Hemingray advertised for non-union help and got applications for twice as many positions as available

SOME INSIDE TALK.

What Two Manufacturers Say About Flint

Glass Troubles.

The flint glass manufacturers seem to care very little whether or not any settlement of the trouble is reached, and the feeling among many of them is that no settlement will be effected. One manufacturer is quoted by the Pittsburg Dispatch of yesterday as follows.

"At our meeting on Tuesday the Association heard the report of their committee and approved it, stating only that the latter had made concessions beyond their instructions when, in the conference, they agreed to drop rule 2. But the Association would have sustained the action of the committee in that, if by that means a settlement could have been made. We had thought, and so understood the workers' representatives, that rule 2 was all the obstacle there was in the way of settlement, and if the dropping of that were conceeded, the strike would end; but when our committee had agreed to wipe out rule 2, the rules 1 and 9 must be modified and rule 7 was objected to. It was just as if the workmen would say, "We will furnish the rules and run your factory by them and you need have nothing to say." Well, manufacturers will no more submit to be ignored in such a manner than will the workmen. It is too late for spring trade and too dull this season anyway for us to make a start profitably, and we do not care if the factories do not start before fall. Our committee has made every concession it could make, including the objectionable rule 2, which was the only one talked of, and I do not see how they can do anything more toward bringing about a settlement."

In the course of a conversation another well-known manufacturer said:

"I can't tell whether there will be a settlement or not; the matter has been referred back to our committee again; but I do not see what more they can do. The flint glass workers have fared very well, I think, amid the changes in the glass business. They used to get $2 per turn for making goblets, for which we got $1.50 per dozen. To-day they get from $2.10 to $2.20 per turn for the same grade of goblets, while we can only sell them for 35 cents per dozen. The only difference to the workers is that they now make 700 to a turn where they used to make from 550 to 600, but the improvements in molds, presses and the cool air apparatus enables them to make 700 at a turn with as much ease as they formerly would turn out 550. I venture to say that if one of the men should be told to make 550 at a turn with the old molds, presses and cool air methods, or 700 by the improved methods, as he pleased, he would choose to take the 700 at a turn. While we may not start up before fall, it is a mistake to suppose no men can be had with whom to make a start.

"The Hemingray Glass Company of Covington, Ky., advertised a short time ago for non-union men to work in their factory, and they got enough men to start and went to work last Monday. They received applications from twice as many men as they needed and the most of them were first-rate looking men too. There has been a good deal of talk about natural gas booming industry, but it is likely to hurt our business and other manufacturing interests by bringing too many into the field. Why, out in Fostoria and other places they will offer a firm a plant of five acres for nothing, $10,000 in capital and free gas as an inducement to locate a manufacturing establishment in the place.

"The result is that many avail themselves of the offer, and the business becomes over crowded. I know one man who was offered $7,000, three acres of ground and free gas to establish a glass factory in a small town. He embraced the offer and mortgaged the plant and "skipped out" with $5,000, leaving his partners, silent ones, in the lurch. Natural gas may prove to be as great an evil as benefit to manufacturers.