ep, the strike
became involved. A refusal of cooks and waiters to serve scab
teamsters or teamsters' employers brought out the cooks and waiters.
The butchers and meat-cutters refused to handle meat destined for
unfair restaurants. The combined Employers' Associations put up a
solid front, and found facing them the 40,000 organized laborers of San
Francisco. The restaurant bakers and the bakery wagon drivers struck,
followed by the milkers, milk drivers, and chicken pickers. The
building trades asserted its position in unambiguous terms, and all San
Francisco was in turmoil.

But still, it was only San Francisco. Hegan's intrigues were masterly,
and Daylight's campaign steadily developed. The powerful fighting
organization known as the Pacific Slope Seaman's Union refused to work
vessels the cargoes of which were to be handled by scab longshoremen
and freight-handlers. The union presented its ultimatum, and then
called a strike. This had been Daylight's objective all the time.
Every incoming coastwise vessel was boarded by the union officials and
its crew sent ashore. And with the Seamen went the firemen, the
engineers, and the sea cooks and waiters. Daily the number of idle
steamers increased. It was impossible to get scab crews, for the men
of the Seaman's Union were fighters trained in the hard school of the
sea, and when they went out it meant blood and death to scabs. This
phase of the strike spread up and down the entire Pacific coast, until
all the ports were filled with idle ships, and sea transportation was
at a standstill. The days and weeks dragged out, and the strike held.
The Coastwise Steam Navigation Company, and the Hawaiian, Nicaraguan,
and Pacific-Mexican Steamship Company were tied up completely. The
expenses of combating the strike were tremendous, and they were earning
nothing, while daily the situation went from bad to worse, until "peace
at any price" became the cry. And still there was no peace, until
Daylight and his allies played out their hand, raked in the winnings,
and allowed a goodly portion of a continent to resume business.

It was noted, in following years, that several leaders of workmen built
themselves houses and blocks of renting flats and took trips to the old
countries, while, more immediately, other leaders and "dark horses"
came to political preferment and the control of the municipal
government and the municipal moneys. In fact, San Francisco's
boss-ridden con