DEAR SIR AND BROTHER: Yours of recent date to Bro. Zinn was referred to me, and I was requested to ask for information. Since you cannot assure us our support after November, can you give us any encouragement in regard to the Committee of nine, with Cavener at the head, which was appointed at the late Engineers' Convention? We have been notified that they would put on the boycott, which I think is the only means to win this fight. I am very much afraid that this strike is lost, and that we (the men on the Q.) are sacrificed. I have been a Brotherhood fireman about two years, and have done everything in my power to promote the Order, and I have always thought that nothing could break our organization, but I am afraid if this strike is lost, that we fall beneath the heels of capital; yet I am satisfied that some move can be made by our Order to crush the C., B. & Q. into submission. Now, in regard to some of the strikers refusing employment on other roads, preferring to lay idle on the forty ($40) dollars paid us for so doing, I think is false, and I am satisfied I can convince your informant. In the first place, well do you know that there are many roads that want men, but refuse to employ C., B. & Q. strikers, until the strike is declared off. Furthermore, we have men working on all the roads in the country that will employ strikers. I am sorry that those men who are being expelled for non-payment, cannot see that it is to their benefit to sacrifice a few dollars per month, while we who are in the fight sacrifice on an average of thirty-five ($35) dollars per month. I would to God that those men have their wages cut down one-half in the next twenty-four hours. In conclusion, I ask you your _candid opinion in regard to the boycott_. Please let me hear from you at once. Sincerely yours, JNO. E. KLINE. GRAND LODGE } BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN, } TERRE HAUTE, IND., Dec. 14, 1888. }