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30,000 LOCKED OUT.

THE GREAT STRIKE OF THE BUILDING TRADES IN CHICAGO.

BY JAMES C. BEEKS.

CHICAGO:

PRESS OF THE FRANZ GINDELE PRINTING CO.

1887.




INTRODUCTION.


The attention of the world has been called to the great strike and
lockout in the building trades in Chicago because it rested upon the
question of individual liberty--a question which is not only vital alike
to the employer and the employe, but which affects every industry, every
class of people, every city, state and country. It is a principle which
antagonizes no motive which has been honestly conceived, but upon which
rests--or should rest--the entire social, political and industrial
fabric of a nation. It underlies the very foundation of free
institutions. To antagonize it is to thrust at the beginning point of
that freedom for which brave men have laid down their lives in every
land since the formation of society. With this question prominently in
the fight, and considering the magnitude of the interests affected, it
is not at all surprising that the public has manifested interest in the
agitation of questions which have affected the pockets of thirty
thousand artisans and laborers, hundreds of employers, scores of
manufacturers and dealers in building materials, stopped the erection of
thousands of structures of all classes, and driven into the vaults of a
great city capital amounting to not less than $20,000,000.

The labor problem is not new. Neither is it without its perplexities and
its grievances. Its entanglements have puzzled the brightest intellects,
and its grievances have,