Muncie, IND.; News of Local 23, Two tanks are running; Two automatic presses and gatherers are having trouble, they purchased air compressor to help

MUNCIE, IND.

Harvey Hickman.

Once more I will try and let the trade know how things are in this community.

At present there are two tanks running at the Hemingray Glass Co., eight hand shops on No. 4 tank, and three hand shops on No. 1 tank, making a total of eleven hand shops on the two tanks. All of the men are doing fairly good and working steady for this time of the year. We usually lose quite a bit of time in the spring on account of small help, but as we have had negro girls working for us doing the same work that the boys do, it seems like the boys are afraid to lay off very much now for fear the firm will put girls on in their places, as most of the girls are like a fly when it gets on a piece of fly paper — they are stickers.

The two automatic presses and gatherers the firm has in here are like an old worn out flivver — as fast as they get one thing in working order two will get out of order, although some days they get out a fair day's work and others very poor. They run from about 1,800 to 4,500 in 12 hours, and usually get from one-third to three-fourths good, but it looks like they are going to try and make a success out of it as they have just installed a new air-compresser which cost them several thousand dollars to install.

From the way it looks right now I don't think the Hemingray plant will be running much longer. Both of the tanks are just about all in and are in need of repairs; the yard is full of ware, and at present the firm only has a few small orders and nearly all the ware made is being stacked in the yard. So if business does not pick up in the insular [sic] insulator industry pretty soon we will be hunting a new job.

At our lat [sic] last regular meeting the following brothers were nominated as delegates to elect one to represent Local Union No. 23, at the Bellaire, Ohio, convention: Charley McCarthy, Ollie Barth and Harvey Hickman.

Brother Jasper Bechtel, of Star City, Va., came west to see the magic city and some relatives, and while here took a job at the Hemingray Glass Co. gathering insulators. Brother Bechtel has not got in very much time so far on account of sore hands, but says he will be right in line with the rest of the boys when he gets broke in.

For the benefit of some of the old members of Local Union No. 23, I wish to say that it looks like there is going to be as big a boom here as there was when they first struck gas here. The General Motors Co. has bought the Inter-State Automobile Co. out, and the old forty acres, as you know what the old forty acres is. The Motor Co. is contemplating on building several new additions to the Inter-State plant which will take up nearly all of the forty acres, and employ 6,000 men and women, and with the people that the General Motors Co. contemplate bringing here and the annexing of the city suburbs, the newspapers say that the population of Muncie will increase to 70,000. All well and good. We hope it does.

At the last regular meeting of Local Union No. 23, they selected and placed in nomination Brother Harvey H. Harshman, of Dunkirk, Indiana, for fifth vice-president of the Indiana State Federation of Labor. Local 23 believes that if Brother Harshman accepts the nomination and is elected he will make one of the best vice-presidents in the Indiana State Federation of Labor.

By the time this gets to press and in your hands, the Victory War Loan will be in full sway, so if you do your part there will be no dfficulty [sic] difficulty in the country subcribing the full amount of the Victory Loan, and in doing your part you will be doing yourself one of the biggest favors. The secretary of the treasury has announced that the loan will be for four and a half billion dollars, which is a billion and a half less than had been anticipated and that it will bear interest at four and three-quarters per cent. You do not have to be a patriot in oder to see the advantage of owning a Victory bond like this. It is a good investment. You could look the world over and probably not find one so good that contained the same element of security, and if you do not get in on this bond issue you may not be allowed to get in at all, for the government has said that it will not accept oversubscriptions.

The people of this country stand at the parting of the ways. On the one hand is the old pathway of peace and prosperity blazed by our forefathers, upon which we have come so far so well in the achievement of our national destiny; on the other hand is a pathway strewn thick with the debris of centuries of conflict, slippery with the blood of millions who have died in warm based upon racial, national and dynastic rivalries and hatreds of which we know little and for which we care less.

Now that the war is over and the rank and file of organized labor showed the counry [sic] country that they were natriotic all through the war by sticking to their jobs and buying Liberty bonds, and giving to all the other organizations that made appeals for money to help take care of the boys at the front, let us not fall down on the big issue; buy Victory bonds till it hurts.