to put that rough leather in unless we cut on a cheaper grade of glove and then almost any kind of skin will do. As for pull down cutting I know nothing at all about it.

H E R M A N J. A B B O T T, called and sworn as a witness, testifies as follows:

EXAMINED BY MR. ROGERS:

Q. Where do you live? A. 21 Lexington Avenue.

Q. Are you a glove cutter? A. I am glove cutter.

Q. How long have you been engaged in that business? A. 16 years.

Q. What factories have you been employed in during that length of time? A. Well I must say first Mr. Rogers that I have only been ten years resident in this city. I learned my trade in a city outside of this county, but during my ten years residence in Gloversville I have been employed by the Louis Meyers firm, the Dempster and Place Co., the Fernandez Company and the Charley Rose Co.

Q. Where were you employed just before the strike?

A. In the Charley Rose Co.

Q. How long had you worked for them up to that time?

A. About three years.

Q. Are you a table cutter? A. I am.

Q. Are you a member of the Conference Committee of the strikers? A. I am.

Q. I wish you would make us a general statement in your own words in regard to the cause which lead up to this strike and the work of your conference committee since the strike has been called? A. Well I will say for the past five years there has been a sort of revolt amongst the cutters, due to the exactions of the taxation system, and while that taxation system has been pressing upon us we have learned a good deal that has caused us to believe that it was unjust from our standpoint. For instance I worked in a firm, a large firm in this city, and I know for a fact that when the sorter put up one batch of skins and said they would cut sixty pairs, and that is what he expected the cutter to get from them, that a manager above his head would come along and rub out the 60 pairs and put down 63, and the cutter who was unfortunate enough to get that batch to cut, it kept him worrying from one and a half to three days looking for that extra three pairs that was not there, and it has made men so nervous that they have left their shops in the afternoon and walked the streets to recover their equilibrium, to keep from getting mad as we might say, and that is one of the things that is of the underlying causes that resulted in this demand this ultimate strike. Then on the other hand in times when we have had very little work to perform we have been oppressed to the extent that the foreman have been sent into the shops to tell the men that if they did not accomplish work that was formerly paid at a dollar a dozen for ninety-five cents, they know what they can do - that is go out into the street if you don't like it, and with no chance to defend himself, being for the last ten years a great unorganized mass of table cutters in this county. That is another incident that is one of the underlying causes. Now, in the Charley Rose Company - I have moved around for the past seven or eight years with the idea that I could get out of one shop where there was oppression and enter another shop where there was not so much oppression, but I found as a general rule the same old system existed, and it does not matter. You can quit one boss because you do not like his system and hire out to another only to find the same old system exists. That is, oppression that causes discontent among the glove cutters of the county.

Just before the mass meeting that was called by a little body of men about August 17th or 18th I had little idea that there would be anything like a strike devolve out of the mass meeting. I attended the mass meeting and I couldn't see that this old spirit of discontent that has been worked up in the past years was going to burst forth into something. Just form it would take I do not know, but some of the men got up at that meeting and they moved that we demand 25 cents for mens and boys and 20 cents for ladies and they stated we will give them 4 hours to reply. Now that may have seemed despotic on our part but as a matter of fact we have learned a good deal since then. In the past 17 years we have asked many times before elections, after elections, in high tariff, in low tariff times, for an increase, and we have always been told that the time was inopportune and so at this meeting, this particular meeting, the men said we will pay 48 hours, gentlemen, Mr. Manufacturer, and you answer our question, are you going to take notice of us this time or not, or are you going to still ignore us as you have done in the past. I for one at that time doubted whether or not there would be any solidarity among the workers in making this demand, but any way the optimistic of the cutters had their way and a motion was carried that we meet on the Thursday morning during working hours at nine o'clock in the Concordia Hall. I attended that meeting with possibly 700 cutters of both styles and I for one was very pleased with the response of 700 men, and then and there at that meeting there were men who wanted to strike right away because there had been no answer in 48 hours and the most conservative amongst us said no, give them 24 hours further, let us be fair about it and we were. In the 24 hours from our side of the question we had gotten the rest of our comrades out of the shops to meet with us on Friday morning at nine o'clock, and I believe on Friday morning at nine o'clock that all the table cutters or 98 percent left their benches and returned to Concordia Hall and there we heard the communication read from Mr. Littauer that he would meet a committee five picked from the floor. I had no idea that I would be one of that conference committee to be picked but I was picked and I thought it justice to my fellow men that I should stick to the job and I have done so up to now. We got into communication with the manufacturers and we met them that afternoon and I wish to say that in all our conferences this committee has learned something at every point which has given us faith to believe that we were going to have an increase and that we justly deserved an increase. For instance, it was stated at that conference meeting that two years ago the manufacturers association in their assembly discussed the opening up of the wage schedule and in this discussion there was a big minority who said that we ought to give the cutters a ten percent raise, and one of the members of that same minority told me, and he admitted that, they undered and depressed the industry when they did not voluntarily grant the cutters the ten percent raise two years ago. From that time on I was led to believe it was not a question of whether the manufacturer could afford to give us an increase but simply a question of whether he will do it or whether he absolutely won't give us an increase. The question of whether he was able to or not from that time on was dropped as far as I was concerned. Furthermore, they told us that if you boys will go back to work and work a little harder and be very diligent on the work you have to do when the time is opportune that we will take up the wage question and consider it. Well, gentlemen, I must confess that we have been fools for 17 years and we did not feel like taking the chance of being fooled again and now we retired from that meeting to the Concordia Hall where we reported to the general committee of strikers and at the meeting next morning we gave a full report of that conference and then it was moved to strike, but others said no, not now, let the conference committee go out into the county and interview individual manufacturers who are not members of the Association and hear what they have to say, and furthermore try to get another conference if the manufacturers association permitted. We did so. The result of that was we went out and we got one firm, it was small - we got them to sign in our favor granting us a twenty five percent increase on our full term. Naturally we were encouraged. Then we saw many other employers and manufacturers who told us that we ought to have an increase, we were entitled to it, but they did not like to individually grant us this increase until the other manufacturers did. In other words they put us in the position of believing they were all waiting for one another, but that they did not like to take the initiative. Then on Monday we got another conference with the Manufacturers Association Committee where we put up this compromise that on October first, 1914, if an increase is granted to us, the men will resume work and we would work at the old price on the old orders up to October first, and from then on we expected an increase, and they said well it was very fair of us, very courteous of us, to think that way, to put that proposition, but they could not absolutely see their way clear to entertain the proposition. Now in the meantime we had heard from very reliable sources that some employers were getting increases on their goods anywhere from two and one half to three and one half.

Q. What do you mean by that? A. I mean that on orders they were shipping out at that time they were getting an advanced price of $2.50 per dozen over their old size price. Two years ago they paid ten percent extra cutters under the old existing sale price and if a manufacturer was going to get more - an advanced price - naturally now we ought to be entitled to a part of that advanced profit of his, and with that idea in view we have gone along now six weeks. Well on Tuesday morning, - I will admit this gentlemen - that Monday night after our second conference with the Manufacturers Association - the majority of this conference sat up all night and they did not sleep very much because they realized the very great responsibility of carrying on 1400 men to strike, when there was no organization to strike, no money back of us, and only misery ahead, and that was the only thing we have had to do. We have had to face misery and hardship and we hoped that our sacrifice would be rewarded with an increase in the near future, and at the Darling Theatre meeting on Tuesday, August 25th, it fell to my lot to be the first speaker to say that from the facts and arguments that we had in hand we believed that the only thing left for us to do was to call a strike, and there when the vote was called for there was not one dissenting voice. Naturally, we saw the solidarity we were encouraging and the fight as a strike began and industrial peace ended.

MR. DOWNEY: How many were at that meeting?

THE WITNESS: 1400 men. The exact number that we figured then on the strike, 250 men from Johnstown that morning with all the Gloversville cutters and from that time on we established a solidarity which has been wonderful to the extreme and it has lasted up to this present moment.

BY MR. ROGERS:

Q. Roughly speaking about how many of the cutters involved in this sort of work did not go out on a strike?

A. I said there were about 1400 men who responded to our call for a strike. There has been from the very first about 190 cutters in Johnstown and Gloversville who have remained at their benches, so that you see that with practically 200 remaining at work, 1400 left the benches with no organization to call on them or bind them.

Q. Up to the present date how many in the 1400 have gone back to work without any advance in wages? A. As near as we can gather there has been about 25 to 30 men gone back, as the term is generally used strike breakers or traitors to the great mass.

Q. How many have gone back to work with the approval of the strike committee, at an advance in wages? A. 200.

Q. And what advance is that at present? A. There were about ninety men who returned to their benches at the full advance, and last Thursday or Saturday 70 men returned to the benches at the shop of Fownes Brothers at an advance of ten flat, and on Monday morning of this week, some 35 of the men returned to their benches at the Hallock and Stewart Glove shop at an advance of fifteen cents for both styles of cutting.

Q. But that action was taken with sanction and approval of the Conference Committee?

A. It was.

Q. How did that effect the man who had previously gone back to work with the approval of the committee at the full demand? A. In cases where the manufacturers have applied for information as to where they stand the Conference Committee has said you can revert to our compromise of 15 cents, and working under the same basis as the Fownes and Hallock and Stewart Companies.

Q. In other words at this late date you have practically reduced your stand to a flat 15 cents advance? A. We have compromised from the 25 cent basis to a 15 cent basis as being the lowest minimum compromise we can accept.

Q. Will you explain to us there was a difference made in your original demand between the mens and ladies gloves? A. There was a difference made, it is true, I believe - - I was not the man who put the motion - but I think the idea in the minds of the men was this: that it was a little easier for a man to make money enough on ladies gloves than the heavy mens gloves and possibly he took the tariff into consideration. That will be brought out I believe Mr. Rogers as the investigation proceeds.

Q. Will you explain to us in your own language so that we can understand the difference between table cutting and the pull down cutting? A. The table cutter is supposed and it is as a rule given, one who has served an apprenticeship of from three to five years to learn that skilled trade. A pull down cutter as far as I can gather is not requested to put in three years apprenticeship, possibly an apprenticeship of several months, he is not required to do quite as exacting work, or that was the intention on that style of work, when it was introduced into the trade - he was not required to do expert work of the table cutter, but I will admit that in the last ten years he has been expected to do almost as much as a table cutter. He has been or there has been exacted from him just as much as the average table cutter and when the manufacturer sells gloves he has cut, produced by the pull down cutters, he has got the same sale price at the glove counter for pull down cut gloves as he has for the table cutters gloves. Now that showed clearly according to their own schedule that on every pull down cutter of class "A" in this county the manufacturer has made twenty cents a dozen profit on the pull down cutter and above the table cutter and that is the reason we say here he is entitled to fifteen cents a dozen extra as well as the table cutter and not 15 percent extra per dozen.

BY MR. DOWNEY:

Q. You mentioned that we might hear later about the tariff on these ladies gloves; what did you mean by that; what effect has that on the price? A. To tell you the truth I am not perfectly conversant with the tariff rate but I will leave that to someone better informed to bring that out.

Q. There are some other workers better informed on that? A. Some, some members of the Conference Committee.

BY MR. ROGERS:

Q. Tell us about your own earnings and how much have you made by the week each year and how does that compare with your earnings since you have been in the industry? A. Gentlemen I will state that only this noon, between twelve and one, I sat down and figured out my earnings for the 52 weeks previous to this strike being called and that average amounted to $14.70. The man who works on my right hand, his average I found for 52 weeks previous to this strike was $13.60. The man who works on my left hand I found that his average for 52 weeks was $12.75.

Q. What is the name of the man who works on your right?

A. Mr. Harry Davis, table cutter.

Q. And the one on your left? A. Mr. Edward Yates, table cutter.

BY MR. DOWNEY:

Q. You say Mr. Abbott, yours is fourteen dollars and what? A. $14.70.

BY MR. ROGERS:

Q. In getting that average does it include a zero for any week that you are entirely idle?

A. To make myself perfectly clear I cover the weeks when I was in enforced idleness, but I would say in fairness that there were only two weeks during that 52 that I was idle. The other weeks I worked steadily nine and a half hours a day as an average. There are some mornings when I go to the shop at seven o'clock and work steadily along until six and there are other mornings when I would not go to the shop to possibly a quarter of eight and then I worked steadily along until six. They always have to kick me out at six o'clock.

Q. What grade of work are you engaged on? A. What is known as the cape skin.

Q. What does that pay by the dozen? A. 95 cents per dozen.

Q. How much have you ever been able to make in a week where the day light was good throughout the full number of hours that you could work and when the skins were not especially hard to work with, a good fair full week without difficulty? A. A good fair working week without difficulty I could make $16.50. If I had poor work that would be offset for the week somewheres around $11.50.

Q. You say during this year just passed you have encountered enforced idleness of about two weeks? A. Two weeks.

Q. How does that compare with ordinary years in your experience? A. That compares very favorably. I should say that that is a very fair estimate of my every years work.

Q. 50 weeks out of the year? A. Yes, sir. I wish to say that eight years ago, or rather the first four years I worked in this city, never for one moment during these four years did I work by artificial light and I found that I made as much or more money in that four years as I have made in the last four years working by artificial light which goes to prove that exactions and conditions have made it so that I have had to work more hours for the same wage.

Q. Have you any other statement you think of making tonight? A. Just now there is one statement I wish to make, that the increase referred to by my comrade Ehrlich, given by the manufacturers in January 1910, has since this controversy began, been declared to have been an insult to any intelligent body of working men, that that increase of two cents a dozen, that meant 25 cents a week on a man and that was an insult to any intelligent working man. That is a statement a manufacturer made to me. Then I have grown discontented with my lot as a table cutter and that was one of the reasons possibly I voted to strike as I found that my average wage did not come up a skilled working man, as a skilled glove cutter did not come up to the average wage of the unskilled street sweeper in the up to date municipality, and so I became discontented with my lot and I thought it was clearly time I had an increase, and I still think so and I am still fighting for it.

Q. Have you any family? A. I have one child, and to pay my way it is necessary at times for my wife to become a co-glove worker, which I strongly object to.

BY MR. DOWNEY:

Q. Your wife does work at the glove industry too?

A. Yes, sir.

BY MR. ROGERS:

Q. Is that pretty generally true among the glove cutters? A. That is true to a greater extent with the majority of cutters than it is in my case. I mean that where a man has four or five children his wife besides attending to those four or five children and preparing them for school has to work harder and longer hours on gloves at home than my wife with one child would be forced to do. And the statement made by a manufacturer, by a manager of one of the largest firms of this county within the past seven days was to this effect, that when I think of the average wage the cutters in Fulton county are making it makes me wonder what they would do if their wives did not work on gloves. Now we would be in simply a hopeless plight if we could not command our wife or get them to work on gloves to help pay our honest debts. Mr. Littauer made a statement in the conference with the committee, "boys you have no money, you can't go on a strike." He told us in other words that we were poverty stricken and whether we liked it or not we had to sit and listen to it. We say Mr. Littauer because we have no money it is the very reason we feel we ought to strike to get more money. We deserve it and you said so and you as the President of the Manufacturer's Association ought to see that we get it.

MR. ROGERS: We will be very glad to recall you if you think of any further information for us.

G E O R G E M A N S E L L, called and sworn as a witness, testifies as follows:

EXAMINED BY MR. ROGERS:

Q. Your full name is what? A. George Mansell.

Q. You live in Johnstown? A. Yes sir.

Q. What is your street address? A. 10 Main.

Q. You are a glove cutter, table cutter? A. Yes, table cutter.

Q. How long have you been engaged in that trade? A. Started in to learn in 1889 up to the present time, 25 years.

Q. How much of that time have you been employed in Johnstown? A. Since 1899, fifteen years.

Q. Where have you worked in that time, for what manufacturers? A. Principally Northrups and Hallocks and Stewart. The others are immaterial.

Q. Where were you working at the time of the strike? A. Hallocks & Stewarts.

Q. How long did you work for them? A. About three years, approximately three years.

Q. Can you give us any definite statement as to the wages you have been able to earn since you have been in Johnstown, making it a general statement if you like, since you have been in Johnstown? A. I never kept very much track of my wages, but I think within the last ten years, may be I have earned six thousand dollars, not any more. I would be very much surprised if it were six thousand five hundred dollars.

Q. Six hundred dollars a year on the average? A. I should think that would be a very fair average for the last ten years.

Q. Do you know how much you have earned this last year? A. Yes I should think I have earned $720.00 easy in the last year.

Q. How do you account for that increase in the last year above the average? A. Well I am working for a good shop. The shop up there is better than the average shop. The kind of skins we get are better and we have more than schedule prices paid to us. I am working on good conditions comparatively.

Q. What sort of gloves are you working on? A. Cape.

Q. And what price per dozen? A. At the present time?

Q. Up to the time of the strike? A. 95 cents up to the time of the strike.

Q. Is this job where you are working one of those which has recently settled with the strikers? A. It is.

Q. And what change has been made in the price in your particular line? A. 15 cents.

Q. So that 95 cents price is now a dollar ten? A. Yes, sir.

Q. How many dozen can you cut in a week? A. I do not think that I have ever cut more than twenty dozen, but on an average you can get the idea from what I say with regard to my average earnings. I do not believe I ever cut more than twenty dozen gloves although I may, I could not say. I did not keep very close track. We have a system there where they give you a card with what you have done and at the end of the week they bring you the same card and they pay you so that there is no inducement to keep any special track of your work from week to week. They do it for you and there is no danger of complication during the week when you get paid every week, so that there is really no necessity.

Q. During this past year has the work always been there for you if you wanted to cut 20 dozen? A. The past year?

Q. Yes? A. Yes it has been practically - it has been a good steady job.

Q. A good busy year has it? A. Yes.

Q. You were not idle through lack of employment during any time of the last year? A. No.

Q. Was the place closed down for vacation or otherwise? A. Well we closed down Christmas but we are so used to that that we do not think of it.

Q. How many weeks do you figure on in a year? A. About a month altogether.

Q. That is you work about 48 weeks? A. Yes, work about 48 weeks. It all depends. Sometimes in a good year you will work fifty weeks, but every year you can depend upon having some kind of lay off.

BY MR. DOWNEY:

Q. Your employer has granted a fifteen percent increase to you? A. Yes, sir.

Q. When did that take effect, this week? A. It did, yesterday morning.

Q. Was you on the committee to settle with the employer? A. No, I will tell you. The employer came down to see me in company with one of his men to tell me that he did not want to see me. Now I am giving it to you the same as he gave it to me, and I told him I did not want to see him any more than he wanted to see me, but here was one of his own men, if he wanted to make an agreement with his own men for his shop go ahead and do it. We are not looking for any bound agreements or anything of that kind, we were perfectly satisfied to take a verbal contract with him in the presence of witnesses and he could settle with his own men which he did. Now he settled through this man for the shop, which was perfectly satisfactory to every one.

Q. You have resumed work yourself have you? A. Yes, sir.

Q. Have you any other statement you would like to make in regard to the causes of this strike? A. Yes, I have quite a little, but I would not wish to take the time of the Board to make them, but there are some things I would like to state and it is this: Johnstown was something of an added started in this fight. The strike was decided in Gloversville and Johnstown was called upon to assist in that way although they were considered in others. Principally the strike was called in Gloversville and it was ratified in Johnstown in the afternoon. Now the conditions in Johnstown, as I understand them on reliable testimony over the conditions in Gloversville - - the conditions in Johnstown are good comparatively to the conditions in Gloversville. The stories that we heard from our fellow glove workers from Gloversville, especially in some shops, for instance Meyers shop - we were told stories that occurred in Meyers shop that were blood curdling to us in Johnstown with regard to the fine system and with regard to the number of days they worked and all kinds of conditions, that I have every reason to believe were existing, which caused us in Johnstown to drop our tools, although we were not laboring under the same conditions. We were laboring under the same wage schedule but not under the same shop conditions. For instance in the Summer we have lots of air, lots of light, lots of rooms, everything is frequently cleaned. I understand in Gloversville there are some places not fit for a pig to live in. Now I am giving this testimony which I believe will be substantiated a little later on. I am perfectly satisfied it can be substantiated. We in Johnstown dropped our tools because we considered it was perfectly right that we should. Another thing is this, that having put in five years or approximately five years to learn a skilled trade I think I am entitled to a decent wage, which I do not consider $6,000 in ten years to be a decent wage. I think it is a miserable starvation wage for a skilled worker and this trade is for a skilled worker. It is not any little Jakey Smith job that anybody could accomplish in five years. You don't see the strike breakers in here. They haven't any strike breakers. I want you to notice that and the reason is they can not get strike breakers. A man has to understand his business otherwise he would do more harm than good. Now I worked in a place in England where they required a boy to go through five years of apprenticeship and after five years they dolled him out twelve dollars a week. Now that did not appeal to me and when these boys said to strike I struck with them, and yet my conditions, comparatively, with their, were good and I want to point out particularly that notwithstanding those conditions that is one of the men who has already paid the increase. I wish to emphasize that point.

Q. You spoke of the ours; what hours do you work? A. Personally?

Q. Yes? A. I guess about 8 and one half hours a day, something like that.

Q. And on Saturdays? A. Not very ambitious on a Saturday morning. I generally work about three hours. It is hereditary. Over on the other side we do not work Saturday mornings. I don't feel like it and I don't.

Q. How much of a family have you? A. I have a wife and that is all.

MR. ROGERS: We will adjourn now until ten o'clock tomorrow morning. The witnesses whom we have requested to be present this afternoon who have not yet been heard will kindly be present tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. In view of the large attendance we will then make arrangements for different accommodations.

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ADJOURNED UNTIL OCTOBER 7TH, AT 10:00 A.M.


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