Life — October 17, 1907 — page 29: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Copyright, 180, by Lave Pratsenrse Commasy, f THE DESERTED VILLAGE The Strike That Won By Ellis O. Jones OHN DOE sat in the elegant mahogany swivel chair of his private office in Wall Street. He was about sixty years old and a man of ex- tensive financial interes His examination of the more important mail, which usually received his first atten- tion cach morning, did not reveal anything which distracted him from considerations which he had brought to the office with him and which he was now pondering upon. Doe had labor troubles on his hands. ‘They were not particularly serious, as la- bor troubles go, but labor troubles did not have to be serious in order to greatly dis- turb Doe's equanimity. He had been an employer of labor for a great many years, and it was a source of intense pride to him that the labor organizations had never been able to make any headway in his establishments. He considered the slightest attempt on the part of his employees to better their condition an unwarranted and despicable attempt to inter- fere with and run his business. It had come to be a mania with him, and he never failed, when engaging a superintendent or other employee, to impress him with the necessity of dealing summarily with the slightest encroachment of labor. ‘Nip it in the bud,” he would say. “T propose to run my business to suit myself first, last and all the time.” And he had, until now. His two chief interests were an immense glass works at Woodbine, N. J., and a large transoceanic steamship company. In the former, he em- ployed nearly two thousand men, women and children. The record of that company showed that not a single fraction of a minute had ever been lost on account of a strike or any similar disturbance, a record he referred to time and time again among his friends with evident gusto. The record of the steamship company had been almost as good until a few days before. Ever since, he had been in a bad humor and had spent as much time in trying to discover upon whom, among his managers, the blame for the strike should properly rest in order to deal summarily with him as he had spent in trying to settle the strike itself. His posi- tion as to the strike itself easily stated. His orders had been emphatic that the company should not give way an inch This story continued on page 466 comicbooks.com