THE MOTORMEN AND CONDUCTORS OF ALL THE LINES of the Coney Island & Brooklyn Railroad Company except the De Kalb Avenue line suddenly went on strike yesterday morning, for an increase of 2 cents an hour, and violence and rioting marked the rest of the day.

The trouble began at dawn, when the railroad company tried to run cars over the Smith Street line, and by night more than fifty persons, several of them policemen, had been injured by rocks and other missiles hurled by the strikers or their sympathizers.

Many arrests were made, each attended by unusual mob violence, and it was conservatively stated that Brooklyn has not been the scene of greater disorder since the big street car strikes of 1895, when four regiments of State militia had to be called out to preserve order.

The strike went into effect at about 4 A.M. following two meetings of the strikers in their headquarters. Ninth Street and Third avenue, in which they discussed the ultimatum of the company that the demand for more wages would not be met. At the first meeting, held about 2 A.M., it was said that there was a division of opinion as to whether a strike should be called, but at 3 o'clock a meeting was held which was more fully representative of all of the 375 men affected, it was said, and a strike was voted unanimously.

Brooklyn did not wake up to a realization that there was a strike on until about 10 A.M., when the newspapers told of riots along the Smith Street line. The railroad company seemed surprised also, and was almost totally unprepared. Negotiations, however, had been going on since June 29, when, with the ending of the yearly agreement with the line, the local division of the Amalgamated Association of Street Railway Workers of the United States of America demanded the increased pay.

De Kalb Avenue Men Work On

This union is represented on the Smith Street Line, running from Park Row over the Brooklyn Bridge generally by way of Smith and Ninth Streets and Coney Island Avenue to Coney Island, the Franklin Avenue Line, running from Delancey Street. Manhattan, over the Williamsburg Bridge, through Franklin Avenue to Park Circle, where it forms a junction with the Smith Street Line: and the Hamilton Ferry up Hamilton Avenue and Ninth Street, connecting with the Smith Street Line at Smith Street.

The other line of the system, the De Kalb Avenue Line is not included in the strike. Employees on the line are members of the Knights of Labor, which organization signed a yearly agreement with the railroad company on June 29.

There was practically no service on the Smith Street line and Hamilton Ferry line all day yesterday. A few cars were operated on Franklin Avenue in the morning, but all traffic was suspended with the increase of violence on the Smith Street line, where the seriousness of the situation required all the attention of the officers of the railroad.

Service on the De Kalb Avenue line remained undisturbed, except that transfers to the Franklin Avenue line were of no use. Inasmuch as the company usually carries 100,000 to 200,000 persons to Coney Island on Saturdays over its lines a large amount of additional traffic was diverted to the Brooklyn Rapid Transit, making congestion on these lines even more unbearable than usual. there was little violence at the Coney Island Terminal of the lines affected by the strike, few cars having reached there.

The centre of the rioting was along the Smith Street line, which is regarded as the most important of the system. In Smith Street there were two policemen to each block, but aside from an occasional attempt to block cars by stalling wagons in the tracks, little trouble was experienced. At Smith and Ninth Streets where one of the company's car barns is located, however, there was trouble almost every minute of the day.

Many Battles At the Bridge

At this point each car which was ordered to try to make the run to Coney Island, stopped for instructions from Superintendent of Traffic, Dennis J. Sullivan. Then, manned by a strike breaking crew and several policemen, proceeded at a rapid rate up Ninth Street.

The first stumbling block was the drawbridge over the Gowanus Canal, where many strikers were hidden. There several riots took place in the early morning hours. As the Cars approached the striker's headquarters at Third Avenue and Ninth street, and from the windows strikers and their sympathizers kept up a fuselage of stones whenever a car appeared with little danger of arrest.

Reaching Third avenue, however the strike breakers and policemen on the cars took their lives in their hands. From the Yard surrounding the strikers' headquarters and out of the building itself, as each car approached, swarmed a thousand or more men and boys, many with bricks and rocks in their hands. Rocks filled the air as the cars passed, many persons being hit. Throughout the day ambulances remained at this corner to take the injured to the hospital.

Few cars passed the corner, however, and all that did were partially demolished. There was no attempt on the part of the company to carry passengers, for no one wanted to ride after the news of the strike went through that section of the city. A single car on the Smith Street line reached Coney Island.

Early in the morning several thousand persons were in Ninth Street, and by noon the crowd had swelled to 5,000. With the rush of the Saturday half-holiday crowd steadily increasing, the crowd at 5 o'clock numbered more than 10,000. The police were unable to handle them, and as a consequence much violence went without an arrest.

Attempts To End Strike Fail

During the day every attempt was made to effect an agreement between the strikers and the company. Patrick J. Shea, Executive of the car men's organization, started at 10 A.M. to go to the City Hall to call on Mayor Gaynor in the hope of inducing him to intercede, but he reported later that he had been unable to find Mayor Gaynor or any other city official. President S.W. Huff of the railroad company, it was said, was in Virginia, and Supt. Sullivan said that he could not act in any official capacity without concurrence on the part of President Huff. There the matter ended, both sides declaring late in the afternoon that they would await developments.

Leader Shea, for the strikers, said: "We are out to stay, and nothing can move us. I have tried everything to bring about a settlement, but there doesn't seem to be any one around to settle with. I feel positive that there will be no change in our attitude, and in any event nothing can be done until President Huff of the railroad company returns from his vacation in Virginia."

One riot, in which a woman figured occurred early in the morning at Second Avenue and Ninth Street. A Smith street car was heading for the bridge over the canal, with rioters in pursuit. The woman approached the car from the rear, pulled the pole from the wire, and fled into the crowd, leaving the men to pull the conductor and motorman from the car.

Policemen surrounded the car and a new crew of strikebreakers was put in charge. When the car reached Third Avenue the strikers rushed from their headquarters and dragged E. Dwyer of 844 Sixth Avenue off, beating him unmercifully. Dwyer, who was a passenger, and knew nothing about the strike, was taken to the Seney Hospital.

At 10 A.M. a crowd attacked a car at the same corner, beating the motorman, Patrick Schwartz, and the conductor, Thomas Flynn. Both men were taken to the Seney Hospital. The car stood in front of the strikers' headquarters for more than an hour. When a new crew finally arrived to take it back to the barns every window had been shattered. Crews Flee Their Cars

An attack was made on a car at Ninth street and Fourth Avenue after it had successfully passed through the fusillade of bricks at the corner below. James Ryan, the motorman, and John Like and George Martin, conductors, were dragged from the car and carried off bodily. Following that the crews of three other cars deserted at the same place and the four cars remained there until late in the afternoon, when strikebreakers, under police escort, marched from the car barns in a body and took them in charge. This was the signal for united action by the strikers and was followed by the greatest disorder which prevailed during the day.

The leader in this group of strike-breakers was Fred Brown, who said that he had been a strike-breaker for years. He asked permission to take charge of the first car, and it was granted without dissent on the part of his associates. He started his car down the hill on the left track instead of the right. When the car reached the strikers' headquarters at Third avenue, with the other three cars following close, it was running twenty miles an hour. He held a lighted cigar in his teeth and grinned at the strikers as he passed.

A hundred stones were hurled at him, one striking him behind the right ear, but doing little damage. Brown ran his car rapidly all the way to the car barns, where he was complimented by Supt. Sullivan. Later, it was learned that he had struck a striker at Fulton and Smith Streets earlier in the day, and that the strikers had dared him to make another trip in front of their headquarters. The other cars, each going at full speed, but with the motormen and the conductors hidden under the seats also ran the blockade successfully.

Supt. Sullivan had said just before the four stalled cars reached the car barns that he would make no more attempts to run cars after he had the four safely stored in the barns. But when he heard that the cars had been brought back with only a few windows smashed and without serious injury to any of the men he ordered the only remaining stalled car on the smith Street line to be brought to the barns by the strikebreakers.

Car Surrounded By The Mob

This car was stalled in the vicinity of Park Circle. Its fender had been demolished by a boulder rolled into the street. After this had been adjusted a crow started the car, and all went well until it reached Fourth Avenue. In front of St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church, Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street, a large crowd had collected and stones, some weighing twenty pounds, were hurled at the car, which was moving at high speed. The crowd surged into the street following the car and joining a still larger crowd near Third Avenue. Mounted police dashed alongside the escaping car and chased the crowd, but they could not reach those in the yards behind the fences, who continued to throw the stones.

Directly in front of the strikers' headquarters the car slowed up for a moment, and a ten-pound rock struck Policeman William Keyes, who was on the rear platform of the car, squarely in the head. Keyes sank to the platform, apparently dead, and a cry went up from the crowd. Mounted Patrolman Wolff had seen the stone thrown, and rode straight into the yard surrounding the headquarters of the strikers and arrested D. Clark, a striking conductor, of 237 Bergen Street, Brooklyn. Ed Walsh, another striking conductor, of 1250 Park Avenue, interfered with Wolff and was arrested also.

With these two prisoners on their bands, six policemen held back the crowd howling for the release of the prisoners until reserves arrived in a patrol wagon. It was the critical point in the day's rioting, and thereafter the police took firmer measures to hold the crowd in check. At 6 o'clock the strikers' headquarters were entirely emptied of all loiterers by the police.

The news that three strikers arrested earlier in the day had been sentenced to five days in jail each seemed to have little effect on the strikers, some of whom demanded that they be arrested whenever they were jostled or asked to move on by a policeman. The men who received the jail sentences were James Ryan of 428 Union Avenue, said to be one of the leaders in the strike; John Manning of 228 Eighth Street and Cornelius Carter of 225 Tenth Street. They were charged with inciting a riot at Ninth Street and Third Avenue. Carter tried to wrench a fuse out of a car.

More Police For Today

On all sides the scarcity of police sent to preserve order in the strike zone was a matter of comment. Not until dark and after the street car company had announced that it would not attempt to run any more cars until today did the police assemble in sufficient force to control the great mob that made Ninth Street and Third Avenue the base of its operations. Plenty of police to handle any situation that may arise today have been promised. It was said that instead of the handful that failed to keep Ninth Street in order yesterday at least fifty mounted and twice as many foot men will be on duty after 6 o'clock this morning.

At 9 o'clock last night, three hours after the last car had run the gantlet of excited men and boys, the crowd in Ninth Street was apparently just as great as ever. Boys in gangs of ten or a dozen marched up and down the street singing, the strikers and their sympathizers assembled on the corners and speculated on the outcome, while thousands of idlers walked up and down between Third and Fifth Avenues, fighting mosquitoes, hoping to witness, some sort of a scuffle between the strikers and the police before the night was over.

Several times the cry "a car is coming" went up and immediately the street became the scene of a howling crowd. In every instance what the crowd thought was a street car turned out to be some other kind of a vehicle. On two occasions the light that was mistaken for a headlight, was on a patrol wagon. The other times it was automobiles that fooled them.

Another matter that caused unfavorable criticism of the police was the fact that many wagons loaded with rocks intended for paving or concrete purposes were continually passing through Ninth Street yesterday. Between 5 and 6 o'clock in the afternoon, during which hour the company tried to operate several cars, a Times reporter saw no less than a dozen wagons loaded with these dangerous cargoes rumble down the street past the strike headquarters, at Third Avenue. Boys jumped on these wagons, and when they got off they were not empty handed, as was proved by the kind of rocks that were hurled at the cars that swept past the headquarters of the strikers at intervals during the hour that followed. No effort whatever was made to make these rock-laden wagons use some other street. A policeman who deplored the fact that his comrades on strike duty were so few in number dubbed these rock carriers "ammunition wagons," and the title was not inappropriate.

At the strike headquarters last night the leaders said that pressure was being brought to bear on the motormen and conductors of the De Kalb Avenue Line to strike today. The strike leaders seemed to think they had a good chance to get the De Kalb Avenue men out, but they admitted that they were not certain of success and they won't be much surprised if the De Kalb Avenue men hold on to their jobs and refuse to go out in sympathy.

Want Electricians To Go Out

Leaders of the strike said they were doing all in their power to get the electricians and other powerhouse men to go out in sympathy, but the general impression seemed to be that there was little chance of these men going out. Their union is entirely independent of the car men's and they are said to be satisfied with their positions.

The big handicap against which the company is working is said to be the scarcity of available strike breakers. Last night the number who could be relied upon was said to be sixty-four, and not all of these were experienced men. The strikers claimed that at least forty of these men had deserted their new jobs, and returned to Manhattan on a Hamilton Avenue ferryboat. This, in turn, was denied at the Ninth Street barns of the company.

There was not so much trouble on the Franklin Avenue line as on the Smith Street, although all of the men on this line are out. The only real trouble on that line occurred shortly before 6 o'clock last night, when a motorman, who had remained loyal to the company, decided to be loyal no more, and deserted the car within a block of the Franklin Avenue car barns.

Slow up the car, the motorman turned on full power and then jumped off, taking the controller handle with him. The car without a pilot shot ahead like a rocket and crashed head-on with terrific force into another Franklin Avenue car. Both were wrecked, and blockade that lasted nearly an hour resulted.

The wrecked cars were surrounded by a mob of more than 2,000 men and boys, who amused themselves throwing bricks, rocks, and bottles through the windows.

The men arrested, only two of whom were striking employees of the company, were charged with disorderly conduct. They were Frank Smith, 1717 Greene Avenue; Edward Simms of Snyder Avenue; Alexander Moore, 1197 Flatbush Avenue and Martin J. Hennessey, 789 Franklin Avenue. Another Franklin Avenue car was rocked at Second Avenue and Ninth Street. One rock broke a big window in a corner saloon, but nobody was hurt.

Late last night it was announced that an effort to restore the Coney Island service over the Smith Street and Franklin Avenue lines would be made at 6 o'clock this morning. The police said that there would be plenty of men on hand to protect the cars.

President Huff Returns

President Huff of the railroad company arrived in Brooklyn late last night, but refused to talk regarding the strike. Shortly after his arrival, however, the company made a statement that the three lines affected by the strike would run a full schedule today, beginning at 8 A.M., instead of 6 A.M. as given out in a previous statement. It was also said that enough skilled car men had been hired to run all of the cars.

To guard against night attacks by the strikers, two patrolmen were stationed in each block in Ninth Street from Seventh Avenue to Smith Street and in Hamilton Avenue from Smith street to the ferry. In Smith Street there were stationed two men to each block from Ninth Street to Fourth Place, and one man to each block from that point to Atlantic Avenue. A strong force guarded the railroad company's office at De Kalb and Franklin Avenues, and all of the company's car barns were surrounded with guards.

The Public Service Commission announced yesterday that Inspectors had been sent along the lines of the road affected during the day, and that the commission would keep informed as to the situation. This is the first time in the history of the commission that a serious railroad strike has occurred exclusively within its jurisdiction. There was a prolonged strike in Yonkers, but the cars came into New York City only on one line.

The most serious street car strike in the history of Brooklyn was in January, 1895. All the lines of the Brooklyn City Railroad Company, now the B.R.T. system, were affected and 6,000 men were out. The police were unable to handle the situation and four regiments of militia were called out. On January 23, John Kearney, a resident of Hicks Street, who was viewing the riots in the street from the roof of his house, was shot and killed. The strike was unsuccessful for the strikers.

The last B.R.T. strike occurred in July, 1899. A large number of employees refused to go out, however, and the strike was ended within a week. Dynamite was used in this strike to blow up empty street cars which the strikebreakers had left stalled in the streets. This strike, like that in 1895, was lost by the men.

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