Stricture
a term employed in surgery to denote an unnatural contraction, either congenital or acquired, of a mucous canal, such as the urethra, œsophagus, or intestine. When, however, the affected part is not mentioned, and a person is stated to suffer from stricture, it is always the urethral canal that is referred to. Contraction of this canal may be either permanent or transitory; the former is due to a thickening ing of the walls of the urethra in consequence of organic deposits and is hence termed organic stricture; while the latter may be due either to local inflammation or congestion or to abnormal muscular action; the first of these varieties may be termed inflammatory or congestive stricture, and the second spasmodic stricture. The last named form seldom exists except as a complication of the other kinds of stricture. There are two principal causes of organic stricture the first being inflammation of the canal, and the second injury by violence. Inflammation is by far the most common cause, and gonorrhea is the common agent by which it is excited. Not unfrequently stimulating injections thrown into the urethra with the view of checking the gonorrheal discharge excite an inflammatory action which gives rise to stricture.
The earlier symptoms of stricture are a slight urethral discharge and pain in the canal behind the seat of the stricture at the time of micturition. The stream of urine does not pass in its ordinary form, but is flattened or twisted; and as the disease advances it becomes smaller, and ultimately the fluid may only be discharged in drops. The treatment of organic stricture is too purely surgical to be discussed in these pages.
Spasmodic stricture usually occurs as a complication of organic stricture or of inflammation of the mucous membrane, but may arise from an acrid condition of the urine, from the administration of cantharides, turpentine, etc., and from the voluntary retention of urine for too long a time. The treatment consists in the removal of the causes as far as possible and the hot bath. STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS. The strike is a feature of industrial life entirely unknown before the development of the factory system of production, which in turn was made possible by the STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS invention of the steam engine and steamdriven machinery. Previously manufacturing had been in the hands of individual artisans, each independent of the other, each producing only for his immediate neighborhood. The use of machinery made large scale manufacturing possible. It necessitated, however, the assembling of large bodies of workers under one roof, where the machines were installed. Of still more significance, it made the workers dependent on the owners of the machines for their means of livelihood. Industry was becoming complicated. But out of the new arrangement the master employer rose triumphant, supreme in power.
That the masters, or manufacturers, realized their power became evident when they gradually began to cut wages and lengthen working hours, and to displace adult males with women and children.
Before this economic oppression the workers stood helpless. No legislation had as yet been passed for their protection, for the conditions were new. There remained only one means of defense, and that was organization. Through united action they might might possess possess enoug enough strength to bring the employers to terms.
Their natural weapon of offense and defense would be unanimous action in refusing to work which, if widespread enough, would absolutely paralyze the industry. Under such conditions was the strike originated.
That the employers feared this weapon in the hands of their working people was obvious from the fact that they had quickly used their powerful influence in having legislation passed in the British Parliament making it illegal for workingmen to combine in trade organization. This Act of Parliament compelled the workers' organizations to assume a secret character, and sabotage (q. v.) rather than the strike, became their weapon. To this they in many cases added personal violence against employers and factory foremen and other forms of terrorism.
Fortunately the injustice of the law forbidding organization among workingmen while allowing it among employers, was recognized by men of the influential classes, and in 1824 the law was repealed.
In France, where a similar law had been enacted, it was not repealed until 1864.
From the date of the repeal of these laws begins the organized labor movement, whose chief weapon, potentially, if not actually, has always been the strike.
In the United States no laws were ever enacted restricting the rights of the workers to organize, but as far back as the last decade of the 18th century 121 STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS strikes took place among the bakers and shoemakers of New York City and Philadelphia, in which the employers attempted to indict the leaders under the conspiracy laws; without success, however.
Strikes, however, were of comparatively rare occurrence in the United States in the early part of last century before the Civil War. The American workingman was a strong individualist, and he had many vocations into which he might turn if the conditions in one trade did not suit him. There was a scarcity of labor and a great many fields of activity.
The first notable strike in this country was the railway strike of 1877, which began on the Baltimore and Ohio railway, and spread throughout the East. A considerable amount of violence attended it and finally the Federal troops were called out. In 1883 there was a widespread strike of telegraph operators. One of the most memorable strikes of the early period was that of the steel workers at the Carnegie steel mills in Homestead, Pa., in 1892, during which scenes resembling those of the worst days of the French Revolution were enacted. The employers had called into the field large numbers of private detectives, and between them and the strikers armed conflicts took place which at times assumed the dimensions of pitched battles. In 1894 the American Railway Union, the president of which was Eugene V. Debs, the present Socialist leader, called a general strike of railway employees in sympathy with the employees of the Pullman Company. The strikers sought to prevent the railway companies from using the cars of the Pullman Company, and refused to work trains which often carried the United States mail. Grover Cleveland, at that time President, made this the pretext for calling out the Federal troops, and the strike was thus forcibly suppressed, against the protests of the governors of Illinois and several other states.
An illustration of a strike in which the workers triumphed was that of 1906, when the printers of the whole country, through the International Typographical Union, demanded higher wages and shorter hours. The employers contested this effort bitterly, and it was three years before peace again prevailed in the industry, but the printers nevertheless achieved their purpose. The result is that the printers are to-day one of the most solidly organized crafts in the country, and are probably the best paid hand workers in the country. During the fall of 1920, when the high war prices were dropping almost to pre-war STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS levels, and the high cost of living was no longer a pretext for demands for higher wages, the printers in New York City were able to obtain an eleven per cent. raise in wages, already averaging higher than the incomes of most of the professional classes.
After the signing of the armistice, which terminated the World War, in 1918, a world-wide period of labor unrest and disorder set in, accompanied by strikes of wide dimensions. In February, 1919, 45,000 union men went out on a sympathetic strike in Seattle, to aid 25,000 shipyard workers, who had walked out for higher wages a month previously. Within a few days the strike had spread to almost all the other crafts in the city and for over a week the theaters were closed, the street railways ceased running and the majority of the stores were closed. This was the nearest approach to a general strike which had as yet taken place in the United States. So completely was the situation in the hands of the strikers that representatives of hospitals and other charitable institutions waited on the strike committee at union headquarters to beg the right of being supplied with milk for their patients. It was said that municipal authority had been shifted from the City Hall to labor headquarters. This became so intolerable to the general public that a Vigilance Committee was formed, which took the situation in hand, and with public support behind it, managed to persuade a majority of the strikers to return to their jobs, and the strike was broken.
Of a peculiar nature was the police strike which occurred in Boston, in September, 1919, when the police force of the city went out on strike to enforce their demand that they be recognized as a labor organization, and be granted the right to join the American Federation of Labor. Here again public opinion turned strongly against the strikers and caused it to be lost. Eventually all the strikers attempted to return to their jobs, but new men had been employed and a completely new police force was organized. În this case public sentiment had been turned against the striking policemen by the fact that they permitted the criminal elements to carry on a mad orgy of looting and robbery, without offering at least to maintain order.
Ever since the Homestead strike in Pennsylvania, the steel workers in the steel mills had not been organized. In 1919 representatives of the American Federation of Labor determined to attempt to create a solid organization of these workers, whose working conditions were reputed to be very bad, in that they STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS worked long hours and received comparatively poor pay. In September the union leaders requested an interview with Judge Gary, president of the United States Steel Corporation, which employed the large majority of the steel workers. Their object was to discuss with him the question of a steel workers' labor union. Judge Gary refused to meet the leaders, contending that they were not representatives of the men working in his mills. As a result a strike was called, and 268,000 men went out on strike. The United States Senate sent a committee into the field of disturbance to investigate, which reported that the strikers were anxious to negotiate with a view to settling the trouble by means of arbitration. Judge Gary, however, refused to consider negotiations, contending that a moral principle could not be compromised. The strike, therefore, continued. A peculiar feature of the methods employed by by the strike committee was the establishment of commissary stations, where the strikers and their families were supplied with food from the co-operative stores, this being the first time that these institutions had become a factor in labor troubles in this country, as they had been for many years back in European countries. The strike continued on into the early part of 1920, but was finally called off, the men returning to their work unconditionally. In the fall of 1920 what remained of the strike fund was taken over by representatives of the American Federation of Labor and efforts were renewed to organize the steel workers. That strikes are not only the weapons of hand workers was demonstrated in the strike of the actors in the early part of 1919. Rallying about the American Actors Equity Association, the actors demanded a revision of the form of contract which the theatrical managers' association compelled members of their companies to sign. Higher wages and pay for rehearsals were involved. At the call of the strike leaders high priced stars abandoned their plays an hour before the curtain went up and practically every theater in New York City was closed the first night. Later the strike spread to Boston and Chicago. Finally the managers agreed to compromise; the Equity contract was adopted and the result was a complete triumph for the actors.
Of lockouts there have been comparatively few instances in American industrial life. Employers, however, have been more active in a slightly different form of the lockout, known as the blacklist. Men known to be members of labor organizations are listed and these STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS lists are circulated among all the employers of a certain industry. Thus the blacklisted men find themselves unable to obtain employment, wherever they may present themselves.