A Long Fight Settled in That Way.

GOOD SITE IN INDIA BASIN WORK OF CONSTRUCTION TO BE BEGUN AT ONCE.

The British Ship Talus and the Bark Ceylon Meet in Collision — Sailing of the Tansport Roanoke.

February 27, 1899 – Another set of marine ways are to be built in San Francisco Bay. They are to be located in the Indian Basin, will accommodate vessels of from 1600 to 1800 tous burden and will be owned by the Shipwrights’ Association of this port. The site for the ways has already been secured the plans and specifications prepared’ and the work of building will begin this week.

Behind this venture there is quite a story. The Shipwrights’ Association and the ship-building firm of Hay & Wright have been at outs for many years. The members of the association assert that the firm will persist in employing “scab” labor at reduced wages and are thus doing the shipwrights a great injustice. Delegations from the union have called upon Alexander Hay from time to time, but no satisfactory conclusion could ever be reached. Then the shipwrights got up an address to the shipowners, which was largely circulated along the front. The owners were in sympathy with the union and all declared that they were willing to pay union wages and have the work done in a union yard by union men, but that Hay & Wright had the marine ways and the facilities and therefore they were obliged to patronize them.

This brought the Shipwrights’ Association to a full realization of the situation. It was plain to the members that if they wanted to earn a living and keep up union wages they would have to build marine ways and enter into competition with Hay & Wright. A meeting was held and 100 members agreed to subscribe $500 each tor the purpose named and a committee was appointed to see what could be done in the circumstances. The committee was composed of Thomas McConnell, J. Howson, A. Alexander, R. Camuffo. Denis Flynn and James McKibben. McConnell is president of the association, Howson has Just completed the four-masted schooner A. J. West at Grays Harbor, and Alexander is an expert on marine ways.

The first thing the committee did was to write to Moran Bros, of Seattle, as it was rumored that that firm wanted to sell its marine ways as it was about to build a floating dock. A reply was received stating that the marine ways were not for sale as Moran Bros, are going to operate both floating dock and ways.

It was then the shipwrights decided to build for themselves. A frontage on the water front extending 400 feet along India street from H street in South San Francisco was secured. The’ lots are 150 feet deep and back of them the union has secured six more lots on Seventh avenue, between H and G streets. On these ways designed by A. Alexander will be built and machinery put in, after which the shipwrights will be ready for business.

“Our plans are now all completed and work will begin at once,” said President McConnell yesterday. “We had a most enthusiastic meeting to-day (Sunday) at which nearly every member was present and it was decided to push right ahead with the work. The ways will be located just midway between the sugar refinery and Hunter’s Point drydock, where we will have a depth of 20 feet of water at any stage of the tide. We will handle all descriptions of vessels and will be able to take up anything that comes along except a heavy iron ship or big steamer.”

“We are not going to run the ways to drive the bosses out of business. Any boss employing union men can have the use of the ways at a slight advance on the cost of maintaining them. We do not seek to make them a money-making concern, but the men putting their cash into them will be satisfied with a very small return. In a few months we will be able to go before the ship-owners of the port and say. ‘Gentlemen, the last time we called upon you you expressed yourselves as being in favor of union men and union wages, but as we had no marine ways you were compelled to use a yard employing scab labor. We have now gone to the expense of erecting the best set of marine ways in the Pacific and hope you will patronize them.’ I think we will get their work and uphold union principles at the same time.”

The bark Ceylon, from Honolulu, and the British ship Talus, from Cardiff, were in collision inside the heads yesterday morning. The captains of the vessels tell conflicting stories, each claiming that the other ran him down. Both vessels were sailing in, and after passing through the heads the wind fell light and the Talus came to anchor. The captain of the Ceylon says the accident happened before the Talus dropped her anchor, but Captain Stenhouse says his ship was swinging to her anchor when the Ceylon ran into him.

“While drifting in between the heads,” said Captain Miller of the Ceylon, “we were in collision with the British ship Talus. There was no wind and the Talus was also drifting. Her stem struck the Ceylon between the fore and main rigging on the starboard side and carried away forty feet of our bulworks besides a number of stanchions and a big piece of our rail.” “When off the heads at 9:20 a. m.,” said Captain Stenhouse, “the wind fell light, so we let go the starboard anchor in thirty-five fathoms of water and paid out fifty fathoms of chain. After we had swung to the flood tide the bark Ceylon drifted in and collided with the Talus. The bark struck the ship on the starboard quarter, and while no damage apparently was done to the Talus, the Ceylon had her bulwarks stove in and part of her rail carried away.”

The British ship Riversdale arrived from Hamburg yesterday. On January 2 last Captain Griffiths spoke the British ship Dimsdale, from Astoria for Queenstown, with her foretopgallant mast gone.

The transport Roanoke sailed for Manila yesterday with a full cargo of supplies for the troops. She took away seventeen recruits for the .Fourteenth Infantry eleven men of the Twentieth Infantry and two men and fifty-seven recruits for the Twenty-third Infantry. The men and recruits are in charge of Second lieutenant Robert M. Bromblla. Lieutenant Colonel Muey, Dr. Fraser and Acting Assistant Hospital Surgeon Cleaver also went away on the transport.

* Noteworthy

1700 – The island of New Britain is discovered.

1809 – Action of 27 February 1809: Captain Bernard Dubourdieu captures HMS Proserpine

1812 – Poet Lord Byron gives his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defense of Luddite violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire.

1844 – The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti.

1860 – Abraham Lincoln makes a speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York that is largely responsible for his election to the Presidency.

1922 – A challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Leser v. Garnett.

1951 – The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.