Abstract

The Buffalo Street Car Strike and Mayor Buck

The article focuses on a twenty-four-day street car strike in Buffalo, New York. Such a strike would have been impossible in a city of half a million people before the day of telephones and automobiles. The street-car management and its employees were partners in an apparently collusive strike for higher fares and wages. They finally made an unconditional surrender to the city, after they had twenty-four days of no fares and no wages. Buffalo is the largest city which has commission government, and Mayor George S. Buck was the first Mayor elected under this system, in November, 1917. In June, 1918, he showed great courage and disappointed many of his supporters by agreeing to an ordinance providing for a higher fare than five cents if the Public Service Commission should so decide. He did this reluctantly, because he was told from Washington that war success would be endangered if a street-car strike interrupted work on war-contracts.