Comrade-workers in Buffalo refuse, even at the point of a gun, to ferry scabs and their militia protectors on the streetcar lines to break a strike at the nearby Gould Coupling Co., though the railroad ‘brotherhoods’ complied.

‘Carmen Refuse to Haul Scabs’ from Buffalo Socialist. Vol. 2 No. 95. March 28, 1914.

MILITIAMEN FORCE MOTORMEN TO RUN CAR AT POINT OF GUN

Street Car Men Stop Work Rather than Haul Strike-breaking Militia to Depew 80 Men Quit.

The street car men have refused to take the militia to the Gould Coupler Company. 80 men quit their cars rather than scab on their brother workers in the Gould plant. The militia were taken to the railroad station on cars run by the inspectors of the Company, and one motorman was forced to handle the levers at the point of a gun.

The trouble started about one o’clock yesterday morning when the men at the Cold Spring barn were ordered to move cars to the 74th armory to take a big crowd home from a dance being held by the regiment. When the men found that instead of taking dancers home they were to carry militiamen to the Gould plant they struck, on advice of the barn committeeman, Frank Riley, who had been routed out of bed to pass on the situation. He also consulted Clarence Conroy, business agent for the carmen who advised the men not to take cars out as the agreement with the company specifies clearly that the men are not to be compelled to work overtime or to carry any baggage on the cars. Both of these points were violated by the men in charge of the militia.

Riley also visited the Forest Avenue barns where W. Moran, barn committeeman of that section also advised his men if they had a spark of union blood in their veins, to refuse to carry the uniformed strikebreakers.

The officials of the carmen proceeded to the Armory and ordered the men to quit, which they were glad to do. An officer of the regiment living on Crescent Avenue, who is well known as a brute, stepped up with revolver in hand and said you men are going to drive these cars and we have the medicine to make you. Riley said, Shoot! I would rather die a union man than be a scab. The officers got one of the crews locked up in a car, however. Peter Weir, the motorman, and Ed. Beals, the conductor, were compelled at the point of a gun and under pain of instant death to operate the car. A lot of militiamen learning now for the first time what their uniform and name meant, did not want to get on the car, but they also got a taste of the “iron fist.”

Several times on the way to the station the car stopped and the tin soldier got busy with his gun calling the motorman vile names and threatening to shoot. He said finally you son of a–, if this car stops again before we reach the depot I will blow your brains out. When this uniformed thug offered to pay the fare of the men, Beals refused to accept it, and would not put the trolley back on the wire when it came off in spite of all threats.

Other cars were driven by scab inspectors and by soldiers which is against the law. Car No. 6204 was driven by a militiaman. The union officials, President Frank O’Shea, Business Agent Clarence Conroy, Se&. Robert Bronson and Committeemen Frank Riley and Wm. Moran deserve great credit for their prompt action in this time of crisis. They are determined to stand by their men, and they can rest assured that this paper and every class-conscious Socialist and union man in the country is with them. We do not include in this category the scab organization of railroad brotherhoods. We do not blame the men individually, for many of them are good, class-conscious, workers; but as an organization they have done their best to break the Gould strike, and they have nothing but our contempt.

The underpaid operators of the street cars saw their duty immediately when the crisis came, and we venture that they call a strike all over the lines unless the men who were forced to leave the cars in order to comply with their agreement with the company and keep their respect as working men are reinstated and paid full time for the interval that they are off service.

If this is not done, this paper, the organ of the organization which led the street car men to victory in the last strike, predicts that there will be a strike in Buffalo which will make the masters cringe with terror and learn as they learned last spring, that the working class is the dominant power of the world, and that the majority of the people of this city are with the workers heart and soul.

STREET CAR MEN STRIKE WHILE RAILROAD MEN HAUL STRIKEBREAKERS

The street car men’s union was put to the test early Tuesday morning, they stood firm and today stand as examples of the highest type of unionism.

For years the people of this city, including the union men, have looked upon the conductor, and motorman with a degree of contempt. With the winning of the car strike came the respect for the men, which is due every man. Tuesday morning, the carmen’s union, organized less than a year, displayed a courage and true union spirit, which, if emulated by all the unions would make this a world for the workers instead of for the drones.

Tuesday morning the car men of Buffalo refused to run the cars to carry the $1.25 a day, organized scabs, known as militia, to the station, from where they went to Depew to break the strike.

The lowest type of scab is a soldier. The deputies at the Gould plant, paid by the county, received at least $3.00 a day. The militia receive only $1.25 a day and are on duty 24 hours a day.

Contrast the action of the car men with that of the railroad brotherhoods. whose members have been hauling the scabs to the Gould Plant every day. Every member of a railroad brotherhood should hide his head in shame over this act of his organization which has done more to break the strike than any other single thing.

Here are the railroad brotherhoods. great, strong organizations operating the very train which carried the militia which the Buffalo car men refused to transport to the station. Hats off to the car men, and let the finger of con- tempt be pointed at these railroad union (?) men who are lining up with the scabs, O’Grady detectives and militia to break the strike of the workers at Gould Plant.

If there in the railroad brotherhoods any real union men, now is the, time to show it or forever hold your peace.

Let every union in Buffalo take courage and inspiration from the car men, and when the occasion demands, be union men, and “go thou and do like.”

The Buffalo Socialist was a weekly published in Buffalo New York by the Buffalo Socialist Publishing Company from 1911-1915 and aligned with the Socialist Party of America. Edited by Max Sherover, the company also produced a weekly women’s newspaper, New Age, from 1915.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/buffalo-socialist/v2n95-mar-28-1914-Buf-Soc.pdf