wages. The strikers not only won their point, but secured a five-cent per day raise of wages besides, which so encouraged the boilermakers that the latter craftsmen made a demand all over the country for a five-cent raise and got it.
Besides several short strikes of less importance still, this is the extent of the labor victories in Mexico. Victory has been the exception. Intervention by the government, with blood and prison for the strikers, has been the rule.
The strike of the Grand League of Railway Workers occurred in the spring of 1908. The league consists principally of brakemen, who received $37.50 per month in American money, and shop mechanics, who received twenty-five cents an hour. Early in 1908 the bosses at San Luis Potosi began discriminating against union men, both in the shops and on the trains. The unions protested to General Manager Clark, and the latter promised to make reparation within two months. At the end of two months nothing had been done. The union then gave the manager twenty-four hours in which to act. At the end of twenty-four hours still nothing had been done. So the entire membership on the road, consisting of 3,000 men, walked out.
The strike tied up every foot of the Mexican National Railway, consisting of nearly one thousand miles of road running from Laredo. Texas, to Mexico City. For six days traffic was at a standstill. Recognition of the union, which is the necessary prerequisite for successful peace in any struggle along union lines, seemed assured. The great corporation seemed beaten, but—the men had not reckoned with the government.
No sooner did Manager Clark discover that he was
