‘The Brooklyn Car Strike’ by Elias Tobenkin from The International Socialist Review. Vol. 12 No. 3. September, 1911.

A MOST spectacular labor struggle is now simmering out in New York City. A street railroad, by itself extremely small, but backed by the unlimited resources of Wall street, is crushing the revolt of its employes with an iron heel.

The strike that is thus being smothered is that of 350 motormen and conductors of the Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad Company, which came with lightning suddenness at 4 a.m. Saturday, August 5.

The strike of motormen and conductors is interesting in more ways than one. In the first place, it is a sincere strike, a spontaneous protest against unbearable conditions imposed by a greedy corporation at whose head stands an implacable foe of labor—the president of the Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad, Slaughter W. Huff.

In the second place, the strike is unique in the sympathy and support which it is getting from the public. The strike is practically out of the hands of the motormen now. It is the public that is striking. The companies are running cars manned with strikebreakers, but the public stubbornly refuses to ride in these cars. From the beginning of the strike The New York Call voiced the plea of the motormen and conductors that the public boycott the Coney Island line until the struggle is won, and the plea of the strikers has been heard. At the present writing the public is the real arbiter of the strike. If the boycott by the public of the struck lines keeps up a little longer the Coney Island line, despite its Wall street backing, might be forced to yield to the demands of the employes.

What makes the strike spectacular are the trivial dimensions of the walkout and the triviality of the demands, on the one hand, and the bitterness and vehemence with which these trivial demands are being fought for and against.

The Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad Company is a wee bit of a railroad, operating only four lines, or routes, and employing between 450 and 500 motormen and conductors. It is generally spoken of as an “independent” concern. As a matter of fact, the days of its independence have long since passed and its principal stockholders are powerful Wall street financiers.

Its traditions of “independence” the Coney Island line retains largely through the fact that it is the only street railway in Greater New York whose employes are organized. While the Traction Trust of New York has been successful in crushing out every vestige of organization among street car men, the employes of the Coney Island line have thus far been able to keep up their union. The 350 employes who are now on strike are members of Division 283 of the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employes, while the rest of the employes of the Coney Island line belong to one of the rare divisions of the Knights of Labor.

The strike came after months of negotiations with the company for an increase of 2 cents per hour. The men are now getting 23 cents an hour. They ask for 25 cents an hour. This together with the stipulation that those men not working by the h our but by the run get $2.00 instead of $1.75 a day for a “swing” run are all of the demands of the men and the cause of the bitterly fought strike.

The progress of the strike during the first days was remarkable. It was called at 4 o’clock in the morning. The company, which expected just such a move on the part of its employes, had a fair number of strikebreakers on hand by 7, and began moving cars. The result was that by noon Saturday there were a dozen broken heads, mostly of strikebreakers, and a similar number of shattered cars. The strikebreakers left their cars in the middle of the streets and ran from the fury not of the strikers but of the strike sympathizers, the public.

The rest of the day the strikers were in complete command of the situation. The company was tied hand and foot.

The following day, however, Sunday, the city authorities turned over to the railroad company what is known as the “Strong Arm Squad,” some 35 giant police officers who are employed to do the “rough work” in the police department. These “strong arm” officers, dressed in plain clothes, boarded the cars manned by the strikebreakers in groups of three and four and when the populace attacked a car with bricks or otherwise the officers would jump into the crowd and lay open heads right and left.

Still even with the help of its strong arm men the company was getting the worst of the bargain, and had to stop running cars before nightfall.

Monday, the third day of the strike, the situation changed. Strike sympathizers ceased from molesting cars manned by strikebreakers, but the cars were running without passengers. The public would not trust itself to inexperienced men. The strikebreakers, left alone, began to demonstrate their incapacity by bumping into wagons and endangering the lives of citizens.

In the meantime the streets in the strike zone were cordoned with policemen and no one was allowed on streets or sidewalks except when he was moving at a rapid pace. The headquarters of the strikers in particular were the target of the police surveillance. Officers were stationed near the building and no one was allowed outside of it. One either had to remain in the hall or get away from the building as quickly as possible if a policeman’s club was not to descend upon one’s head or shoulder.

While the police were thus eagerly preserving “law and order” among strikers, law and order was a dead letter as far as strikebreakers were concerned. The strikebreaking conductors and motormen insulted people right and left, used the vilest language on women who were passing them or who perchance stepped upon a car. No strikebreaker, however, was molested by the police.

On Tuesday a committee of strikers visited Mayor Gaynor, asking him to bring about arbitration. Why this move was made, who was responsible for this sudden cringing to a city official for help at a time when the company was badly demoralized and should have been first to ask arbitration, is not clear. It is known, however, the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration put a man on the job to “conciliate” and try to bring about “industrial peace.” At any rate, the conference with Mayor Gaynor ended in nothing, as the company declared that it had “nothing to arbitrate.”

After this conference with Mayor Gaynor the strike was once more allowed to take its own course, and at the time oi this writing the situation is simply this: The company is sending out cars with strikebreakers, but the public is firm. in its boycott. It does not patronize the cars on the struck lines. It is not too much to say, therefore, that at present it is the public that is really conducting the strike and waging a battle with the Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad for the trifling demand of 2 cents an hour increase for its motormen and conductors.

These, in brief, are the salient facts of the strike. But there are interesting sidelights.

In the first place, the strike could have been won and won quickly if there had been unity and solidarity among the employes of the railway company, if “organization quibbles” had not been put above “class interests.” When the 350 motormen and conductors of Coney Island line who are members of the Amalgamated Association of the Street Railway Employes, and who operate three routes of the company, went on strike they expected the 150 other men, who are members of the Knights of Labor, and who operate the fourth route, go out also. Indeed it looked as if the strikers had a promise or an understanding with their fellow employes who belong to the Knights of Labor that they would join them in a strike for an increase of 2 cents an hour.

After several conferences, however, it was announced that the Knights of Labor men would not join the other strikers who are affiliated with the American Federation of Labor because they had an agreement with the company and they could not violate the agreement. The Knights of Labor employes of the Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad Company are exploited just as much as their A.F. L. fellow employes. They, too, are only getting 23 cents an hour. Their class interests are identical. But their trade organizations are different and organization rivalry triumphed over their class interests and common sense and plain duty and loyalty. The same was true with the power men. They, too, were expected to join the strikers. But they, too, kept back for organization reasons. The company, seeing this division in the ranks of its employes, could well afford to say, “we have nothing to arbitrate,” let alone granting demands of the strikers.

Another interesting sidelight is what might be termed the motive of the strike on the employers’ side. It is plain that the Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad Company could not afford at this time of the year, when every car to Coney Island, New York’s great summer resort for the masses, is crowded to the brim, to run empty cars and pay strikebreakers five dollars a day for running these cars, all in order to not increase the wages of its men the trifling sum of 2 cents an hour. The company, it is universally believed, is even going to pay the strikebreakers a bonus of $100 after the strike is over.

It could not do this out of its own treasury. Who is behind the company then? Wall street. Why? To smash the last remnant of organization among street car employes in New York.

While the strikebreakers are shy to talk about it, they see and feel that they are engaged in a fight, not alone against the Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad Company, but against the Traction Trust of New York, to whom the organization of the Coney Island Railroad Employes is a thorn in the flesh.

That Wall street has laid the proper plans for the present strike can be seen from the fact that it placed at the head of the Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad a man whose star achievement is the breaking of strikes. President Slaughter W. Huff, of the Coney Island Railroad, came to his present position after he crushed a strike of street car men in Richmond, Va. His present job, that of president of the “independent” Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad, was given to him as a sort of a reward for services performed and as an incentive to break up the last remnant of an organization among street car employes in New York, those qualified to speak assert.

In the meantime the strike is still simmering and the public keeps up its boycott of the struck street car lines.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v12n03-sep-1911-ISR-gog-Corn.pdf