Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/792

 762 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

high-minded conduct to which adequate appreciation has not been given. More than thirty of the old unions have signed, including nine unions of bricklayers, the Brotherhood of Carpen- ters, Amalgamated Painters, Brotherhood of Painters, plasterers, plumbers, steamfitters, machinists, and others ; besides some half- dozen new organizations that have been formed under the arbi- tration agreement. These last include a new union of house- smiths which numbers perhaps about two thousand members, while the old Housesmiths' Union No. 2 ( Parks's union) had upwards of three thousand, five hundred on the rolls. Some twenty unions have not signed, these including the main body of house- smiths, the Amalgamated Carpenters, Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers, portable engineers, stone cutters, and others. It was Lawrence Murphy, former treasurer of this Stone Cutters' Union, by the way, who was recently convicted and sentenced to five years and six months in state's prison for embezzling several thousand dollars extorted from building contractors under the blackmail compulsion of threatened strikes.

In spite of wide resentment among the unions against the employers' attitude, it is probable nearly all of them would have signed the arbitration agreement had it not been for the aggres- sive warfare kept up by the housesmiths and certain other groups of similar type, under the influence of Parks. It is not that all these other unions liked the man or approved of his methods, but for the time being they regarded him as voicing a just protest against the forcing of the arbitration scheme, and were willing to stand aside and await the outcome.

It has been freely charged on almost every hand that there is an explanation under the surface, much more important than the personal influence of the man himself, for the reckless audacity of Parks's continuous strike performances and antagonism to practically all proposals that seemed to lead toward permanent peace. This phase involves what is supposed to be a definite policy on the part of one of the largest contracting corporations in New York, the George A. Fuller Company. The methods of this establishment are somewhat of an innovation in the building industry, in that it contracts for and carries out under one super-