In 1922 the shopmen of the railroad went on
strike. The shopmen were the metal
workers, machinist, boilermakers, electricians, carpenters, painters and
laborers, who maintained the
locomotives, boxcars, passengers cars and equipment of the railroad. It was perhaps the last great nationwide
strike. At it’s peak during the summer
of 1922 it had over 400,000 workers on strike.
The railroad maintained shops to work on their equipment and they were
usually in rural areas at halfway points on the line. Perhaps the largest for the Pennsylvania
railroad was Altoona in Pennsylvania but there was also a small one in
Delmar. The one in Delmar had about 39
workers and they all went on strike when the railroad decided to cut their
wages by 12 percent. They did not cut
the wages of the firemen, enginemen, brakemen and conductors. In Delmar the railroad fired the striking
workers and replaced them with new hires or men who had not gone on strike and
were transferred into Delmar. Near riots
occurred as the replacement workers were refused housing and restaurants
refused to serve them, even the two banks in town refused to cash their
railroad checks. The Railroad sent in a
large number of guards to keep non railroad people off their property. The railroad also had the state and county
officials on their side so state police and county constables were sent
in. The strikers and supporters of the
strikers cut air hoses, dumped sand into the car journals and misapplied
switches.
It was a difficult time for the farmers in the area
as their crops had been picked and they used the railroad to transport them to
the cities. They had to cross through
the crowd of strikers.
Delmar was a town where almost 90 percent of
population worked for the railroad or were supported by railroad workers. Most of it’s elected officials were employees
of the railroad. On the night of the 24th
of July a small mob of from 300 to 500 people had gathered downtown Delmar on
the Delaware side of town. The Maryland
State police had heard that someone was being molested by the crowd on the
Maryland side of town and three motorcycle state troopers, Led by H P Thompson,
arrived in town. They went to the railroad depot on the Delaware side where
they were surrounded by the strike sympathizers. Mayor Thorington was called out. He asked them if they had been deputized a
process by which the railroad police could deputize anyone from in state or out
of state to protect railroad property.
The state troopers said they had been deputized. Mayor Thorington chaised them them for being
meddling in the strike and told them to get out of Delaware or he would have
the Delaware policemen, George E Hearn, arrest them . When the police mounted to motorcycles to
leave the crowd pushed them a little.
The Mayor, John Franklin Thorington, Jr ( 1884-1954),
was born in Pocomoke City Maryland to J F Thorington Sr (1851-1926), The Thorington family came from the Eastern
Shore of Virginia. The senior Thorington
married Nancy Peyton Colona (1860-1927) from Stockton, Maryland . The senior Thorington was a drover, Grocery
store operator, barrel manufacturer, fur trader and constable/ Deputy Sheriff
for Worcester County.
J F Thorington jr started working for the railroad
in his teenage years. In 1909 he married
Florence May West , daughter of James H West.
He moved to Delmar after marrying.
About 1920 he was elected Mayor of Delmar Delaware, he also worked as an
engineer with the railroad and belonged to the local lodge #473 of the
Brotherhood of Firemen and Enginemen. He
had two daughters; Margaret Elizabeth (1911-1928) and Louise West (1918-2005)
The strike eventually ended and the 39 men fired
when they went on strike in the Delmar shop were never hired back. Mayor Thorington by 1930 had left the
railroad, was no longer Mayor, and was an insurance agent and real estate
salesman. It is not known if his action in not supporting the railroad more
lead to his new employment. Thorington
and his wife would go to live with his daughter in Pennsylvania where he would
die in 1954.
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