Indiana gas belt glass factories struggling against non union shops

INDIANAPOLIS.

THE glass-factories in the Indiana gas belt are nearly all shut down now, and the glass-workers of the region are making use of their compulsory vacation by furthering the annual agitation of one grievance or another. The Glass-workers' Union is a strong organization in this section, and it must be admitted that up to the present its power has been exercised judiciously and with a view to convince by fair discussion rather than to coerce by drastic measure the employers whose interests are not always, nor even frequently, taken into consideration by the labor element which they employ. Perhaps this is unfair to the labor element which, if left to itself, would in all probability be more content with its lot. But when swayed by demagogues whose aim in life appears to the uninitiated to consist of drawing salaries from workingmen's wages, a slight or even an imaginary grievance is magnified to proportions which call for a strike. The strike is the stock in trade of the demagogue. Unless able to engineer that successfully his occupation would be gone and he would be obliged to do an honest day's work. Hitherto the Glass-workers' Union has kept clear of wild agitation. The men are generally intelligent, and they do not believe in calling a sympathetic strike of blacksmiths for a watchmakers' grievance, but the annual wage-scale has always caused more or less friction between labor and capital, and the long vacation is usually the opportunity for the former to hold its meetings, hear its speakers, adopt its resolutions and send its pronuncements [sic] pronouncements to the former. That is what is being done now and it is to be hoped that the pronunciamento when it comes will be a peace-offering rather than an aggressive challenge which might prove to be a boomerang.

A dozen meetings have been held in various places during the month of June, and a mass-meeting of many thousands invaded Muncie, Sunday the 14th, where they had a grand parade with music and banners and listened afterward to the more or less eloquent periods of "Debs, Gompers, Hayes, Burns and other brilliant speakers" as a local reporter wound up his essay on the occasion. That these meetings have brought some recruits to the ranks of the disaffected or dissatisfied there is no gainsaying but that the effect will be permanent, is altogether another question. When the time comes one can hazard the prediction that the men will have forgotten the bombastic, returned to the practical, and be ready to take their places when fires are lighted and factory wheels begin to turn.

Last summer the Hemingray factory did not close down for the summer, and it will likewise be operated all of this year, but not to the liking of the proprietors does such a situation prevail, while a majority of the men would prefer to enjoy the vacation.

This factory makes flint glass and this line of trade is molested more with non-union-made goods than any other of the glass industries. There are three non-union flint-glass factories where there is not one of any other class in the glass business, and the union manufacturers suffer as a result.

A large number of the non-union manufacturers make the same class of goods, tableware and fancy glass, as is made at Hemingrays' factory. The non-union factories do not close down for the summer season, and their actions are fast forcing the other manufacturers to keep in operation. Before the non-union factories existed the manufacturer could force the consumer or jobber to buy stock ahead to run him through the summer. This necessitated the investment of a great amount of money at prices that might be lower when the time for consuming the ware arrived.

With the non-union factories running, this purchase of stock in advance is not necessary as the dealer can purchase it and send in orders at his pleasure. This is the part that hurts the union men, and they are fast realizing the fact that the competition is becoming so strong that they too must keep the fires blazing during the heated season or lose some big orders. The Hemingray people realized the situation a year ago, and unless the union men can shut off the non-union factories the chances are that every factory in this line of the glass business will be compelled to continue the work the year round. The trade is a very hard one, and it is unfortunate that the blowers cannot rest during the most heated season of the year.

Inventors have been prolific here this season. Among the more recent patents granted to Indiana applicants are one for an extensible bicycle-crank to Sherman Avers of Fountaintown; for a knife-polisher to J. V. Tull, Kokomo; for a revolving rocker to Vincent A. Manuez of Elkhart; for a kitchen cabinet to Peter Pfendoer of Twin Lake, and for an automatic bicycle-lamp to James K. Tomlinson of Terre Haute.

Incendiary fires have become alarmingly frequent in the gas-belt, and the authorities seem to be all at sea in their efforts to hunt up the miscreants. Three such fires occurred in May, all bearing marks of having been the work of the same person. On the night of June 6th, there was another in the large warehouses south of factory No. 1 at Ball Bros. glass-works in Muncie.