National Association of Pressed and Blown Tableware

NEW FLINT COMBINATION.

National Association of Pressed and

Blown Tableware Manufacturers.

WILL START IDLE FACTORIES.

The Movement a Great Surprise is the

Tableware Trust.

The new association of independent glass manufacturers, which was formed in this city on Thursday Nov. 16, means that the United States Glass Co., will no longer have control of those branches of the flint trade which it had been the aim of this powerful trust to monopolize. As stated in our last issue, the firms represented at the formation of the association will in future control fully 75 per cent of the product designated as pressed and blown tableware and cognate branches. The new organization was launched under the title of the National Association of Pressed and Blown Tableware Manufacturers. Immediately upon the formation being completed, the following firms signed the membership roll: McKee Bros. & Co., Jeannette; Miller, Duncan & Co., Washington, Pa.; Riverside Glass Co., Wellsburg, W. Va.; Gillinder & Sons, Philadelphia; Model Flint Glass Co., Albany, Ind.; Hemingray Glass Co., Muncie, Ind.; Dazell, Gilmore & Leighton Co., Findlay, O.; Bryce, Higbee & Co., Homestead, Pa.

All the factories in the trade which have been shut down in pursuance of the agreement to aid the United States Glass Co. in its fight against the strike of its workers, will be started at once, giving employment to many thousand men and boys throughout the country, leaving its trust alone in its fight with the workers. After a discussion of the situation it was decided that all the factories now idle should be started at once. These are the Northwood Glass Co's works at Martin's Ferry, O.; Buckeye Glass Co., Martin's Ferry, O.; Duncan, Miller & Co., Washington, Pa.; Rodefer Bros., Bellaire, O.; Crystal Glass Co., Bridgeport, O.; and the Riverside Glass Works, Wellsburg, W. Va.

The following manufacturers attended the meeting: H. Sellers, McKee, D. W. Baird, W. A. Dalzell, Edward Muhleman, James Duncan, Thornton Rodefer, James Gillinder, J. M. Strassburger, and Thos. Evans. Mr. Muhleman was president of the old association, which will now go out of existence. The manufacturers had a long discussion over the points now at issue between them and the workers' union, namely, the rules governing the summer shut-down and the restricted production.

The dealers and jobbers throughout the country will now be able to buy some new and perfectly made ware, instead of being compelled to continue to offer purchasers such job lots of odds and ends as have been accumulating in the ware houses of the manufacturers for years past. The trade has become suffocated with ware of this description and will welcome all new novelties which bear the impress of skilled workmanship and good quality. The competition among dealers in this country is becoming as sharp and espirited as that which will develop in the contest now being waged by the new association against the trust.

The stockholders of the Unites States Glass Co. have been given just cause for the complaints which they have been making against the course now being pursued by the management is expending large sums of money in transporting, keeping, and attempting to educate the men they now have in their different factories. Previous efforts in this line have almost invariably proven a failure, even after a long and persistent effort. Just why Mr. Baggaley is presumptuous enough to believe his efforts in this line will prove an exception, we are unable to see. The people who have money invested in the stock of the trust certainly have a right to question the wisdom of the continued employment of incompetent and unskilled persons at rates for which the former employees worked. The wiseacres at the head of this movement may try to make the disgruntled stockholders believe that a success is being attained by the course now being pursued, but a critical investigation of the methods in vogue and the results obtained will readily disabuse their minds of this fallacy.

There is no doubt that the formation of the new association was an unwelcome announcement to the United States Glass Co., and came to them like a clap of thunder from a clear sky. Yet, in the face of all the facts made public since its inception, one of the officials of the trust is credited with making the nonsensical statement that the move had been made in the interest of he and his friends. How apparently ludicrous this announcement appears when coupled with the fact that all of the large manufacturers represented in the new association have been and are active competitors for the trade now being cultivated by the trust. Those firms which recently severed their connection with the latter organization will be in no hurry to again join with them. Their recent experiences were sufficiently unprofitable and unsatisfactory as to deter them from so soon again surrendering their individuality.

On October 16, President Baggaley made the statement that the stock in the different warehouses of the trust was valued at $650,000. On Tuesday last, November 21, he announced in the daily press that the United States Glass Co. had sold $500,000 worth of the stock on hand. This would leave but $150,000 worth of stock. Let us take Sir. Baggaley's own figures and see what they prove. Deducting the five Sundays which have intervened leaves 30 days. The business of the United States Glass Co. daily this period would average $16,600. A careful estimate of the daily business of the concern from inside sources places the sum at $5,000. This would make the aggregate business for the period named $150,000, leaving a discrepancy of $450,000 to be accounted for by Mr. Baggaley. If we accept the statement of President Baggaley as being correct, it would make the company's annual business $5,000,000, and this estimate is based on the business done during a period which was noted for an almost entire absence of activity in all other lines of trade and extending to almost all parts of the civilized world. Were the phenomenal success which the astute president of the trust assures the public has followed his elevation to the control of that concern to prevail in a period of normal business prosperity, it is safe to say its business would aggregate the enormous sum of about $7,000,000. In the face of all these claims by the management of the United States Glass Co. the stock quotations of the local exchange continue to show a downward tendency, proving conclusively that the public do not believe Mr. Baggaley's statements.

The action of the new association in making active preparation to resume operations in the factories represented, is good news to the locked out flint workers. It will give employment to about 350 additional men who were previously idle, and convert them into contributors to the support of the workers who are struggling to maintain and perpetuate the union's existence.