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Title: The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons
Author: Foster, William Z., 1881-1961
Language: English
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THE
GREAT STEEL STRIKE
AND ITS LESSONS
by
WILLIAM Z. FOSTER
THE GREAT STEEL STRIKE AND ITS LESSONS
[Illustration: PENNSYLVANIA LAW AND ORDER State Police driving peaceful
citizens out of business places, Clairton, Pa. _Photo by
International_]
THE GREAT STEEL STRIKE AND ITS LESSONS
BY
WILLIAM Z. FOSTER
INTRODUCTION BY
JOHN A. FITCH
NEW YORK
B. W. HUEBSCH, INC.
MCMXX
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY B. W. HUEBSCH, INC.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
INTRODUCTION
Half a million men are employed in the steel industry of the United
States. At a period in which eight hours is rapidly coming to be
accepted as the standard length of the working day, the principal mills
in this industry are operating on a 12-hour work schedule, and many of
their workmen are employed seven days in every week. These half million
men have, for the most part, no opportunity to discuss with their
employers the conditions of their work. Not only are they denied the
right of bargaining collectively over the terms of the labor contract,
but if grievances arise in the course of their employment they have no
right in any effective manner to take up the matter with their employer
and secure an equitable adjustment.[1] The right even of petition has
been at times denied and, because of the organized strength of the steel
companies and the disorganized weakness of the employees, could be
denied at any time.
The right of workers in this country to organize and to bargain
collectively is unquestioned. On every hand the workers are exercising
this right in order to protect and advance their interests. In the steel
mills not only is the right generally denied but the attempt to exercise
it is punished by expulsion from the industry. Through a system of
espionage that is thoroughgoing and effective the steel companies know
which of their employees are attending union meetings, which of them are
talking with organizers. It is their practice to discharge such men and
thus they nip in the bud any ordinary movement toward organization.
Their power to prevent their employees from acting independently and in
their own interest, extends even to the communities in which they live.
In towns where the mayor's chair is occupied by company officials or
their relatives--as was the case during the 1919 strike in Bethlehem,
Duquesne, Clairton and elsewhere--orders may be issued denying to the
workers the right to hold meetings for organizing purposes, or the
police may be instructed to break them up. Elsewhere--as in Homestead,
McKeesport, Monessen, Rankin and in Pittsburgh itself--the economic
strength of the companies is so great as to secure the willing
cooperation of officials or to compel owners of halls and vacant lots to
refuse the use of their property for the holding of union meetings.
One who has not seen with his own eyes the evidences of steel company
control in the towns where their plants are located will have difficulty
in comprehending its scope and power. Social and religious organizations
are profoundly affected by it. In many a church during the recent
strike, ministers and priests denounced the "agitators" and urged the
workmen in their congregations to go back to the mills. Small business
men accepted deputy sheriffs' commissions, put revolvers in their belts
and talked loudly about the merits of a firing squad as a remedy for
industrial unrest.
For twenty or more years in the mill towns along the Monongahela--since
1892 in Homestead--the working men have lived in an atmosphere of
espionage and repression. The deadening influence of an overwhelming
power, capable of crushing whatever does not bend to its will, has in
these towns stifled individual initiative and robbed citizenship of its
virility.
The story of the most extensive and most courageous fight yet made to
break this power and to set free the half million men of the steel mills
is told within the pages of this book by one who was himself a leader in
the fight. It is a story that is worth the telling, for it has been told
before only in fragmentary bits and without the authority that comes
from the pen of one of the chief actors in the struggle.
Mr. Foster has performed a public service in setting down as he has the
essential facts attendant upon the calling of the strike. The record of
correspondence with Judge Gary and with President Wilson indicates
clearly enough where responsibility for its occurrence lies. It answers
the question also of who it was that flouted the President--the strike
committee that refused to enter into a one sided truce, or Judge Gary,
who would not accept Mr. Wilson's suggestion that he confer with a union
committee, but who was willing to take advantage of the proposed truce
to undermine and destroy the union.
This thoughtful history, remarkably dispassionate upon the whole,
considering the fact that the author was not only an actor in the events
he describes but the storm center of a countrywide campaign of
slanderous falsehood, is an effective answer to those whose method of
opposing the strike was to shout "Bolshevism" and "Revolution." Not thus
are fomenters of revolution accustomed to write. It is this very quality
which will make the book of great value both to the student and to the
labor organizer. Never before has a leader in a great organizing
campaign like the one preceding the steel strike sat down afterward to
appraise so calmly the causes of defeat. Explanations of failure are
common, usually in the form of "alibis." Mr. Foster has been willing to
look the facts steadily in the face and his analysis of the causes of
the loss of the strike--laying the responsibility for it at the doors of
the unions themselves--cannot fail to be helpful to every union leader,
no matter what industry his union may represent. On the other hand his
account of such a feat as the maintenance of a commissary adequate to
meet the needs of the strikers at a cost of $1.40 per man is suggestive
and encouraging to the highest degree. This achievement must stand as a
monument to the integrity and practical ability of the men who conducted
the strike.
It is with no purpose of underwriting every statement of fact or of
making his own every theory advanced in the book that the writer
expresses his confidence in it. It is because the book as a whole is so
well done and because the essential message that it conveys is so true,
that it is a pleasure to write these words of introduction. Other books
have been written about the steel industry. Some have concerned
themselves with metallurgy, others with the commercial aspects of steel
manufacture, and still others with certain phases of the labor problem.
This book is different from all the others. It sets forth as no other
book has, and as no other writer could, the need of the workers in this
great basic industry for organization, and the extreme difficulty of
achieving this essential right. It shows also in the sanity, good
temper, and straightforward speech of the author what sort of leadership
it is that the steel companies have decreed their workers shall not
have!
JOHN A. FITCH.
_New York, June 4, 1920._
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See for example Judge Gary's testimony before the Senate Committee
investigating the steel strike--October 1, 1919, pp. 161-162, of
committee hearings. He told of a strike which occurred because a
grievance remained unadjusted after a committee of the workers had tried
to take it up with the management. The president of the company involved
was for crushing the strike without knowing what the grievance was or
even of the existence of the committee.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION v
CHAPTER
I. THE PRESENT SITUATION 1
The strike--"Victory" of the employers--Industrial
democracy abroad, industrial serfdom at home--What
the workers won--The outlook.
II. A GENERATION OF DEFEAT 8
The urge for mastery--Democratic resistance--The
Homestead strike--The strikes of 1901 and 1909--
The Steel Trust victorious.
III. THE GIANT LABOR AWAKES 16
A bleak prospect--Hope springs eternal--A golden
chance--Disastrous delay--The new plan--A lost
opportunity--The campaign begins--Gary fights
back.
IV. FLANK ATTACKS 28
A sea of troubles--The policy of encirclement--Taking
the outposts--Organizing methods--Financial systems--
The question of morale--Johnstown.
V. BREAKING INTO PITTSBURGH 50
The flying squadron--Monessen--Donora--McKeesport--
Rankin--Braddock--Clairton--Homestead--Duquesne--The
results.
VI. STORM CLOUDS GATHER 68
Relief demanded--The Amalgamated Association moves--A
general movement--The conference committee--Gompers'
letter unanswered--The strike vote--Gary defends steel
autocracy--President Wilson acts in vain--The strike call.
VII. THE STORM BREAKS 96
The Steel Trust Army--Corrupt officialdom--Clairton--
McKeesport--The strike--showing by districts--A
treasonable act--Gary gets his answer.
VIII. GARYISM RAMPANT 110
The White Terror--Constitutional Rights denied--
Unbreakable solidarity--Father Kazincy--The Cossacks
--Scientific barbarity--Prostituted courts--Servants
rewarded.
IX. EFFORTS AT SETTLEMENT 140
The National Industrial Conference--The Senate
committee--The red book--The Margolis case--The
Interchurch World Movement.
X. THE COURSE OF THE STRIKE 162
Pittsburgh district--The railroad men--Corrupt
newspapers--Chicago district--Federal troops at Gary
--Youngstown district--The Amalgamated Association--
Cleveland--The Rod and Wire Mill strike--The Bethlehem
plants--Buffalo and Lackawanna--Wheeling and Steubenville
--Pueblo--Johnstown--Mob rule--The end of the strike.
XI. NATIONAL AND RACIAL ELEMENTS 194
A modern Babel--Americans as skilled workers--Foreigners
as unskilled workers--Language difficulties--The Negro
in the strike--The race problem.
XII. THE COMMISSARIAT--THE STRIKE COST 213
The Relief organization--Rations--System of distribution
--Cost of Commissariat--Steel Strike Relief Fund--Cost of
the strike to the workers, the employers, the public, the
Labor movement.
XIII. PAST MISTAKES AND FUTURE PROBLEMS 234
Labor's lack of confidence--Inadequate efforts--Need of
alliance with miners and railroaders--Radical leadership
as a strike issue--Railroad shopmen, Boston police, miners,
railroad brotherhood strikes--Defection of Amalgamated
Association.
XIV. IN CONCLUSION 255
The point of view--Are trade unions revolutionary?--Camouflage
in social wars--Ruinous dual unionism--Radicals should
strengthen trade unions--The English renaissance--Tom Mann's
work.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Pennsylvania Law and Order _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
National Committee Delegates 38
Strike Ballot 78
Cossacks in Action 122
Mrs. Fannie Sellins, Trade Union Organizer 148
Steel Trust Newspaper Propaganda 188
John Fitzpatrick 216
A Group of Organizers 244
THE GREAT STEEL STRIKE AND ITS LESSONS
THE GREAT STEEL STRIKE AND ITS LESSONS
I
THE PRESENT SITUATION
THE STRIKE--"VICTORY" OF THE EMPLOYERS--INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY
ABROAD, INDUSTRIAL SERFDOM AT HOME--WHAT THE WORKERS
WON--THE OUTLOOK
The great steel strike lasted three months and a half. Begun on
September 22, 1919, by 365,600 men quitting their places in the iron and
steel mills and blast furnaces in fifty cities of ten states, it ended
on January 8, 1920, when the organizations affiliated in the National
Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers voted to permit the
100,000 or more men still on strike to return to work upon the best
terms they could secure.
The steel manufacturers "won" the strike. By forcing an unconditional
surrender, they drove their men back to the old slavery. This they
accomplished in their wonted and time-honored way by carrying on a reign
of terror that outraged every just conception of civil and human rights.
In this unholy task they were aided by a crawling, subservient and
lying press, which spewed forth its poison propaganda in their behalf;
by selfish and indifferent local church movements, which had long since
lost their Christian principles in an ignominious scramble for company
favors; and by hordes of unscrupulous municipal, county, state and
federal officials, whose eagerness to wear the steel collar was equalled
only by their forgetfulness of their oaths of office. No suppression of
free speech and free assembly, no wholesale clubbing, shooting and
jailing of strikers and their families was too revolting for these Steel
Trust[2] hangers-on to carry out with relish. With the notable exception
of a few honorable and courageous individuals here and there among these
hostile elements, it was an alignment of the steel companies, the state,
the courts, the local churches and the press against the steel workers.
Upon the ending of the strike the steel workers got no direct
concessions from their employers. Those who were able to evade the
bitter blacklist were compelled to surrender their union cards and to
return to work under conditions that are a shame and a disgrace. They
were driven back to the infamous peonage system with its twelve hour
day, a system which American steel workers, of all those in the world,
alone have to endure. In England, France, Italy and Germany, the steel
workers enjoy the right of a voice in the control of their industry;
they regularly barter and bargain with their employers over the
questions of hours, wages and working conditions; they also have the
eight hour day. One must come to America, the land of freedom, to find
steel workers still economically disfranchised and compelled to work
twelve hours a day. In this country alone the human rights of the steel
workers are crushed under foot by the triumphant property rights of
their employers.
Who can uphold this indefensible position? Are not our deposits of coal
and iron immeasurably greater, our mills more highly developed, our
labor force more numerous and more skilled than those of any other
country? Who then will venture to assert that American workingmen are
not entitled to exercise all the rights and privileges enjoyed by
European workingmen? If the steel workers of England, or France, or
Italy, or Germany can practice collective bargaining, why not the steel
workers of America? And why should the steel workers here have to work
twelve hours daily when the eight hour day obtains abroad?
There are a hundred good reasons why the principles of collective
bargaining and the shorter workday should prevail in the steel industry
of America, and only one why they should not. This one reason is that
the industry is hard and fast in the grip of absentee capitalists who
take no part in production and whose sole function is to seize by hook
or crook the product of the industry and consume it. These parasites, in
their voracious quest of profits, know neither pity nor responsibility.
Their reckless motto is "After us the deluge." They care less than
naught for the rights and sufferings of the workers. Ignoring the
inevitable weakening of patriotism of people living under miserable
industrial conditions, they go their way, prostituting, strangling and
dismembering our most cherished institutions. And the worst of it is
that in the big strike an ignorant public, miseducated by employers'
propaganda sheets masquerading under the guise of newspapers, applauded
them in their ruthless course. Blindly this public, setting itself up as
the great arbiter of what is democratic and American, condemned as
bolshevistic and ruinous the demands of almost 400,000 steel workers for
simple, fundamental reforms, without which hardly a pretense of freedom
is possible, and lauded as sturdy Americanism the desperate autocracy of
the Steel Trust. All its guns were turned against the strikers.
In this great struggle the mill owners may well claim the material
victory; but with just as much right the workers can claim the moral
victory. For the strike left in every aspiring breast a spark of hope
which must burn on till it finally bursts into a flame of
freedom-bringing revolt. For a generation steel workers had been
hopeless. Their slavery had overwhelmed them. The trade-union movement
seemed weak, distant and incapable. The rottenness of steel districts
precluded all thought of relief through political channels. The
employers seemed omnipotent. But the strike has changed all this. Like
a flash the unions appeared upon the scene. They flourished and expanded
in spite of all opposition. Then boldly they went to a death grapple
with the erstwhile unchallenged employers. It is true they did not win,
but they put up a fight which has won the steel workers' hearts. Their
earnest struggle and the loyal support, by money and food, which they
gave the strikers, have forever laid at rest the employers' arguments
that the unions are cowardly, grafting bodies organized merely to rob
and betray the workers. Even the densest of the strikers could see that
the loss of the strike was due to insufficient preparation; that only a
fraction of the power of unionism had been developed and that with
better organization better results would be secured. And the outcome is
that the steel workers have won a precious belief in the power of
concerted action through the unions. They have discovered the Achilles'
heel of their would-be masters. They now see the way out of their
slavery. This is their tremendous victory.
No less than the steel workers themselves, the whole trade-union
movement won a great moral victory in the steel strike and the campaign
that preceded it. This more than offsets the failure of the strike
itself. The gain consists of a badly needed addition to the unions' thin
store of self-confidence. To trade-union organizers the steel industry
had long symbolized the impossible. Wave after wave of organizing effort
they had sent against it; but their work had been as ineffectual as a
summer sea lapping the base of Gibraltar. Pessimism regarding its
conquest for trade unionism was abysmal. But now all this is changed.
The impossible has been accomplished. The steel workers were organized
in the face of all that the steel companies could do to prevent it. Thus
a whole new vista of possibilities unfolds before the unions. Not only
does the reorganization of the steel industry seem strictly feasible,
but the whole conception that many of the basic industries are immune to
trade unionism turns out to be an illusion. If the steel industry could
be organized, so can any other in the country; for the worst of them
presents hardly a fraction of the difficulties squarely vanquished in
the steel industry. The mouth has been shut forever of that insufferable
pest of the labor movement, the large body of ignorant, incompetent,
short-sighted, visionless union men whose eternal song, when some
important organizing project is afoot, is "It can't be done." After this
experience in the steel industry the problem of unionizing any industry
resolves itself simply into selecting a capable organizer and giving him
sufficient money and men to do the job.
The ending of the strike by no means indicates the abandonment of the
steel workers' battle for their rights. For a while, perhaps, their
advance may be checked, while they are recovering from the effects of
their great struggle. But it will not be long before they have another
big movement under way. They feel but little defeated by the loss of the
strike, and the trade unions as a whole feel even less so. Both have
gained wonderful confidence in themselves and in each other during the
fight. The unions will not desert the field and leave the workers a
prey to the demoralizing propaganda of the employers, customary after
lost strikes. On the contrary they are keeping a large crew of
organizers at work in an educational campaign, devised to maintain and
develop the confidence the steel workers have in themselves and the
unions. Then, when the opportune time comes, which will be but shortly,
the next big drive will be on. Mr. Gary and his associates may attempt
to forestall the inevitable by the granting of fake eight hour days,
paper increases in wages and hand-picked company unions, but it is safe
to say that the steel workers will go on building up stronger and more
aggressive combinations among themselves and with allied trades until
they finally achieve industrial freedom. So long as any men undertake to
oppress the steel workers and to squeeze returns from the industry
without rendering adequate service therefor, just that long must these
men expect to be confronted by a progressively more militant and
rebellious working force. The great steel strike of 1919 will seem only
a preliminary skirmish when compared with the tremendous battles that
are bound to come unless the enslaved steel workers are set free.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Throughout this book the term "Steel Trust" is used to indicate the
collectivity of the great steel companies. It is true that this is in
contradiction to the common usage, which generally applies the term to
the United States Steel Corporation alone, but it is in harmony with the
facts. All the big steel companies act together upon all important
matters confronting their industry. Beyond question they are organized
more or less secretly into a trust. This book recognizes this situation,
hence the broad use of the term "Steel Trust." It is important to
remember this explanation. Where the writer has in mind any one company
that company is named.
II
A GENERATION OF DEFEAT[3]
THE URGE FOR MASTERY--DEMOCRATIC RESISTANCE--THE HOMESTEAD
STRIKE--THE STRIKES OF 1901 AND 1909--THE STEEL TRUST
VICTORIOUS
The recent upheaval in the steel industry was but one link in a long
chain of struggles, the latest battle in an industrial war for freedom
which has raged almost since the inception of the industry.
The steel manufacturers have always aggressively applied the ordinary,
although unacknowledged, American business principles that our
industries exist primarily to create huge profits for the fortunate few
who own them, and that if they have any other utility it is a matter of
secondary importance. The interests of society in the steel business
they scoff at. And as for their own employees, they have never
considered them better than so much necessary human machinery, to be
bought in the market at the lowest possible price and otherwise handled
in a thoroughly irresponsible manner. They clearly understand that if
they are to carry out their policy of raw exploitation, the prime
essential is that they keep their employees unorganized. Then, without
let or hindrance, wages may be kept low, the work day made longer,
speeding systems introduced, safety devices neglected, and the human
side of the industry generally robbed and repressed in favor of its
profit side; whereas, if the unions were allowed to come in, it would
mean that every policy in the industry would first have to be considered
and judged with regard to its effects upon the men actually making steel
and iron. It would mean that humanity must be emphasized at the expense
of misearned dividends. But this would never do. The mill owners are
interested in profits, not in humanity. Hence, if they can prevent it,
they will have no unions. Since the pioneer days of steel making their
policy has tended powerfully on the one hand towards elevating the
employers into a small group of enormously wealthy, idle, industrial
autocrats, and on the other towards depressing the workers into a huge
army of ignorant, poverty-stricken, industrial serfs. The calamity of it
is that this policy has worked out so well.
Against this will-to-power of their employers the steel workers have
fought long and valiantly. In the early days of the industry, when the
combinations of capital were weak, the working force skilled,
English-speaking and independent, the latter easily defended themselves
and made substantial progress toward their own inevitable, even if
unrecognized goal of industrial freedom; but in later years, with the
growth of the gigantic United States Steel Corporation, the displacement
of skilled labor by automatic machinery and the introduction of
multitudes of illiterate immigrants into the industry, their fight for
their rights became a desperate and almost hopeless struggle. For the
past thirty years they have suffered an unbroken series of defeats.
Their one-time growing freedom has been crushed.
At first the fight was easy, and by the later '80's, grace to the
activities of many unions, notable among which were the old Sons of
Vulcan, the Knights of Labor and the Amalgamated Association of Iron,
Steel and Tin Workers, considerable organization existed among the men
employed in the iron and steel mills throughout the country. The
Amalgamated Association, the dominating body, enjoyed great prestige in
the labor movement generally. It consisted almost entirely of highly
skilled men and paid little or no attention to the unskilled workers. In
the heyday of its strength, in 1891, it numbered about 24,000 members.
Its stronghold was in the Pittsburgh district. Its citadel was
Homestead. During the period of its greatest activity some measure of
democracy prevailed in the industry, and prospects seemed bright for its
extension.
But about that time Andrew Carnegie, grown rich and powerful, began to
chafe uneasily under the restrictions placed upon his rapacity by his
organized employees. He wanted a free hand and determined to get it. As
the first step towards enshackling his workers he brought into his
company that inveterate enemy of democracy in all its forms, Henry C.
Frick. Then the two, Carnegie and Frick, neither of whom gave his
workers as much consideration as the Southern slave holder gave his
bondmen--for chattel slaves were at least assured sufficient food, warm
clothes, a habitable home and medical attendance--began to war upon the
union. They started the trouble in Homestead, where the big mills of the
Carnegie Company are located. In 1889 they insisted that the men accept
heavy reductions in wages, write their agreements to expire in the
unfavorable winter season instead of in summer, and give up their union.
The men refused, and after a short strike, got a favorable settlement.
But Carnegie and Frick were not to be lightly turned from their purpose.
When the contract in force expired, they renewed their old demands, and
thus precipitated the great Homestead strike.
This famous strike attracted world-wide attention, and well it might,
for it marked a turning point in the industrial history of America. It
began on June 23, 1892, and lasted until November 20 of the same year.
Characterized by extreme bitterness and violence, it resulted in
complete defeat for the men, not only in Homestead, but also in several
other big mills in Pittsburgh and adjoining towns where the steel
workers had struck in support of their besieged brothers in Homestead.
This unsuccessful strike eliminated organized labor from the mills of
the big Carnegie Company. It also dealt the Amalgamated Association of
Iron, Steel and Tin Workers a blow from which it has not yet recovered.
It ended the period of trade-union expansion in the steel industry and
began an era of unrestricted labor control by the employers. At
Homestead Carnegie and Frick stuck a knife deep into the vitals of the
young democracy of the steel workers.
Recuperating somewhat from the staggering defeat at Homestead, the
Amalgamated Association managed to retain a firm hold in the industry
for a few years longer. Its next big setback, in 1901, was caused by the
organization of the United States Steel Corporation. Foreseeing war from
this monster combination dominated by the hostile Carnegie interests,
the union, presided over at that time by Theodore J. Shaffer, decided to
take time by the forelock and negotiate an agreement that would extend
its scope and give it a chance to live. But the plan failed; the
anti-union tendencies of the employers were too strong, and a strike
resulted. At first the only companies affected were the American Tin
Plate Company, the American Sheet Steel Company and the American Steel
Hoop Company. Finally, however, all the organized men in all the mills
of the United States Steel Corporation were called out, but to no avail;
after a few weeks' struggle the strike was utterly lost.
The failure of the 1901 strike broke the backbone of the Amalgamated
Association. Still, with characteristic trade-union tenacity, it
lingered along in a few of the Trust plants in the sheet and tin section
of the industry. Its business relations with the companies at this stage
of its decline, according to the testimony of its present President, M.
F. Tighe, before the Senate Committee investigating the 1919 strike,
consisted of "giving way to every request that was made by the companies
when they insisted upon it." But even this humble and pliant attitude of
the once powerful Amalgamated Association was intolerable to the haughty
steel kings. They could not brook even the most shadowy opposition to
their industrial absolutism. Accordingly, early in the summer of 1909,
they served notice upon the union men to accept a reduction in wages and
give up their union. It was practically the same ultimatum delivered by
Carnegie and Frick to the Homestead men twenty years before. With a last
desperate rally the union met this latest attack upon its life. The
ensuing strike lasted fourteen months. It was bitterly fought, but it
went the way of all strikes in the steel industry since 1892. It was
lost; and in consequence every trace of unionism was wiped out of the
mills not only of the United States Steel Corporation, but of the big
independent companies as well.
Although the union was not finally crushed in the mills until the strike
of 1909, the steel mill owners were for many years previous to that time
in almost undisputed control of the situation. During a generation,
practically, they have worked their will unhampered; and the results of
their policy of unlimited exploitation are all too apparent. For
themselves they have taken untold millions of wealth from the industry;
for the workers they have left barely enough to eke out an existence in
the miserable, degraded steel towns.
At the outbreak of the World war the steel workers generally, with the
exception of the laborers, who had secured a cent or two advance per
hour, were making less wages than before the Homestead strike. The
constant increase in the cost of living in the intervening years had
still further depressed their standards of life. Not a shred of benefit
had they received from the tremendously increased output of the
industry. While the employers lived in gorgeous palaces, the workers
found themselves, for the most part, crowded like cattle into the filthy
hovels that ordinarily constitute the greater part of the steel towns.
Tuberculosis ran riot among them; infant mortality was far above normal.
Though several increases in wages were granted after the war began,
these have been offset by the terrific rise in the cost of living. If
the war has brought any betterment in the living conditions of the steel
workers, it cannot be seen with the naked eye.
The twelve hour day prevails for half of the men. One-fourth work seven
days a week, with a twenty-four hour shift every two weeks. Their lives
are one constant round of toil. They have no family life, no opportunity
for education or even for recreation; for their few hours of liberty are
spoiled by the ever-present fatigue. Furthermore, working conditions in
the mills are bad. The men are speeded up to such a degree that only the
youngest and strongest can stand it. At forty the average steel worker
is played out. The work, in itself extremely dangerous, is made still
more so by the employers' failure to adopt the necessary safety devices.
Many a man has gone to his death through the wanton neglect of the
companies to provide safeguarding appliances that they would have been
compelled to install were the unions still in the plants.[4] Not a
trace of industrial justice remains. The treatment of the men depends
altogether upon the arbitrary wills of the foremen and superintendents.
A man may give faithful service in a plant for thirty years and then be
discharged offhand, as many are, for some insignificant cause. He has no
one to appeal to. His fellow workers, living in constant terror of
discharge and the blacklist, dare not even listen to him, much less
defend his cause. He must bow to the inevitable, even though it means
industrial ruin for him and his family.
Such deplorable conditions result naturally from a lack of unionism. It
is expecting too much of human nature at this stage of its development
to count on employers treating their employees fairly without some form
of compulsion. Even in highly organized industries the unions have to be
constantly on guard to resist the never-ending encroachments of their
employers, manifested at every conceivable point of attack. For the
workers, indeed, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Hence
nothing but degradation for them and autocracy for their employers may
be looked for in industries where they are systematically kept
unorganized and thus incapable of defending their rights, as is the case
in the steel industry. This system of industrial serfdom has served the
steel barons well for a generation. But it is one the steel workers will
never accept. Regardless of the cost they will rebel against it at every
opportunity till they finally destroy it.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Students desiring a full account of the early struggles of the steel
unions are advised to read Mr. John A. Fitch's splendid book, "The Steel
Workers."
[4] The practice of the different steel companies varies with respect to
safety devices. Some of them are still in the dark ages that all were in
a few years ago, with reckless disregard of human life. Others have made
some progress. Of these the U. S. Steel Corporation is undoubtedly in
the lead, for it has installed many safety appliances and has safety
committees actively at work. At best, however, steel making is an
exceedingly dangerous industry and the risk is intensified by the great
heat of the mills and the long hours of work--the twelve hour day and
the seven day week--which lead inevitably to exhaustion.
III
THE GIANT LABOR AWAKES
A BLEAK PROSPECT--HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL--A GOLDEN CHANCE
--DISASTROUS DELAY--THE NEW PLAN--A LOST OPPORTUNITY--THE
CAMPAIGN BEGINS--GARY FIGHTS BACK
From just previous to, until some time after the beginning of the world
war the situation in the steel industry, from a trade-union point of
view, was truly discouraging. It seemed impossible for the workers to
accomplish anything by organized effort. The big steel companies, by
driving the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers from
the mills, had built up a terrific reputation as union crushers. This
was greatly enhanced by their complete defeat of Labor in the memorable
strikes of the structural iron workers, the lake sailors, the iron
miners, and the steel workers at McKees Rocks in 1909, Bethlehem in 1910
and Youngstown in 1915-16. It was still further enhanced by their
blocking every attempt of the individual trades to re-establish
themselves, and by the failure of the A. F. of L. steel campaign,
inaugurated by the convention of 1909, to achieve even the slightest
tangible results. The endless round of defeat had reduced almost to zero
the trade unions' confidence in their ability to cope with the militant
and rapacious steel manufacturers.
But as the war wore on and the United States joined the general
slaughter, the situation changed rapidly in favor of the unions. The
demand for soldiers and munitions had made labor scarce; the Federal
administration was friendly; the right to organize was freely conceded
by the government and even insisted upon; the steel industry was the
master-clock of the whole war program and had to be kept in operation at
all costs; the workers were taking new heart and making demands--already
they had engaged in big strike movements in the mills in Pittsburgh
(Jones and Laughlin Company), Bethlehem and Birmingham (U. S. Steel).
The gods were indeed fighting on the side of Labor. It was an
opportunity to organize the industry such as might never again occur.
That the trade union movement did not embrace it sooner was a calamity.
The writer was one of those who perceived the unparalleled opportunity.
But being at that time Secretary-Treasurer of the committee organizing
the packing industry I was unable to do anything substantial in the
steel situation until the handing down of Judge Alschuler's decision
giving the packing house workers the eight hour day and other vital
concessions enabled me to slacken my efforts in that important movement.
Immediately thereafter, on April 7, 1918, I presented a resolution to
the Chicago Federation of Labor requesting the executive officers of the
American Federation of Labor to call a general labor conference and to
inaugurate thereat a national campaign to organize the steel workers.
The resolution was endorsed by twelve local unions in the steel
industry. It was adopted unanimously and forwarded to the A. F. of L.
The latter took the matter up with the rapidly reviving Amalgamated
Association, and the affair was slowly winding along to an eventual
conference, with a loss of much precious time, when the resolution was
resubmitted to the Chicago Federation of Labor, re-adopted and sent to
the St. Paul convention of the A. F. of L., June 10-20, 1918. It
follows:
RESOLUTION #29
WHEREAS, the organization of the vast armies of
wage-earners employed in the steel industries is vitally
necessary to the further spread of industrial democracy in
America, and
WHEREAS, Organized Labor can accomplish this great
task only by putting forth a tremendous effort; therefore,
be it
RESOLVED, that the executive officers of the A. F.
of L. stand instructed to call a conference during this
convention of delegates of all international unions whose
interests are involved in the steel industries, and of all
the State Federations and City Central bodies in the steel
districts, for the purpose of uniting all these
organizations into one mighty drive to organize the steel
plants of America.
The resolution was adopted by unanimous vote. Accordingly, a number of
conferences were held during the convention, at which the proposed
campaign was discussed and endorsed. The outcome was that provisions
were made to have President Gompers call another conference, in Chicago
thirty days later, of responsible union officials who would come
prepared to act in the name of their international unions. This involved
further waste of probably the most precious time for organizing work
that Labor will ever have.
From past events in the steel industry it was evident that in the
proposed campaign radical departures would have to be made from the
ordinary organizing tactics. Without question the steel workers' unions
have always lacked efficiency in their organizing departments. This was
a cardinal failing of the Amalgamated Association and it contributed as
much, if not more than anything else to its downfall. If, when in its
prime, this organization had shown sufficient organizing activity in the
non-union mills, and especially by taking in the unskilled, it would
have so intrenched itself that Carnegie and his henchman, Frick, never
could have dislodged it. But, unfortunately, it undertook too much of
its organization work at the conference table and not enough at the mill
gates. Consequently, more than once it found itself in deadly quarrels
with the employers over the unionization of certain mills, when a live
organizer working among the non-union men involved would have solved the
problem in a few weeks.
Nor had the other unions claiming jurisdiction over men employed in the
steel industry developed an organizing policy equal to the occasion.
Their system of nibbling away, one craft at a time in individual mills,
was entirely out of place. Possibly effective in some industries, it was
worse than useless in the steel mills. Its unvarying failure served only
to strengthen the mill owners and to further discourage the mill
workers and Organized Labor. It is pure folly to organize one trade in
one mill, or all trades in one mill, or even all trades in all the mills
in one locality, when, at any time it sees fit to do so, the Steel Trust
can defeat the movement by merely shutting down its mills in the
affected district and transferring its work elsewhere, as it has done
time and again. It was plain, therefore, that the proposed campaign
would have to affect all the steel mills simultaneously. It would have
to be national in scope and encompass every worker in every mill, in
every steel district in the United States.
The intention was to use the system so strikingly successful in the
organization of the packing industry. The committee charged with
organizing that industry, when it assembled, a year before, to begin the
work, found three possible methods of procedure confronting it, each
with its advocates present. It could go along on the old, discredited
craft policy of each trade for itself and the devil take the hindmost;
it might attempt to form an industrial union; or it could apply the
principle of federating the trades, then making great headway on the
railroads. The latter system was the one chosen as the best fitted to
get results at this stage in the development of the unions and the
packing industry. And the outcome proved the wisdom of the decision. In
the steel campaign the unions were to be similarly linked together in an
offensive and defensive alliance.
But all this relates merely to the shell of the plan behind Resolution
No. 29. Its breath of life was in its strategy; in the way the
organization work was to be prosecuted. The best plans are worthless
unless properly executed. The idea was to make a hurricane drive
simultaneously in all the steel centers that would catch the workers'
imagination and sweep them into the unions _en masse_ despite all
opposition, and thus to put Mr. Gary and his associates into such a
predicament that they would have to grant the just demands of their men.
It was intended that after the Chicago conference a dozen or more
general organizers should be dispatched immediately to the most
important steel centers, to bring to the steel workers the first word of
the big drive being made in their behalf, and to organize local
committees to handle the detail work of organization. In the meantime
the co-operating international unions were to recruit numbers of
organizers and to send them to join the forces already being developed
everywhere by the general organizers. They should also assemble and pay
in as quickly as possible their respective portions of the fund of at
least $250,000 to be provided for the work. The essence of the plan was
quick, energetic action.
At the end of three or four weeks, when the organizing forces were in
good shape and the workers in the mills acquainted with what was afoot,
the campaign would be opened with a rush. Great mass meetings, built up
by extensive advertising, would be held everywhere at the same time
throughout the steel industry. These were calculated to arouse hope and
enthusiasm among the workers and to bring thousands of them into the
unions, regardless of any steps the mill owners might take to prevent
it. After two or three meetings in each place, the heavy stream of men
pouring into the unions would be turned into a decisive flood by the
election of committees to formulate the grievances of the men and
present these to the employers. The war was on; the continued operation
of the steel industry was imperative; a strike was therefore out of the
question; the steel manufacturers would have been compelled to yield to
their workers, either directly or through the instrumentality of the
Government. The trade unions would have been re-established in the steel
industry, and along with them fair dealing and the beginnings of
industrial democracy.
The plan was not only a bold one, but also under the circumstances the
logical and practical one. The course of events proved its feasibility.
The contention that it involved taking unfair advantage of the steel
manufacturers may be dismissed as inconsequential. These gentlemen in
their dealings with those who stand in their way do not even know the
meaning of the word fairness. Their workers they shoot and starve into
submission; their competitors they industrially strangle without
ceremony; the public and the Government they exploit without stint or
limit. The year before the campaign began, 1917, when the country was
straining every nerve to develop and conserve its resources, the United
States Steel Corporation alone, not to mention the many independents,
after paying federal taxes and leaving out of account the vast sums that
disappeared in the obscure and mysterious company funds, unblushingly
pocketed the fabulous profit of $253,608,200.
It now remained to be seen how far the unions would sustain such a
general and energetic campaign. The fateful conference met in the New
Morrison Hotel, Chicago, August 1-2, 1918. Samuel Gompers presided over
its sessions. Representatives of fifteen international unions were
present. These men showed their progressive spirit by meeting many
difficult issues squarely with the proper solutions. They realized fully
the need of co-operation along industrial lines, from the men who dig
the coal and iron ore to those who switch the finished products onto the
main lines of the railroads. Plainly no trade felt able to cope
single-handed with the Steel Trust; and joint action was decided upon
almost without discussion. Likewise the conference saw the folly of
trying to organize the steel industry with each of the score of unions
demanding a different initiation fee. Therefore, after much stretching
of constitutions, the international unions, with the exception of the
Bricklayers, Molders and Patternmakers (who charged respectively $7.25,
$5.00 and $5.00), agreed to a uniform initiation fee of three dollars,
one dollar of which was to be used for defraying expenses of the
national organization work.
At the same meeting the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel
Workers was formed. It was made to consist of one representative from
each of the co-operating international unions. Its given function was to
superintend the work of organization. Its chairman had to be a
representative of the A. F. of L. Mr. Gompers volunteered to fill this
position; the writer was elected Secretary-Treasurer. Including later
additions, the constituent unions were as follows:
International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths, Drop-Forgers
and Helpers
Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Iron Ship Builders
and Helpers of America
United Brick and Clay Workers
Bricklayers', Masons' and Plasterers' International
Union of America
International Association of Bridge, Structural and
Ornamental Iron Workers
Coopers' International Union of North America
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
International Brotherhood of Foundry Employees
International Hod Carriers', Building, and Common
Laborers' Union of America
Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin
Workers
International Association of Machinists
International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter
Workers
United Mine Workers of America
International Molders' Union of North America
Patternmakers' League of North America
United Association of Plumbers and Steam Fitters
Quarry Workers' International Union of North America
Brotherhood Railway Carmen of America
International Seamen's Union of America
Amalgamated Sheet Metal Workers' International Alliance
International Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen and
Oilers
International Union of Steam and Operating Engineers
International Brotherhood of Steamshovel and Dredgemen
Switchmen's Union of North America.
This group of unions, lined up to do battle with the Steel Trust,
represents the largest body of workers ever engaged in a joint movement
in any country. Their members number approximately 2,000,000, and
comprise about one-half of the entire American Federation of Labor.
So far, so good. The conference had removed the barriers in the way of
the campaign. But when it came to providing the large sums of money and
the numerous crews of organizers that were immediately and imperatively
needed to insure success, it failed dismally. The internationals
assessed themselves only $100 apiece; they furnished only a corporal's
guard of organizers to go ahead with the work; and future reinforcements
looked remote.
This was a facer. The original plan of a dashing offensive went to smash
instanter, and with it, likewise, the opportunity to organize the steel
industry. The slender resources in hand at once made necessary a
complete change of strategy. To undertake a national movement was out of
the question. The work had to be confined to the Chicago district. This
was admittedly going according to wrong principles. The steel industry
is national in scope and should be handled as such. To operate in one
district alone would expose that district to attacks, waste invaluable
time and give the employers a chance to adopt counter measures against
the whole campaign. It meant playing squarely into Mr. Gary's hands. But
there was no other way out of the difficulty.
The writer had hoped that the favorable industrial situation and the
organization of the packing industry, which had long been considered
hopeless, would have heartened the trade-union movement sufficiently for
it to attack the steel problem with the required vigor and confidence.
But such was not the case. The tradition of defeat in the steel industry
was too strong,--thirty years of failure were not so easily forgotten.
Lack of faith in themselves prevented the unions from pouring their
resources into the campaign in its early, critical days. The work in the
Chicago district was undertaken, nevertheless, with a determination to
win the hearty support of Labor by giving an actual demonstration of the
organizability of the steel workers.
During the first week of September the drive for members was opened in
the Chicago district. Monster meetings were held in South Chicago, Gary,
Indiana Harbor and Joliet--all the points that the few organizers could
cover. The inevitable happened; eager for a chance to right their
wrongs, the steel workers stormed into the unions. In Gary 749 joined at
the first meeting, Joliet enrolled 500, and other places did almost as
well. It was a stampede--exactly what was counted upon by the movers of
Resolution #29. And it could just as well have been on a national scale,
had the international unions possessed sufficient self-confidence and
given enough men and money to put the original plan into execution. In a
few weeks the unions would have been everywhere firmly intrenched; and
in a few more the entire steel industry would have been captured for
trade unionism and justice.
But now the folly of a one-district movement made itself evident. Up to
this time the steel barons, like many union leaders, apparently had
viewed the campaign with a skeptical, "It can't be done" air. But
events in Gary and elsewhere quickly dissipated their optimism. The
movement was clearly dangerous and required heroic treatment. The
employers, therefore, applying Mr. Gary's famous "Give them an extra cup
of rice" policy, ordered the basic eight hour day to go into effect on
the first of October. This meant that the steel workers were to get
thereafter time and one half after eight hours, instead of straight
time. It amounted to an increase of two hours pay per day but the actual
working hours were not changed. It was a counter stroke which the
national movement had been designed to forestall.
Although this concession really spelled a great moral victory for the
unions its practical effect was bad. Just a few months before the United
States Steel Corporation had publicly announced that, come what might,
there would be no basic eight hour day in the steel industry. Its sudden
adoption, almost over night, therefore, was a testimonial to the power
of the unions. But this the steel workers as a whole could not realize.
In the Chicago district, where the campaign was on, they understood and
gave the unions credit for the winning; but in other districts, where
nothing had been done, naturally they believed it a gift from the
companies. Had the work been going on everywhere when Mr. Gary attempted
this move, the workers would have understood his motives and joined the
unions _en masse_,--the unions would have won hands down. But with
operations confined to one district he was able to steal the credit from
the unions, partially satisfy his men, and strip the campaign of one of
its principal issues. No doubt he thought he had dealt it a mortal
blow.
IV.
FLANK ATTACKS
A SEA OF TROUBLES--THE POLICY OF ENCIRCLEMENT--TAKING THE
OUTPOSTS--ORGANIZING METHODS--FINANCIAL SYSTEMS--THE
QUESTION OF MORALE--JOHNSTOWN
Pittsburgh is the heart of America's steel industry. Its pre-eminence
derives from its splendid location for steel making. It is situated at
the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers join their murky
waters to form the Ohio, this providing excellent water transportation.
Immense deposits of coal surround it; the Great Lakes, the gateway to
Minnesota's iron ore, are in easy reach; highly developed railway
facilities make the best markets convenient. In the city itself there
are only a few of the larger steel mills; but at short distances along
the banks of its three rivers, are many big steel producing centers,
including Homestead, Braddock, Rankin, McKeesport, McKees Rocks,
Duquesne, Clairton, Woodlawn, Donora, Midland, Vandergrift,
Brackenridge, New Kensington, etc. Within a radius of seventy-five miles
lie Johnstown, Youngstown, Butler, Farrell, Sharon, New Castle,
Wheeling, Mingo, Steubenville, Bellaire, Wierton and various other
important steel towns. The district contains from seventy to eighty per
cent. of the country's steel industry. The whole territory is an amazing
and bewildering network of gigantic steel mills, blast furnaces and
fabricating shops.
It was into this industrial labyrinth, the den of the Steel Trust, that
the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers moved its
office on October 1, 1918, preparatory to beginning its work. Success in
the Chicago district had made it imperative to overcome the original
tactical blunder by extending the campaign, just as quickly as possible,
to a national scope.
The outlook was most unpromising. Even under the best of circumstances
the task of getting the enormous army of steel workers to thinking and
acting together in terms of trade unionism would be tremendous. But the
disastrous mistake of not starting the campaign soon enough and with the
proper vigor multiplied the difficulties. Unfavorable winter weather was
approaching. This was complicated by the influenza epidemic, which for
several weeks suspended all public gatherings. Then came the end of the
war. The workers had also just been given the basic eight hour day. All
these things tended to still them somewhat and to weaken their interest
in organization. What was left of this interest was almost entirely
wiped out when the mills, dependent as they were on war work, began to
slacken production. The workers became obsessed with a fear of hard
times, a timidity which was intensified by the steel companies'
discharging every one suspected of union affiliations or sympathies.
And to cap the climax, the resources of the National Committee were
still pitifully inadequate to the great task confronting it.
But worst of all, the steel companies were now on the _qui vive_. The
original plan had been conceived to take them by surprise, on the
supposition that their supreme contempt for Labor and their conceit in
their own power would blind them to the real force and extent of the
movement until it was too late to take effective counteraction. And it
would surely have worked out this way, had the program been followed.
But now the advantage of surprise, vital in all wars, industrial or
military, was lost to the unions. Wide awake and alarmed, the Steel
Trust was prepared to fight to the last ditch.
Things looked desperate. But there was no other course than to go ahead
regardless of obstacles. The word failure was eliminated from the
vocabulary of the National Committee. Preparations were made to begin
operations in the towns close to Pittsburgh. But the Steel Trust was
vigilant. It no longer placed any reliance upon its usual methods--its
welfare, old age pension, employees' stockholding, wholesale discharge,
or "extra cup of rice" policies--to hold its men in line, when a good
fighting chance to win their rights presented itself to them. It had
gained a wholesome respect for the movement and was taking no chances.
It would cut off all communication between the organizers and the men.
Consequently, its lackey-like mayors and burgesses in the threatened
towns immediately held a meeting and decided that there would be no
assemblages of steel workers in the Monongahela valley. In some places
these officials, who for the most part are steel company employees, had
the pliable local councils hurriedly adopt ordinances making it unlawful
to hold public meetings without securing sanction; in other places they
adopted the equally effective method of simply notifying the landlords
that if they dared rent their halls to the American Federation of Labor
they would have their "Sunday Club" privileges stopped. In both cases
the effect was the same--no meetings could be held. In the immediate
Pittsburgh district there had been little enough free speech and free
assembly for the trade unions before. Now it was abolished altogether.
At this time the world war was still on; our soldiers were fighting in
Europe to "make the world safe for democracy"; President Wilson was
idealistically declaiming about "the new freedom"; while right here in
our own country the trade unions, with 500,000 men in the service, were
not even allowed to hold public meetings. It was a worse condition than
kaiserism itself had ever set up. This is said advisedly, for the German
workers were at least permitted to meet when and where they pleased. The
worst they had to contend with was a policeman on their platform, who
would jot down "seditious" remarks and require the offenders to report
next day to the police. I remember with what scorn I watched this system
in Germany years ago, and how proud I felt to be an American. I was so
sure that freedom of speech and assembly were fundamental institutions
with us and that we would never tolerate such imposition. But now I have
changed my mind. In Pennsylvania, not to speak of other states, the
workers enjoy few or no more rights than prevailed under the czars. They
cannot hold meetings at all. So far are they below the status of pre-war
Germans in this respect that the comparative freedom of the latter seems
almost like an unattainable ideal. And this deprival of rights is done
in the name of law and patriotism.
In the face of such suppression of constitutional rights and in the face
of all the other staggering difficulties it was clearly impossible for
our scanty forces to capture Pittsburgh for unionism by a frontal
attack. Therefore a system of flank attacks was decided upon. This
resolved itself into a plan literally to surround the immediate
Pittsburgh district with organized posts before attacking it. The
outlying steel districts that dot the counties and states around
Pittsburgh like minor forts about a great stronghold, were first to be
won. Then the unions, with the added strength, were to make a big drive
on the citadel.
It was a far-fetched program when compared with the original; but
circumstances compelled it. An important consideration in its execution
was that it must not seem that the unions were abandoning Pittsburgh.
That was the center of the battle line; the unions had attacked there,
and now they must at least pretend to hold their ground until they were
able to begin the real attack. The morale of the organizing force and
the steel workers demanded this. So, all winter long mass meetings were
held in the Pittsburgh Labor Temple and hundreds of thousands of
leaflets were distributed in the neighboring mills to prepare the
ground for unionization in the spring. Besides, a lot of noise was made
over the suppression of free speech and free assemblage. Protest
meetings were held, committees appointed, investigations set afoot,
politicians visited, and much other more or less useless, although
spectacular, running around engaged in. These activities did not cost
much, and they camouflaged well the union program.
But the actual fight was elsewhere. During the next several months the
National Committee, with gradually increasing resources, set up
substantial organizations in steel towns all over the country except
close in to Pittsburgh, including Youngstown, East Youngstown, Warren,
Niles, Canton, Struthers, Hubbard, Massillon, Alliance, New
Philadelphia, Sharon, Farrell, New Castle, Butler, Ellwood City, New
Kensington, Leechburg, Apollo, Vandergrift, Brackenridge, Johnstown,
Coatesville, Wheeling, Benwood, Bellaire, Steubenville, Mingo,
Cleveland, Buffalo, Lackawanna, Pueblo, Birmingham, etc. Operations in
the Chicago district were intensified and extended to take in Milwaukee,
Kenosha, Waukegan, De Kalb, Peoria, Pullman, Hammond, East Chicago,
etc., while in Bethlehem the National Committee amplified the work
started a year before by the Machinists and Electrical Workers.
Much of the success in these localities was due to the thoroughly
systematic way in which the organizing work was carried on. This merits
a brief description. There were two classes of organizers in the
campaign, the floating and the stationary. Outside of a few traveling
foreign speakers, the floating organizers were those sent in by the
various international unions. They usually went about from point to
point attending to their respective sections of the newly formed local
unions, and giving such assistance to the general campaign as their
other duties permitted. The stationary organizers consisted of A. F. of
L. men, representatives of the United Mine Workers, and men hired
directly by the National Committee. They acted as local organizing
secretaries, and were the backbone of the working force. The floating
organizers were controlled mostly by their international unions; the
stationary organizers worked wholly under the direction of the National
Committee.
Everywhere the organizing system used was the same. The local secretary
was in full charge. He had an office, which served as general
headquarters. He circulated the National Committee's weekly bulletin,
consisting of a short, trenchant trade-union argument in four languages.
He built up the mass meetings, and controlled all applications for
membership. At these mass meetings and in the offices all trades were
signed up indiscriminately upon a uniform blank. But there was no "one
big union" formed. The signed applications were merely stacked away
until there was a considerable number. Then the representatives of all
the trades were assembled and the applications distributed among them.
Later these men set up their respective unions. Finally, the new unions
were drawn up locally into informal central bodies, known as Iron and
Steel Workers' councils. These were invaluable as they knit the movement
together and strengthened the weaker unions. They also inculcated the
indispensable conception of solidarity along industrial lines and
prevented irresponsible strike action by over-zealous single trades.
A highly important feature was the financial system. The handling of the
funds is always a danger point in all working class movements. More than
one strike and organizing campaign has been wrecked by loose money
methods. The National Committee spared no pains to avoid this menace.
The problem was an immense one, for there were from 100 to 125
organizers (which was what the crew finally amounted to) signing up
steel workers by the thousands all over the country; but it was solved
by the strict application of a few business principles. In the first
place the local secretaries were definitely recognized as the men in
charge and placed under heavy bonds. All the application blanks used by
them were numbered serially. They alone were authorized to sign
receipts[5] for initiation fees received. Should other organizers wish
to enroll members, as often happened at the monster mass meetings, they
were given and charged with so many receipts duly signed by the
secretaries. Later on they were required to return these receipts or
three dollars apiece for them. The effect of all this was to make one
man, and him bonded, responsible in each locality for all paper
outstanding against the National Committee. This was absolutely
essential. No system was possible without this foundation.
The next step was definitely to fasten responsibility in the transfer of
initiation fees from the local secretaries to the representatives of the
various trade unions. To do so was most important. It was accomplished
by requiring the local secretaries to exact from these men detailed
receipts, specifying not only the amounts paid and the number of
applications turned over, but also the serial number of each
application. Bulk transfer of applications was prohibited, there being
no way to identify the paper so handled.
The general effect of these regulations was to enable the National
Committee almost instantly to trace any one of the thousands of
applications continually passing through the hands of its agents. For
instance, a steel worker who had joined at an office or a mass meeting,
hearing later of the formation of his local union, would go to its
meeting, present his receipt and ask for his union card. The secretary
of the union would look up the applications which had been turned over
to him. If he could not find one to correspond with the man's receipt he
would take the matter up with the National Committee's local secretary.
The latter could not deny his own signature on the receipt; he would
have to tell what became of the application and the fee. On looking up
the matter he would find that he had turned them over to a certain
representative. Nor could the latter deny his signature on the detailed
receipt. He would have to make good.
To facilitate the work, district offices were established in Chicago
and Youngstown. Organizers and secretaries held district meetings
weekly. Local secretaries at points contiguous to these centers reported
to their respective district secretaries. All others dealt directly with
the general office of the National Committee.
It will be recalled that the co-operating unions, at the August 1-2
conference, agreed that the sum of one dollar should be deducted from
each initiation fee for organization purposes. The collection of this
money devolved upon the National Committee and presented considerable
difficulty. It was solved by a system. The local secretaries, in turning
over to the trades the applications signed up in their offices or at the
mass meetings, held out one dollar apiece on them. For the applications
secured at the meetings of the local unions they collected the dollars
due with the assistance of blank forms sent to the unions. Each week the
local secretaries sent reports to the general office of the National
Committee, specifying in detail the number of members enrolled and
turned over to the various trades, and enclosing checks to cover the
amounts on hand after local expenses were met. These reports were duly
certified by the representatives of the organizations involved, who
signed their names on them at the points where the reports referred to
the number of members turned over to their respective bodies. The whole
system worked well.
Practical labor officials who have handled mass movements understand the
great difficulties attendant upon the organization of large bodies of
workingmen. In the steel campaign these were more serious than ever
before. The tremendous number of men involved; their unfamiliarity with
the English language and total lack of union experience; the wide scope
of the operations; the complications created by a score of international
unions, each with its own corps of organizers, directly mainly from
far-distant headquarters; the chronic lack of resources; and the need
for quick action in the face of incessant attacks from the Steel
Trust--all together produced technical difficulties without precedent.
But the foregoing systems went far to solve them. And into these systems
the organizers and secretaries entered whole-heartedly. They realized
that modern labor organizations cannot depend wholly upon idealism. They
bore in mind that they were dealing with human beings and had to adopt
sound principles of responsibility, standardization and general
efficiency.
But another factor in the success of the campaign possibly even more
important than the systems employed was the splendid morale of the
organizers. A better, more loyal body of men was never gathered together
upon this continent. They knew no such word as defeat. They pressed on
with an irresistible assurance of victory born of their faith in the
practicability of the theory upon which the campaign was worked out.
[Illustration: NATIONAL COMMITTEE DELEGATES
YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO MEETING, Aug. 20, 1919.--Standing, left to
right: F. P. Hanaway, _Miners_; D. Hickey, _Miners_; C. Claherty,
_Blacksmiths_; R. J. Barr, _Machinists_; H. F. Liley, _Railway Carmen_;
R. L. Hall, _Machinists_; R. T. McCoy, _Molders_; R. W. Beattie,
_Firemen_; J. W. Morton. _Firemen_; P. A. Trant, _Amalgamated
Association_. Seated, left to right: E. Crough, J. D. Cannon, _Mine,
Mill and Smelter Workers_; F. J. Hardison, _Blacksmiths_; J. Manley,
_Iron Workers_; Wm. Hannon, _Machinists_; John Fitzpatrick, _Chairman_;
Wm. Z. Foster, _Sec.-Treasurer_; C. N. Glover, _Blacksmiths_; T. C.
Cashen, _Switchmen_; D. J. Davis, _Amalgamated Association_.]
The organization of workingmen into trade unions is a comparatively
simple matter when it is properly handled. It depends almost entirely
upon the honesty, intelligence, power and persistence of the organizing
forces. If these factors are strongly present, employers can do little
to stop the movement of their employees. This is because the hard
industrial conditions powerfully predispose the workers to take up any
movement offering reasonable prospects of bettering their miserable lot.
All that union organizers have to do is to place before these
psychologically ripe workers, with sufficient clarity and persistence,
the splendid achievements of the trade-union movement, and be prepared
with a comprehensive organization plan to take care of the members when
they come. If this presentation of trade unionism is made in even
half-decent fashion the workers can hardly fail to respond. It is
largely a mechanical proposition. In view of its great wealth and latent
power, it may be truthfully said that there isn't an industry in the
country which the trade-union movement cannot organize any time it sees
fit. The problem in any case is merely to develop the proper organizing
crews and systems, and the freedom-hungry workers, skilled or unskilled,
men or women, black or white, will react almost as naturally and
inevitably as water runs down hill.
This does not mean that there should be rosy-hued hopes held out to the
workers and promises made to them of what the unions will get from the
employers once they are established. On the contrary, one of the first
principles of an efficient organizer is never, under any circumstances,
to make promises to his men. From experience he has learned the extreme
difficulty of making good such promises and also the destructive
kick-back felt in case they are not fulfilled. The most he can do is to
tell his men what has been done in other cases by organized workingmen
and assure them that if they will stand together the union will do its
utmost to help them. Beyond this he will not venture. And this position
will enable him to develop the legitimate hope, idealism and enthusiasm
which translates itself into substantial trade-union structure. The wild
stories of extravagant promises made to the steel workers during their
organization are pure tommyrot, as every experienced union man knows.
The practical effect of this theory is to throw on the union men the
burden of responsibility for the unorganized condition of the
industries. This is as it should be. In consequence, they tend to blame
themselves rather than the unorganized men. Instead of indulging in the
customary futile lamentations about the scab-like nature of the
non-union man, "unorganizable industries," the irresistible power of the
employers, and similar illusions to which unionists are too prone, they
seek the solution of the problem in improvements of their own primitive
organization methods.
This conception worked admirably in the steel campaign. It filled the
organizers with unlimited confidence in their own power. They felt that
they were the decisive factor in the situation. If they could but
present their case strongly enough, and clearly enough to the steel
workers, the latter would have to respond, and the steel barons would be
unable to prevent it. A check or a failure was but the signal for an
overhauling of the tactics used, and a resumption of the attack with
renewed vigor. At times it was almost laughable. With hardly an
exception, when the organizers went into a steel town to begin work,
they would be met by the local union men and solemnly assured that it
was utterly impossible to organize the steel mills in their town. "But,"
the organizers would say, "we succeeded in organizing Gary and South
Chicago and many other tough places." "Yes, we know that," would be the
reply, "but conditions are altogether different here. These mills are
absolutely impossible. We have worked on them for years and cannot make
the slightest impression. They are full of scabs from all over the
country. You will only waste your time by monkeying with them." This
happened not in one place alone, but practically everywhere--illustrating
the villainous reputation the steel companies had built up as union
smashers.
Side-stepping these pessimistic croakers, the organizers would go on to
their task with undiminished self-confidence and energy. The result was
success everywhere. The National Committee can boast the proud record of
never having set up its organizing machinery in a steel town without
ultimately putting substantial unions among the employees. It made
little difference what the obstacles were; the chronic lack of funds;
suppression of free speech and free assembly; raises in wages;
multiplicity of races; mass picketing by bosses; wholesale discharge of
union men; company unions; discouraging traditions of lost local
strikes; or what not--in every case, whether the employers were
indifferent or bitterly hostile, the result was the same, a healthy and
rapid growth of the unions. The National Committee proved beyond
peradventure of a doubt that the steel industry could be organized in
spite of all the Steel Trust could do to prevent it.
Each town produced its own particular crop of problems. A chapter apiece
would hardly suffice to describe the discouraging obstacles overcome in
organizing the many districts. But that would far outrun the limits of
this volume. A few details about the work in Johnstown will suffice to
indicate the tactics of the employers and the nature of the campaign
generally.
Johnstown is situated on the main line of the Pennsylvania railroad,
seventy-five miles east of Pittsburgh. It is the home of the Cambria
Steel Company, which employs normally from 15,000 to 17,000 men in its
enormous mills and mines. It is one of the most important steel centers
in America.
For sixty-six years the Cambria Company had reared its black stacks in
the Conemaugh valley and ruled as autocratically as any mediæval baron.
It practically owned the district and the dwellers therein. It paid its
workers less than almost any other steel company in Pennsylvania and was
noted as one of the country's worst union-hating concerns. According to
old residents, the only record of unionism in its plants, prior to the
National Committee campaign, was a strike in 1874 of the Sons of Vulcan,
and a small movement a number of years later, in 1885, when a few men
joined the Knights of Labor and were summarily discharged. The
Amalgamated Association, even in its most militant days, was unable to
get a grip in Johnstown. That town, for years, bore the evil reputation
of being one where union organizers were met at the depot and given the
alternative of leaving town or going to the lockup.
Into this industrial jail of a city the National Committee went in the
early winter of 1918-19, at the invitation of local steel workers who
had heard of the campaign. A. F. of L. organizer Thomas J. Conboy was
placed in charge of the work. Immediately a strong organization spirit
manifested itself--the wrongs of two-thirds of a century would out. It
was interesting to watch the counter-moves of the company. They were
typical. At first the officials contented themselves by stationing
numbers of bosses and company detectives in front of the office and
meeting halls to jot down the names of the men attending. But when this
availed nothing, they took the next step by calling the live union
spirits to the office and threatening them with dismissal. This likewise
failed to stem the tide of unionism, and then the company officials
applied their most dreaded weapon, the power of discharge. This was a
dangerous course; the reason they did not adopt it before was for fear
of its producing exactly the revolt they were aiming to prevent. But,
all else unavailing, they went to this extreme.
Never was a policy of industrial frightfulness more diabolically
conceived or more rigorously executed than that of the Cambria Steel
Company. The men sacrificed were the Company's oldest and best
employees. Men who had worked faithfully for ten, twenty or thirty years
were discharged at a moment's notice. The plan was to pick out the men
economically most helpless; men who were old and crippled, or who had
large families dependent upon them, or homes half paid for, and make
examples of them to frighten the rest. The case of Wm. H. Seibert was
typical; this man, a highly skilled mechanic, had worked for the Cambria
Company thirty years. He was deaf and dumb, and could neither read nor
write. He was practically cut off from all communication with his fellow
workers. Yet the company, with fiendish humor, discharged him for being
a union agitator. For every worker, discharge by the Cambria Company
meant leaving Johnstown, if he would again work at his trade; for most
of them it brought the severest hardships, but for such as Seibert it
spelled ruin. With their handicaps of age and infirmities, they could
never hope to work in steel mills again.
For months the Company continued these tactics.[6] Hundreds of union men
were thus victimized. The object was to strike terror to the hearts of
all and make them bow again to the mastery of the Cambria Steel Company.
But the terrorists overshot the mark. Human nature could not endure it.
They goaded their workers to desperation and forced them to fight back,
however unfavorable the circumstances. The National Committee met in
Johnstown and ordered a ballot among the men. They voted overwhelmingly
to strike. A committee went to see Mr. Slick, the head of the Company,
who refused to meet it, stating that if the men had any grievances they
could take them up through the company union.
This company union played a large part in the drama of Johnstown. It was
organized late in 1918 to forestall the trade unions. Such company
unions are invariably mere auxiliaries to the companies' labor-crushing
systems. They serve to delude the workers into believing they have some
semblance of industrial democracy, and thus deter them from seeking the
real thing. They consist merely of committees, made up for the most part
of hand-picked bosses and "company suckers." There is no real
organization of the workers. The men have no meetings off the property
of the companies; they lack the advice of skilled trade unionists; they
have no funds or means to strike effectively; they are out of touch with
the workers in other sections of the industry. Consequently they have
neither opportunity to formulate their grievances, nor power to enforce
their adjustment. And little good would it do them if they had, for the
lickspittle committees are always careful to see that they handle no
business unless it relates to "welfare" work or other comparatively
insignificant matters.
Company unions are invariably contemptible. All of them are cursed with
company dictation, and all of them lack the vivifying principles of
democratic control; but it is doubtful if a more degraded specimen can
be found anywhere than that of the Cambria Steel Company. Without a
murmur of protest it watched the company abolish the basic eight hour
day late in 1918. Nor did it raise a finger to help the multitude of
unfairly discharged union men. It habitually pigeonholed all real
grievances submitted to it. But what else could be expected of a
committee from which the company boldly discharged every man who dared
say a word for the workers?
By referring the men's grievances to the despised company union, Mr.
Slick only added fuel to the fire. A strike loomed threateningly, but
just as it was about to break, Mr. Slick lost his job, presumably
because of his unsuccessful labor policy. He was supplanted by A. A.
Corey, Jr., formerly general superintendent of the Homestead Steel
Works. Thinking perhaps the change in personnel might involve a change
in policy, the committee approached Mr. Corey. He, too, refused to meet
with it, stating publicly that the management would not deal with the
representatives of outside organizations, but would take up the men's
grievances, either through the company union, or "through any other
accredited committee selected by the men in any way that is agreeable to
them from among their own number." The last proposition was acceptable,
and with joy the men held big open mass meetings of union and non-union
men, and elected their committee. But their joy was short-lived. Mr.
Corey, unashamed, wrote the committee that he had acted hastily before,
and said, "I have had no previous experience with arrangements in the
nature of collective bargaining, but a careful survey of this plan
(company union), which I have since had time to make, convinces me that
it makes full and complete provision for every contingency which can
arise between the company and its employees." And then to make the men
like this bitter medicine, the Company discharged an active member of
the committee. All these events consumed many weeks and wore away the
late winter and early spring months.
Mr. Corey's double-dealing provoked a fresh strike crisis; but by heroic
measures the organizers repressed it. At all times a strike in Johnstown
alone against the united steel companies was considered a move of
desperation, a last resort to be undertaken only because nothing else
could be done. But now relief was in sight. Spring was at hand and the
national movement fast coming to a head. Its committees were knocking at
the doors of the steel companies. The exposed and invaluable Johnstown
position had to be held until this main army could come up and relieve
it. So the Johnstown workers were told that they must refrain from
counter-attacking, that they had to take all the blows heaped upon them
and hold their ground at all costs.
And right nobly they did it. In spite of the bitterest hardships they
built up and developed their organizations. In this they were
unwittingly but powerfully aided by the company union. Several weeks
before the big strike the officials took the hated general committee to
Atlantic City, wined them and dined them and flattered them, as usual,
and then had them adopt a set of resolutions condemning the national
movement of the steel workers and endorsing long hours, low wages and
heavier production as the remedy for prevailing bad conditions. This
betrayal was the last straw. It provoked intense resentment among the
men. Whole battalions of them, the most skilled and difficult in the
plant to organize, walked down and joined the unions in protest. Almost
3000 enrolled the week after the resolutions were adopted. But it was
always thus. Every move that the Cambria made the unions turned to their
advantage. They outgeneraled the Company at every turn.
It was almost pitiful to watch the later antics of the haughty and
hitherto unchallenged Cambria Company, humbled in its own town by its
own workers. A few weeks before Labor day the unions, innocently
presuming the mills would be closed as usual on that day, decided to
have a parade. Then the strategical experts of the Company became
active. A warning was issued that every man marching in the parade would
be summarily discharged. The unions would not brook this unwarranted and
cold-blooded attack. They promptly sent word to the Company that if a
single man was discharged the whole plant would be stopped the next day.
It was a clear-cut issue, and Johnstown held its breath. When Labor day
came the city saw the biggest demonstration in its history. Fifteen
thousand organized workers defied their would-be masters and marched.
The Company swiftly backed water. And the next day not a man was
discharged. It was a victory well worth the heroic efforts and suffering
of the previous eight months.
When the great strike broke on September 22 the Johnstown workers went
into the fight almost one hundred per cent. organized, and with about
the same percentage of grievances. So few men were left in the plant
that the Company had to ask the unions to give them help to shut down
their furnaces, and to keep the fire protection in operation. All the
power of the great corporation, which had made $30,000,000 the year
before, could not forestall the unions. It had no arrow in its quiver
that could strike fear to the hearts of its workers; no trick in its
brain pan that could be substituted for industrial democracy.
And Johnstown was only one point in the long battle line. Its
experiences were but typical. Each steel town had its own bitter story
of obstacles encountered and overcome. Youngstown, Chicago, Bethlehem,
Cleveland, Wheeling, Pueblo, Buffalo and many other districts, each put
up a hard fight. But one by one, despite all barriers, steel towns all
over the country were captured for unionism.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] As a side light on organizing methods, it may be noted that the
temporary receipts were red, white and blue cards. The patriotic
foreigners were proud to carry these emblematic cards pending the time
they got their regular cards. More than one man joined merely on that
account.
[6] In its war against unionism the Cambria Steel Company held nothing
sacred, not even the church. During the campaign the Reverend George
Dono Brooks, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Johnstown, took an
active part, speaking at many meetings and generally lending
encouragement to the workers. For this crime the company punished him by
disrupting his congregation and eventually driving him from the city,
penniless.
V
BREAKING INTO PITTSBURGH
THE FLYING SQUADRON--MONESSEN--DONORA--McKEESPORT--RANKIN
--BRADDOCK--CLAIRTON--HOMESTEAD--DUQUESNE--THE RESULTS
The time was now ripe for a great drive on Pittsburgh, a district which
had been the despair of unionism for a generation. The new strategy of
the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers was
succeeding. Pittsburgh had been surrounded by organized posts,
established during the winter. The Chicago district had also been held.
The committee's finances were improving. The crew of organizers was
larger and more enthusiastic than ever. The mills were operating
stronger and stronger. And spring was here. The movement was now ready
for a tremendous effort to capture Pittsburgh, and thus overcome, as far
as might be, the original mistake of not starting the campaign soon
enough and everywhere at the same time. This done, it would put the work
squarely upon the essential national basis. So the assault was ordered
on the stronghold of the Steel Trust.
First free speech and free assembly had to be established; for the towns
about Pittsburgh were still closed tight against the unions. During the
winter incessant attempts had been made to break the embargo by
political methods, but without avail. In vain a special convention of
all the unions in Western Pennsylvania had appealed to the Governor for
assistance. For a moment the federal Department of Labor displayed a
languid interest and sent a dozen men to investigate conditions. But
until this day their report has never appeared. In answer to inquiries,
the Secretary of Labor is reported to have said that "its publication at
this time would be inadvisable." That may be one reason, and another may
be that the Department, in its eager cooperation with Attorney General
Palmer, in deporting hundreds of workingmen without trials, is so busy
that it hasn't time to attend to such trifles as the wholesale
suppression of constitutional rights in Pennsylvania.
But in seeking relief no appeal was made to the courts to set up the
rights of the unions. This was for two reasons. First, it would involve
such a loss of time that the chance to organize the steel workers would
have passed long before any decision could be secured. Then, again,
there was no faith that the courts of Pennsylvania would be just, and
the National Committee had no money to carry the fight higher. The
unions conceived their rights to speak and assemble freely too well
established to necessitate court sanction at this late date. Hence, they
determined to exercise them, peacefully and lawfully, and to take the
consequences. At Atlantic City, where the A. F. of L. was in convention,
a dozen presidents of international unions in the steel campaign
expressed their willingness to enter the steel districts, to speak on
the streets, and to go to jail if necessary.
To carry on the difficult and dangerous free speech fight, and to
oversee generally the organization of the immediate Pittsburgh district,
a special crew of organizers was formed. This was known as "The Flying
Squadron," and was headed by J. L. Beaghen, A. F. of L. organizer and
President of the Pittsburgh Bricklayers' Union. The following brief
references to the fights in the various towns will illustrate the forces
at play and the methods employed.
Monessen, forty miles from Pittsburgh on the Monongahela river, the home
of the Pittsburgh Steel Company and several other large concerns, and
notorious as the place where organizer Jeff. Pierce got his death blow
in a previous campaign, was the first point of attack. Wm. Feeney,
United Mine Workers' organizer and local secretary in charge of the
district for the National Committee, superintended operations. Several
months previously the Burgess of Monessen had flatly refused to allow
him to hold any meetings in that town. So he was compelled to operate
from Charleroi, several miles away. But as soon as spring peeped the
question was opened again. He called a meeting to take place square in
the streets of Monessen on April 1st. The Burgess forbade it with
flaming pronunciamentos and threatened dire consequences if it were
held. But Feeney went ahead, and on the date set marched 10,000 union
miners from the surrounding country into Monessen to protest the
suppression of free speech and free assembly. Mother Jones,[7] James
Maurer, President of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor, Philip
Murray, President of District No. 5, U. M. W. A., Mr. Feeney, the writer
and others spoke. The demonstration was a huge success. Public opinion
was clearly on the side of the steel workers, and the Burgess had to
recede from his dictatorial attitude and allow them to exercise their
constitutional rights. This they hastened to do with gusto. The affair
established the unions in the big mills of Monessen.
In Donora, an important steel town a few miles down the river from
Monessen, and part of organizer Feeney's district, the fight was not so
easily won. The United States Constitution provides that not even
Congress may pass laws abridging the rights of free speech and free
assembly; but in Pennsylvania the Constitution is considered a sort of
humorous essay; hence the lickspittle Donora council, right in the face
of the steel campaign, passed an ordinance forbidding public meetings
without the sanction of the Burgess, which sanction, of course, the
unions could not get. But nothing deterred, the indomitable Feeney hired
a couple of lots on the edge of the town and held meetings there. The
company officials left nothing undone to break up these gatherings. They
held band concerts and ball games at the same hour, and set dozens of
their bosses and police to picket the meetings. But it was no use; the
workers attended and joined the unions in droves.
This lasted a couple of months. And all the while a local paper was
villainously assailing Feeney. Finally, the steel company agents got the
business men to sign an ultimatum to Feeney, demanding that he leave the
district at once. Feeney took this matter up with his miners, and they
decided that not he, but they, would quit Donora. Organized solidly,
they easily put a strict boycott on the town, and it was not long before
the same business men, with their trade almost ruined, made a public
apology to Feeney, and ousted their own officials who had been
responsible for the attack.
Naturally these events heartened the steel workers. They organized very
rapidly, and soon had a majority of the men in the mills--a large plant
of the American Steel and Wire Company. They also became a big factor in
the local fraternal associations, which controlled all the halls; and
suddenly the Lithuanian Society deposed its President, who was friendly
to the steel company, and voted to give its hall to the unions, permits
or no permits. In the face of this situation the Burgess reluctantly
granted sanction for union meetings. And thus free speech and free
assembly were established in the benighted town of Donora, and with
them, almost complete organization of the steel workers.
But the heart of the conspiracy against free speech and free assembly
was in McKeesport, twenty miles from Pittsburgh. When the organizers
tried to hold meetings in that city they could hire no halls without
the Mayor's permission, and this the latter, George H. Lysle, stubbornly
refused to give. He feared a revolution if the staid A. F. of L. unions
were permitted to meet; but the Socialist party and other radical
organizations went ahead with their gatherings without opposition. The
truth was that he knew the unions would organize the workers if they
could but get their ear, and this he determined to prevent. Nor would he
shift from his autocratic position. Appeals by the organizers to the
Federal government, the Governor and the local city council were alike
fruitless. No meetings could be held in McKeesport. And the officials of
all the steel towns along the Monongahela river, drawing inspiration
from the little despot, Lysle, took the same stand. Free speech and free
assembly were stifled in the whole district.
The Federal authorities being so active setting the outside world aright
that they could find no time or occasion to correct the most glaring
abuses at home, the unions resolved to attend to the free speech and
free assembly matter themselves. Knowing that Lysle could knife the
workers' rights only so long as he was allowed to work in the dark, they
determined to drag him into the daylight and let the public judge of his
deeds. They would hold meetings on the streets of McKeesport in spite of
him; give him a few hundred test court cases to handle, and finally find
out whether the A. F. of L. is entitled to the same rights as other
organizations.
The fight opened as soon as the weather permitted. May 18 was the date
set for the first meeting. The Mayor stormed and threatened all
concerned with instant arrest; but the preparations went on just the
same. When the fated day arrived thousands turned out to hear the
speakers. But the Mayor, failing to defend his course, dared not molest
the meeting. After this, meetings were held on the streets each Sunday
afternoon, always in the face of the Mayor's threats, until eventually
the latter, seeing that he was the laughing stock of the city and that
the street meetings were organizing hundreds of the workers,
shame-facedly granted the following niggardly permit for meetings:
CITY OF McKEESPORT.
Department of Police.
McKeesport, Pa., July 7, 1919.
Mr. Reddington,
Chief of Police,
McKeesport, Pa.,
Dear Sir:
This is to certify that the McKeesport Council
of Labor has permission to hold a mass meeting in
Slavish Hall on White Street on July 8, 1919.
Permission is granted subject to the following conditions,
and also subject to police regulation.
(1st) That no speaker shall talk in any other
languages, except the English language.
(2nd) That a list of the speakers be submitted
to the Mayor before the meeting is held.
Very truly yours,
(Signed) Geo. H. Lysle
Mayor
Disregarding the three provisions of this contemptible document, the
unions held their meetings under the auspices of the A. F. of L. (not of
the McKeesport Council of Labor), had their speakers talk in whatever
languages their hearers best understood, and submitted no list to Lysle.
Then the big steel companies rushed to the aid of the hard-pressed
Mayor. All the while they had discharged every man they could locate who
had either joined the unions or expressed sympathy with them, but now
they became more active. As each meeting was held they stationed about
the hall doors (under the captaincy of Mr. William A. Cornelius, Manager
of the National Tube Company's works) at least five hundred of their
bosses, detectives, office help, and "loyal" workers to intimidate the
men who were entering. About three hundred more would be sent into the
hall to disrupt the meetings. And woe to the man they recognized, for he
was discharged the next morning. The organizers, running the gauntlet of
these Steel Trust gunmen, carried their very lives in their hands.
Under these hard circumstances few steel workers dared to go to the
meetings or to the union headquarters. But the organizations grew
rapidly nevertheless. Every discharged man became a volunteer organizer
and busied himself getting his friends to enroll. A favorite trick to
escape the espionage was to get a group of men, from a dozen to fifty,
to meet quietly in one of the homes, fill out their applications, and
send them by a sister or wife to the union headquarters--the detectives
stationed outside naturally not knowing the women. Conditions in the
local mills were so bad that not even the most desperate employers'
tactics could stop the progress of the unions. McKeesport quickly became
one of the strong organization points on the river.
Sweeping onward through the Pittsburgh district, the unions gained great
headway by the collapse of the petty Czar of McKeesport, for all the
little nabobs in the adjoining steel towns felt the effects of his
defeat. Rankin fell without a blow. A few months before the hall had
been closed there by the local board of health, when the Burgess refused
to act against the unions. But now no objections were made to the
meetings. Braddock also capitulated easily. At a street meeting held in
the middle of town against the Burgess' orders, organizers J. L.
Beaghen, R. L. Hall, J. C. Boyle, J. B. Gent and the writer were
arrested. The Burgess, however, not wishing to meet the issue, found it
convenient to leave town, and the Acting Burgess, declaring in open
court that he would not "do the dirty work of the Burgess," postponed
the hearings indefinitely. That settled Braddock.
Burgess Williams of North Clairton, chief of the Carnegie mill police at
that point, swore dire vengeance against the free speech fighters should
they come to his town. But the National Committee, choosing a lot owned
by its local secretary on the main street of North Clairton, called a
meeting there one bright Sunday afternoon. But hardly had it started
when, with a great flourish of clubs, the police broke up the gathering
and arrested organizers J. G. Brown, J. Manley, A. A. Lassich, P. H.
Brogan, J. L. Beaghen, R. L. Hall, and the writer. Later all were fined
for holding a meeting on their own property. But the Burgess, learning
that the speaker for the following Sunday was Mother Jones of the
Miners' Union, and that public sentiment was overwhelmingly against him,
decided not to fight. Instead he provided a place on the public commons
for open air meetings. The contest resulted in almost all of the local
steel workers joining the unions immediately.
In Homestead, however, that sacred shrine of Labor, the unions had to
put up a harder fight. The Burgess there, one P. H. McGuire, is a
veteran of the great Homestead strike, and for many years afterwards led
the local fight against the Carnegie Steel Company. But he has now fully
recovered from his unionism. He has made peace with the enemy. It was in
the early winter of 1918 that the unions first tried to hold meetings in
his town. But they were careful to make tentative arrangements for a
hall before asking a permit from McGuire. The latter stated flatly that
there would be no union meetings in Homestead, saying no halls could be
secured. "But," said the organizers, "we have already engaged a hall."
The next day the rent money was returned with the explanation that a
mistake had been made. Later the unions managed to sneak by the guard of
the ex-union man Burgess and hold a meeting or two--said to be the first
since the Homestead strike, twenty-six years before--but nothing
substantial could be done, and the fight was called off for the winter.
During the big spring drive on Pittsburgh the Flying Squadron turned
its attention to Homestead as soon as the McKeesport and many other
pressing situations permitted. Mass meetings were held on the main
streets. At first the Burgess, with a weather eye on McKeesport, did not
molest these; but when he saw the tremendous interest the steel workers
showed and the rapidity with which they were joining the unions, he
attempted to break up the meetings by arresting two of the organizers,
J. L. Beaghen and myself. At the trial McGuire, as magistrate, was shown
that his ordinance did not cover street meetings. "But," said he, "it's
the best we've got, and it will have to do." He fined the defendants,
and a day or two later had an ordinance adopted to his liking. Such
trifles don't worry the executives in steel towns.
But such an enormous crowd assembled to witness the next street meeting
that McGuire had to agree to permit hall meetings. No sooner were they
attempted however, than he broke his agreement. He would allow no
languages other than English to be spoken--the object being to prevent
the foreign workers from understanding what was going on. Of course all
other organizations in Homestead could use what tongues they pleased.
The unions balked, with the result that more street meetings were held
and Mother Jones, J. G. Brown, R. W. Reilly and J. L. Beaghen were
arrested. Public indignation was intense; thousands marched the streets
in protest; the unions grew like beanstalks. And so the affair went on
till the great strike broke on September 22.
That curse of the campaign since its inception, the lack of resources,
bore down heavily on the work in the crucial summer months just before
the strike. At least one hundred more men should have been put in the
field to take advantage of the unparalleled opportunity. But the
National Committee could not beg, borrow or steal them. The organizers
in the various localities fairly shrieked for help, but in vain.
Especially was the need keenly felt in the big drive on Pittsburgh.
Instead of eight or ten men, which was all that the Flying Squadron
could muster, there ought to have been at least fifty men delegated to
the huge task of capturing the score of hard-baked steel towns on
Pittsburgh's three rivers. The consequence was that the work everywhere
had to be skimped, with disastrous effects later on in the strike. In
those towns where the unions did get started lack of help prevented
their taking full advantage of the situation. And then some towns had to
be passed up altogether, although the men were infected with the general
fever for organization and were calling for organizers. It was
impossible to send any one to either Woodlawn or Midland, both very
important steel towns. Even the strategic city of Duquesne, with its
enormous mills and blast furnaces, could not be started until three
weeks before the strike.
Duquesne is just across the river from McKeesport and only four miles
from Homestead. It gave the organizers a hot reception. Its Mayor, James
S. Crawford, is President of the First National Bank. His brother is
President of the Port Vue Tinplate Company. Besides being Mayor, Mr.
Crawford is city Commissioner, President of the city council, Director
of Public Safety, and Magistrate. He makes the laws, executes them and
punishes the violators. He is a true type of Pennsylvania steel town
petty Kaiser and exercises his manifold powers accordingly.
So eager was the Mayor, popularly known as "Toad" Crawford, to give the
world a demonstration of Steel Trust Americanism that he challenged the
organizers to come to his town. He even offered to meet in personal
combat one of the men in charge of the campaign. Of course he
insultingly refused to grant permits for meetings. The organizers, who
could not hire an office in the place, so completely were the property
owners dominated by the steel companies, managed to lease a couple of
lots in an obscure part of town. But when they attempted to hold a
meeting there Mr. Crawford jailed three of them, J. L. Beaghen, J.
McCaig, and J. G. Sause. The next day he fined them each $100 and costs.
Rabbi Wise of New York was the speaker billed for the following Sunday.
But the Steel Trust Mayor forbade his meeting. And when it was proposed
to have Frank Morrison, with whom Crawford boasted a slight
acquaintance, confer with him about the situation, he declared, "It
won't do you any good. Jesus Christ himself could not speak in Duquesne
for the A. F. of L!" It so happened that Rabbi Wise was unable to come
to Pennsylvania for his scheduled lectures on behalf of the steel
workers, and the organizers held the Duquesne meeting themselves.
Crawford had his whole police force on hand and immediately arrested the
speakers, Mother Jones, J. L. Beaghen and the writer. Forty-four steel
workers, all the jail would hold, were arrested also, for no other
reason than attending the meeting. Organizer J. M. Patterson, who had
nothing to do with the gathering, was thrown into jail merely for trying
to find out what bail we were held for. The next day the organizers were
each fined $100 and costs, and the rest from $25 to $50 apiece.[8] In
sentencing Mr. Beaghen, Mayor Crawford declared that nothing would be
more pleasurable than to give him 99 years, and then be on hand when he
got out to give him 99 more.
The Mayor was going it strong; but he was riding fast to a hard fall.
The unions were planning to bring to Duquesne some of the most prominent
men in the United States and to give Crawford the fight of his life,
when the outbreak of the great strike swamped them with work and
compelled them to turn their attention elsewhere.[9]
Whatever its general disadvantages, in some respects, at least, the
free speech fight was very good for the unions. For one thing, it served
wonderfully well to infuse the necessary hope and confidence into the
steel workers. So tremendous had been the manifestations of the Steel
Trust--its long record of victory over the trade unions, its vast wealth
and undisputed political supremacy, its enormous mills and furnaces--so
tremendous had been all these influences that they had overcome the
individual workers with a profound sense of insignificance and
helplessness, and practically destroyed all capacity for spontaneous
action. What the steel men needed to rouse them from their lethargy was
a demonstration of power from outside, a tangible sign that there was
some institution through which they could help themselves. Throughout
the campaign this consideration was borne in mind, and bands and other
spectacular methods of advertising were used to develop among the steel
workers a feeling of the greatness and power of the unions. Nor were
these methods unsuccessful. Most effective of all, however, was the free
speech fight in Pennsylvania. That gave the unions a golden opportunity
to defeat the Steel Trust so easily and spectacularly that the steel
workers couldn't help but be encouraged thereby. They simply had to cast
in their lot with a movement able to defeat so handily their autocratic
masters. And once they came in they felt the utmost confidence in their
leaders, the men they had seen jailed time and again for fighting their
battle.
In consequence of The Flying Squadron's heroic battles in the immediate
Pittsburgh district the whole campaign was put practically upon a
national basis, where it should have been at the start. Almost every
steel centre in America was being organized simultaneously. Members were
streaming into the co-operating unions by thousands. The entire steel
industry was on the move. Perhaps it may be fitting to introduce at this
point an official digest of the general report of the number of men
organized by the National Committee during the whole campaign. The
report covers the period up to January 31, 1920, but almost all of the
men were enrolled before the strike started on September 22.
GENERAL REPORT
on
250,000 members enrolled by the National Committee for
Organizing Iron and Steel Workers during the
American Federation of Labor Organizing
Campaign in the Steel Industry, from
August 1, 1918, until January
31, 1920.
_By Localities_ _By Trades_
South Chicago 6,616 Blacksmiths 5,699
Chicago Heights 569 Boilermakers 2,097
Misc. Chicago Dist 3,871 Brick & Clay Workers 187
Pittsburgh 8,970 Bricklayers 581
Johnstown 11,846 Coopers 138
Butler 2,519 Electrical Workers 8,481
Monessen & Donora 8,665 Foundry Employees 2,406
New Castle 2,710 Hod Carriers 2,335
Homestead 3,571 Iron, Steel & Tin Wkrs. 70,026
Braddock & Rankin 4,044 Iron Workers 5,829
Clairton 2,970 Machinists 12,406
McKeesport 3,963 Metal Polishers 349
Gary 7,092 M. M. & Smelter Wkrs. 15,223
Indiana Harbor 4,654 Mine Workers 1,538
Joliet 3,497 Moulders 1,382
Milwaukee 681 Pattern Makers -
Waukegan 1,212 Plumbers 1,369
DeKalb 332 Quarry Workers 725
Aurora 242 Railway Carmen 5,045
Pullman 4,073 Seamen -
Kenosha 585 Sheet Metal Workers 377
Hammond 1,102 Stationary Engineers 2,194
Wheeling Dist. 5,028 Stationary Firemen 5,321
Farrell & Sharon 3,794 Steam Shovelmen 2
Cleveland 17,305 Switchmen 440
Sparrows Point 93 Unclassified 12,552
Brackenridge & Natrona 2,110
East Pittsburgh 146
East Liverpool 50
Warren & Niles 474
Minnesota Dist. 185
Pueblo 3,113
Coatesville 828
Steubenville Dist. 4,108
Birmingham Dist. 1,470
Canton & Massillon 5,705
Vandergrift 1,986
Buffalo & Lackawanna 6,179
Youngstown 19,040
Peoria 984
Decatur 320
------- -------
_Total by Localities_ 156,702 _Total by Trades_ 156,702
This report includes only those members actually signed up by the
National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers, and from whose
initiation fees $1.00 apiece was deducted and forwarded to the general
office of the National Committee. It represents approximately 50 to 60
per cent. of the total number of steel workers organized during the
campaign, and is minimum in every respect.
The report does not include any of the many thousands of men signed up
at Bethlehem, Steelton, Reading, Apollo, New Kensington, Leechburg and
many minor points which felt the force of the drive but where the
National Committee made no deductions upon initiation fees. In Gary,
Joliet, Indiana Harbor, South Chicago and other Chicago District points
the National Committee ceased collecting on initiation fees early in
1919, hence this report makes no showing of the thousands of men signed
up in that territory during the last few months of the campaign.
Likewise, at Coatesville and Sparrows' Point, during only a short space
of the campaign were deductions made for the National Committee. Many
thousands more men were signed up directly by the multitude of local
unions in the steel industry, that were not reported to the National
Committee. These do not show in this calculation. Nor do the great
number of ex-soldiers who were taken into the unions free of initiation
fees--in Johnstown alone 1300 ex-soldier steel workers joined the unions
under this arrangement. Of course no accounting is here included for the
army of workers in outside industries who became organized as a result
of the tremendous impulse given by the steel campaign.
In view of these exceptions it may be conservatively estimated that well
over 250,000 steel workers joined the unions notwithstanding the
opposition of the Steel Trust, which discharged thousands of its
workers, completely suppressed free speech and free assembly in
Pennsylvania and used every known tactic to prevent the organization of
its employees.
WM. Z. FOSTER,
Secretary-Treasurer
National Committee for Organizing
Iron & Steel Workers.
Certified by
Enoch Martin
Auditor, District No. 12
United Mine Workers of America.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Throughout the latter part of the organizing campaign and the first
two months of the strike, Mother Jones lent great assistance to the
steel workers. This veteran organizer (she testified in court to being
89 years old) of the United Mine Workers labored dauntlessly, going to
jail and meeting the hardships and dangers of the work in a manner that
would do credit to one half her age.
[8] Relative to this meeting there occurs the following dialogue on page
508 of the report on the Senate Committee's Hearings on the Steel
Strike:
Senator Sterling. "Was Mr. Foster here prior to the strike?"
Mr. Diehl (Gen. Manager Duquesne Works, Carnegie Steel Co.). "Yes; he
was here trying to hold a meeting, but the meeting was not held."
The Chairman. "What happened to the meeting?"
Mr. Diehl. "Well, we simply prohibited it."
And naturally so. Mr. Diehl and other company officials shut off
meetings in the halls and on the lots of their towns just as readily as
they would have done had attempts been made to hold them in the mill
yards.
[9] Now that the strike is over and spring is again at hand, the unions
have resumed the battle for free speech and assembly in Duquesne and
promise to fight it to a conclusion.
VI
STORM CLOUDS GATHER
RELIEF DEMANDED--THE AMALGAMATED ASSOCIATION MOVES--A GENERAL
MOVEMENT--THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE--GOMPERS' LETTER
UNANSWERED--THE STRIKE VOTE--GARY DEFENDS STEEL AUTOCRACY
--PRESIDENT WILSON ACTS IN VAIN--THE STRIKE CALL
Surging forward to the accomplishment of the "impossible," the
organization of the steel industry, the twenty-four co-operating
international unions found themselves in grips with the employers long
before they were strong enough to sustain such a contest. It is almost
always so with new unions. In their infancy, when their members are
weak, undisciplined and inexperienced, and the employers are bitterly
hostile and aggressive, is exactly the time when they must establish
principles and adjust grievances that would test the strength of the
most powerful unions. Inability to do so means dissolution, either
through a lost strike or by disintegration. Following in the wake of the
newly formed steel workers' unions came a mass of such difficulties
requiring immediate settlement. The demand for relief from the evils of
long hours, low wages and miserable working conditions was bad enough;
but infinitely more serious was the need to take care of the army of men
discharged for union membership. Thousands of these walked the streets
in the various steel towns clamoring for protection. And the men on the
job demanded it for them. Nor could these appeals be ignored. Whether
they deemed the occasion propitious or not, the steel workers' unions,
on pain of extinction, had to act in defence of their harassed
membership.
So bad was the situation by early spring that, lacking other means of
relief, local strikes were threatening all over the country. To allow
these forlorn-hope walkouts to occur would have meant disintegration and
disaster to the whole campaign. They had to be checked at all costs and
the movement kept upon a national basis. Therefore, the National
Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers called a general
conference of delegates of steelworkers' unions of all trades through
the entire industry, to take place in Pittsburgh, May 25, 1919. The
object was to demonstrate to the rank and file how fast the national
movement was developing, to turn their attention to it strongly, and
thus hearten them to bear their hardships until it could come to their
assistance.
Right in the face of this general movement of all the trades the
Amalgamated Association made a bid for separate consideration by the
steel companies. By instruction of its convention, President Tighe wrote
the following letter to Mr. Gary:
Convention Hall, Louisville, Ky., May 15, 1919
Honorable Elbert H. Gary, Chairman,
Executive Officers, United States Steel Corporation,
Hoboken, N. J.
_Dear Sir_:
The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers
of North America, in National Convention assembled, have by
resolution, instructed the undersigned to address you as
Chairman of the Executive Officers of the United States
Steel Corporation on a matter which in the opinion of the
representatives of the Amalgamated Association of Iron,
Steel and Tin Workers, is of vital importance to the
Corporation you have the honor to represent and to the
Amalgamated Association.
As you no doubt are aware, there is a serious disturbing
element in the industrial world at the present time, a great
spirit of unrest has spread over our common country. It is
becoming more and more acute, and there is no telling when
or where the storm clouds will break. It is the judgment of
the representatives of the Amalgamated Association that it
is the patriotic duty of all good citizens to use their
every effort to stem the tide of unrest, if possible.
The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers
have admitted many thousands of the employees of the United
States Steel Corporation into their organization; these
members are asking that they be given consideration by the
Corporation you are the Honorable Chairman of, in their
respective crafts and callings, and also that as law-abiding
citizens who desire the privilege of having their
representatives meet with the chosen representatives of the
Corporation you represent, to jointly confer on questions
that mutually concern both.
Sincerely believing that the granting of their request on
your part will not only be the means of allaying that
unrest, but will also promote and insure that harmony and
co-operation that should at all times exist between employer
and employee to the end that all will share in the glorious
triumphs so lately achieved in the war and thereby add still
more to the lustre and glory of our common country.
Trusting that you will give this request on the part of the
aforesaid employees of your Corporation your most earnest
consideration, I await your pleasure.
M. F. TIGHE, International President
Hotel Tyler, Louisville, Ky.
To this letter Mr. Gary replied as follows:
UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION
Chairman's Office,
New York, May 20th, 1919
Mr. M. F. Tighe,
International President,
Amalgamated Association of
Iron, Steel and Tin Workers,
Pittsburgh, Pa.
_Dear Sir_:
I have read with interest your letter of May 15th inst. I
agree that it is the patriotic duty of all good citizens to
use their efforts in stemming the tide of unrest in the
industrial world whenever and wherever it exists.
As you know, we do not confer, negotiate with, or combat
labor unions as such. We stand for the open shop, which
permits a man to engage in the different lines of
employment, whether he belongs to a labor union or not. We
think this attitude secures the best results to the
employees generally and to the employers.
In our own way, and in accordance with our best judgment,
we are rendering efficient patriotic service in the
direction indicated by you.
With kind regards, I am,
Yours respectfully,
E. H. GARY, Chairman
The Amalgamated Association's action threatened the existence of the
general movement, but Mr. Gary's refusal to deal with its officials kept
them in the fold. Where the principle of solidarity was lacking outside
pressure served the same end. It would be interesting to hear the
Amalgamated Association officials explain this attempt at desertion.
At the conference of May 25 there assembled 583 delegates, representing
twenty-eight international unions in eighty steel centers, the largest
gathering of steel worker delegates in the history of the industry. The
reports of the men present made it clearly evident that action had to be
taken to defend the interests of their constituents. Consequently,
disregarding the rebuff given the Amalgamated Association by Mr. Gary,
the conference, which was only advisory in character, adopted the
following resolution:
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, We have now arrived at a point in our
nation-wide campaign where our organizations control great
numbers of the workers in many of the most important steel
plants in America, and
WHEREAS, Various officials of the iron and steel
industry, including Judge Gary, Charles Schwab, and other
heads of these gigantic corporations have expressed their
solicitude for the welfare of the workers in this industry,
and
WHEREAS, They have been continuously quoted as
defenders of the rights of the workers in industry, and
WHEREAS, The corporations, to block our progress,
are organizing company unions, discharging union men
wholesale and otherwise trying to break up our organization,
thus compelling us to take action to escape destruction,
therefore be it
RESOLVED, That it be the will of this conference
that a joint effort be made by all unions affiliated with
the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers
to enter into negotiations with the various steel companies
to the end that better wages, shorter hours, improved
working conditions and the trade-union system of collective
bargaining be established in the steel industry; and be it
further
RESOLVED, That this resolution be submitted for
action to the National Committee for Organizing Iron and
Steel Workers at its next meeting in Washington, D. C., May
27.
Two days later the National Committee met in Washington and adopted this
resolution. The following were appointed as a conference committee to
have charge of the preliminary negotiations with the steel companies:
Samuel Gompers, Chairman of the National Committee; John Fitzpatrick,
Acting Chairman; D. J. Davis, Amalgamated Association; Edw. J. Evans,
Electrical Workers; Wm. Hannon, Machinists; Wm. Z. Foster, Railway
Carmen. As the first approach, Mr. Gompers addressed the following
letter to Mr. Gary, requesting a conference:
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR
The Alamac Hotel,
Atlantic City, N. J., June 20, 1919
Mr. Elbert H. Gary, Chairman,
Board of Directors, U. S. Steel Corporation,
New York, N. Y.
_Dear Sir_:
Of course you are aware that upon the request of a number of
men in the employ of the United States Steel Corporation,
and realizing the need of it, the convention of the American
Federation of Labor decided to respond and give such
assistance as is possible in order to bring about more
thorough organization of the workers in the iron and steel
industry, particularly those employed by your Corporation.
A campaign of organization was begun in June, 1918, and
within that period we have secured the organization of more
than 100,000 of the employees in the iron and steel
industry. The prospects for the complete organization are, I
am informed, exceedingly bright.
Of course, knowing the policy of the Organized Labor
movement I have the honor in part to represent, we aim to
accomplish the purposes of our labor movement; that is,
better conditions for the toilers, by American methods, and
American understandings, not by revolutionary methods or the
inauguration of a cataclysm.
We believe in the effort of employer and employees to sit
down around a table and, meeting thus, face to face, and
having a better understanding of each other's position in
regard to conditions of labor, to hours, standards, etc.,
and after reaching an amicable understanding to enter into
an agreement for collective bargaining that is to cover
wages, hours of labor, conditions of employment, etc.
At the Atlantic City convention of the American Federation
of Labor just closed, the committee reported upon the
progress made, and I am instructed and authorized to suggest
to you whether you will consent to hold a conference with a
committee representing not only the iron and steel workers
who are organized, but representing the best interests of
the unorganized men in the employ of your Corporation. The
names of the committee I am asking you to meet are:
Assistant President Davis, Amalgamated Iron and Steel and
Tin Workers.
William Hannon, member executive board, International
Association of Machinists.
Edward Evans, representing International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers.
Wm. Z. Foster, secretary of the National Committee for
Organizing Iron and Steel Workers and representing the
Brotherhood of Carmen of America.
John Fitzpatrick, president Chicago Federation of Labor.
If you can advise me at your early convenience that the
request contained in this letter meets with your approval
and that a conference can be held, I am sure I shall be
additionally appreciative.
Kindly address your reply, which I trust may be favorable,
to the American Federation of Labor Building, Washington, D.
C.
Respectfully yours,
SAMUEL GOMPERS,
President American Federation of Labor
This letter was sent during the A. F. of L. convention at Atlantic City.
About the same time Mr. Gompers resigned the chairmanship of the
National Committee and appointed in his stead John Fitzpatrick, hitherto
Acting Chairman. Mr. Fitzpatrick has been President of the Chicago
Federation of Labor for many years. He is a horseshoer by trade and one
of America's sterling union men. Possessed of a broad idealism,
unquestioned integrity, a magnetic personality and a wide knowledge of
trade-union practice, his services were beyond value as Chairman of the
committees that carried on the organization work in the steel and
packing industries. He is now taking an active part in the launching of
the new Labor party.
To Mr. Gompers' courteous letter Czar Gary did not deign to reply. This
was bad. It looked like war. But the unions had no alternative; they had
to go ahead. Conditions in the steel industry were so unbearable that
they had to exert their utmost power to right them, come what might.
Therefore, after waiting several weeks for word from Mr. Gary, the
National Committee met, gave the situation profound consideration, and
adopted the following resolution:
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, Working conditions in the steel industry
are so intolerable and the unrest arising therefrom so
intense that they can only be remedied by the application of
the principles of collective bargaining; and,
WHEREAS, All efforts have failed to bring about a
conference between the heads of the great steel corporations
and the trade unions, representing many thousands of
organized steel workers, for the purpose of establishing
trade union conditions in the steel industry; therefore, be
it
RESOLVED, That the National Committee for
Organizing Iron and Steel Workers recommends to its 24
affiliated unions that they take a strike vote of their
local unions throughout the steel industry; and, be it
further
RESOLVED, That a special meeting be held in the
Pittsburgh Labor Temple, July 20th, at 10 A. M., of
representatives of all the co-operating international unions
for the purpose of taking action on this matter.
The National Committee meeting of July 20th, called in accordance with
the above resolution, approached the situation from every possible angle
and with the keenest sense of responsibility. But it had to recognize
that the matter was wholly in the hands of Mr. Gary and his associates.
The resolution to take a strike vote of the men was re-adopted. Also the
following general demands, based on accurate surveys of the situation,
and subject to revision over the conference table, were formulated:
1. Right of collective bargaining
2. Reinstatement of all men discharged for union activities
with pay for time lost
3. Eight hour day
4. One day's rest in seven
5. Abolition of 24-hour shift
6. Increases in wages sufficient to guarantee American
standard of living
7. Standard scales of wages in all trades and
classifications of workers
8. Double rates of pay for all overtime after 8 hours,
holiday and Sunday work
9. Check-off system of collecting union dues and assessments
10. Principles of seniority to apply in the maintenance,
reduction and increase of working forces
11. Abolition of company unions
12. Abolition of physical examination of applicants for
employment
So plain, fair and equitable are these demands that to reasonable
people they require no defence. The only explanation they might need
relates to #9 and #12. The check-off was to apply only to the mining end
of the steel industry, and the abolition of the physical examination was
to put a stop to the rank discrimination practiced by the companies
through their medical departments.
A month was allowed in which to take the vote. Each trade looked after
its own members, with the National Committee voting those men who were
enrolled but not yet turned over to their respective unions, and in some
cases the unorganized also. Enthusiasm was intense. The steel workers
saw a glimmer of hope and welcomed with open arms the opportunity to
right their crying wrongs. When the vote was tabulated in Youngstown,
Ohio, on August 20, it was found that every trade had voted
overwhelmingly for a strike in case no settlement could be reached.
Whole districts voted to a man in the affirmative. Of all the thousands
of ballots cast in Homestead, Braddock, Rankin, McKeesport, Vandergrift,
Pittsburgh and Monessen not one was in the negative. Donora produced one
"no" vote, with the great Youngstown, Chicago and Cleveland districts
about the same. Everywhere the sentiment was practically unanimous to
make a stand. The vote was calculated conservatively at 98 per cent. for
a strike. The Conference Committee was accordingly instructed to request
a conference with the heads of the United States Steel Corporation and
the big independent companies, and if at the end of ten days no such
meeting had been arranged, to set the strike date. [Illustration:
STRIKE BALLOT]
Taking no further chances on unanswered letters, the Committee bearded
Mr. Gary in his lair at 71 Broadway. He was in but refused to meet the
Committee, requesting that its proposition be submitted in writing. The
Committee thereupon sent him the following request for a conference:
New York, August 26, 1919
Hon. Elbert H. Gary, Chairman Finance Committee,
United States Steel Corporation,
71 Broadway, New York City
_Dear Sir:_
During a general campaign of organization and education
conducted under the auspices of the American Federation of
Labor, many thousands of men employed in the iron and steel
industry made application and were enrolled as members of
the various organizations to which they were assigned.
This work has been carried on to a point where we feel
justified in stating to you that we represent the sentiment
of the vast majority of the employees in this industry, and,
acting in behalf of them, we solicit of you that a hearing
be given to the undersigned Committee, who have been
selected by the duly accredited representatives of the
employees, to place before you matters that are of vital
concern to them, and concerning hours of labor, wages,
working conditions and the right of collective bargaining.
The committee called at your office at 3 P. M., Tuesday,
August 26, and requested a conference. We were advised by
your messenger that you wished to be excused from a personal
interview at this time and requested us to have our business
in writing and whatever matters we wished to submit would
be taken up by yourself and your colleagues and given
consideration.
Therefore we are submitting in brief the principal subjects
that we desired to have a conference on. The committee has
an important meeting in another city on Thursday next and
will leave New York at 5 o'clock on August 27, 1919. May we
respectfully request that your answer be sent before that
time to Mr. John Fitzpatrick, Continental Hotel, Broadway
and Forty-first Street, New York City.
Very truly yours,
John Fitzpatrick
D. J. Davis
Wm. Hannon
Edw. J. Evans
Wm. Z. Foster
Committee
To this letter Mr. Gary replied as follows:
UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION
Office of the Chairman,
New York, August 27, 1919
Messrs. John Fitzpatrick, David J. Davis, William
Hannon, Wm. Z. Foster, Edw. J. Evans, Committee
_Gentlemen_:
Receipt of your communication of August 26 instant is
acknowledged.
We do not think you are authorized to represent the
sentiment of a majority of the employees of the United
States Steel Corporation and its subsidiaries. We express no
opinion concerning any other members of the iron and steel
industry.
As heretofore publicly stated and repeated, our Corporation
and subsidiaries, although they do not combat labor unions
as such, decline to discuss business with them. The
Corporation and subsidiaries are opposed to the "closed
shop." They stand for the "open shop," which permits one to
engage in any line of employment whether one does or does
not belong to a labor union. This best promotes the welfare
of both employees and employers. In view of the well-known
attitude as above expressed, the officers of the Corporation
respectfully decline to discuss with you, as representatives
of a labor union, any matter relating to employees. In doing
so no personal discourtesy is intended.
In all decisions and acts of the Corporation and
subsidiaries pertaining to employees and employment their
interests are of highest importance. In wage rates, living
and working conditions, conservation of life and health,
care and comfort in times of sickness or old age, and
providing facilities for the general welfare and happiness
of employees and their families, the Corporation and
subsidiaries have endeavored to occupy a leading and
advanced position among employers.
It will be the object of the Corporation and subsidiaries to
give such consideration to employees as to show them their
loyal and efficient service in the past is appreciated, and
that they may expect in the future fair treatment.
Respectfully yours,
E. H. GARY, Chairman
In a last effort to prevail upon Mr. Gary to yield his tyrannical
position, the committee addressed him this further communication:
New York City, Aug. 27, 1919.
Hon. Elbert H. Gary, Chairman
Finance Committee, United States Steel Corporation,
71 Broadway, New York, N. Y.
_Dear Sir_:
We have received your answer to our request for a conference
on behalf of the employees of your Corporation, and we
understand the first paragraph of your answer to be an
absolute refusal on the part of your corporation to concede
to your employees the right of collective bargaining.
You question the authority of our committee to represent the
majority of your employees. The only way by which we can
prove our authority is to put the strike vote into effect
and we sincerely hope that you will not force a strike to
prove this point.
We asked for a conference for the purpose of arranging a
meeting where the questions of wages, hours, conditions of
employment, and collective bargaining might be discussed.
Your answer is a flat refusal for such conference, which
raises the question, if the accredited representatives of
your employees and the international unions affiliated with
the American Federation of Labor and the Federation itself
are denied a conference, what chance have the employees as
such to secure any consideration of the views they entertain
or the complaints they are justified in making.
We noted particularly your definition of the attitude of
your Corporation on the question of the open and closed
shop, and the positive declaration in refusing to meet
representatives of union labor. These subjects are matters
that might well be discussed in conference. There has not
anything arisen between your Corporation and the employees
whom we represent in which the question of "the closed shop"
has been even mooted.
We read with great care your statement as to the interest
the Corporation takes in the lives and welfare of the
employees and their families, and if that were true even in
a minor degree, we would not be pressing consideration,
through a conference, of the terrible conditions that exist.
The conditions of employment, the home life, the misery in
the hovels of the steel workers is beyond description. You
may not be aware that the standard of life of the average
steel worker is below the pauper line, which means that
charitable institutions furnish to the pauper a better
home, more food, clothing, light and heat than many steel
workers can bring into their lives upon the compensation
received for putting forth their very best efforts in the
steel industry. Surely this is a matter which might well be
discussed in conference.
You also made reference to the attitude of your Corporation
in not opposing or preventing your employees from joining
labor organizations. It is a matter of common knowledge that
the tactics employed by your Corporation and subsidiaries
have for years most effectively prevented any attempt at
organization by your employees. We feel that a conference
would be valuable to your Corporation for the purpose of
getting facts of which, judging from your letter, you seem
to be misinformed.
Some few days are still at the disposal of our committee
before the time limit will have expired when there will be
no discretion left to the committee but to enforce the
decree of your employees whom we have the honor to
represent.
We submit that reason and fairness should obtain rather than
that the alternative shall be compulsory upon us.
Surely reasonable men can find a common ground upon which we
can all stand and prosper.
If you will communicate with us further upon this entire
matter, please address your communication to the National
Hotel, Washington, D. C. where we will be Thursday and
Friday, August 28 and 29.
Very truly yours,
JOHN FITZPATRICK
D. J. DAVIS
WM. HANNON
EDW. J. EVANS
WM. Z. FOSTER
Committee
No reply came to the last letter. Mr. Gary, behind the smoke screen of
his hypocrisies about the "open shop," was determined to have the strike
go on. But the committee, fully conscious of the tremendous
responsibility resting upon it, was equally decided to exhaust every
possible means of adjustment before things came to a rupture. The
committeemen went to Washington, appeared before the Executive Council
of the A. F. of L., and received its endorsement and praise for the
manner in which the campaign had been conducted.
Mr. Gompers was delegated by the Council to go with the committee to
present the matter to President Wilson, and to request him to arrange a
conference with the steel people.
When President Wilson was informed of the true situation in the steel
industry, that all the men were asking for was a conference at which to
present their grievances--absolutely no other demand having been made
upon Mr. Gary--he immediately admitted the justice of the committee's
position. He stated frankly that he was entirely out of sympathy with
employers who refused to meet with representatives of their workers for
the purpose of bargaining collectively on labor conditions, and he
definitely agreed to use all his influence privately to have Mr. Gary
alter his decision and to arrange the conference. In order to give him a
chance to work the unions withheld the setting of the strike date.
A week passed, with no word from the President. Conditions in the steel
industry were frightful. The companies, realizing the importance of
striking the first blow, were discharging men by the thousands. The
unions could wait no longer. They had to move or be annihilated. On
September 4, the National Committee met and sent to President Wilson,
who was on his ill-starred trip through the West advocating the League
of Nations, the following telegram, in the meantime calling a meeting of
the Presidents of all the international unions co-operating in the steel
campaign to consider the critical situation:
Washington, September 4, 1919
Honorable Woodrow Wilson,
President of the United States,
Indianapolis, Ind., _en route_
The Executive Committee representing the various
international unions in the iron and steel industry met
today to consider the awful situation which exists in many
of the iron and steel industry centres. The coercion, the
brutality employed to prevent men and unions from meeting in
halls engaged, upon private property, in the open air, the
thuggery of the Corporations' emissaries, the wholesale
discharge of numbers of men for no other reason than the one
assigned, that they have become members of the unions, have
brought about a situation such that it is exceedingly
difficult to withhold or restrain the indignation of the men
and the resistance they declare it is their purpose to
present. The Executive Committee, relying upon the case as
presented to you last week and your earnest declaration to
endeavor to bring about a conference for the honorable and
peaceful adjustment of the matters in controversy, have thus
far been enabled to prevail upon the men not to engage in a
general strike. We cannot now affirm how much longer we will
be able to exert that influence; but we urge you, in the
great work in which you are engaged, to give prompt
attention to this most vital of issues; for if the men can
no longer be restrained it is impossible to foretell what
the future may hold in store for an industrial crisis which
may ensue and frustrate the project which you have worked at
for a peaceful and honorable adjustment of industrial
affairs in our country. A meeting of all the Presidents of
the twenty-four international unions in the steel industry
has been called to take place on Tuesday, September 9th in
Washington, D. C. to take such action as they deem
necessary. May we not have your reply on or before that time
as to whether or not a conference with the Steel Corporation
is possible.
SAMUEL GOMPERS
JOHN FITZPATRICK
D. J. DAVIS
WM. HANNON
EDW. J. EVANS
WM. Z. FOSTER
The international presidents met on September 9. A telegram from
Secretary Tumulty was laid before them, to the effect that President
Wilson had not yet been successful in arranging the requested
conference; that he was somewhat discouraged, but was continuing his
efforts. The general opinion took this to be final, that Mr. Gary had
definitely refused the President's request. But in order to make
assurance doubly sure and to convince all involved that everything
possible had been done to avert a break, the following further telegram
was sent to Mr. Wilson, over the objections of some who felt it was
practically asking him to declare the strike:
Washington, September 9, 1919
Honorable Woodrow Wilson,
President of the United States,
St. Paul Hotel,
St. Paul, Minnesota
Secretary Tumulty's telegram of September fifth to Samuel
Gompers was read today at the meeting of the presidents of
the twenty-four international unions in the steel industry,
and given the most careful consideration. After a long and
earnest discussion of it the undersigned were instructed to
wire you requesting a more definite statement as to the
possibility of an early conference being arranged by your
efforts between the heads of the United States Steel
Corporation and of the unions involved. Large numbers of men
are being discharged and otherwise discriminated against and
abused, and it will be impossible to hold our men much longer
from defending themselves by striking unless some genuine
relief is vouchsafed them. Our meeting will remain in session
here for forty-eight hours awaiting your reply before taking
final action. Please send answer to John Fitzpatrick,
Chairman of National Committee, American Federation of Labor
Building, Washington, D. C.
JOHN FITZPATRICK
M. F. TIGHE
WM. HANNON
WM. Z. FOSTER
On the day following Secretary Tumulty's answer was laid on the table
before the meeting, practically repeating what his first telegram had
said. It held out no definite hope for a conference, neither did it
suggest any alternative.[10] Clearly the unions had to act. President
Gompers and others had warned of the great power of the Steel Trust and
the eagerness with which the employing class would unite to give
Organized Labor a heavy blow in the steel industry. The union
representatives keenly realized the gravity of the situation and their
heavy responsibilities. It was in this frame of mind that they could see
no honorable way out of the difficulty except to strike. Accordingly
President Tighe of the Amalgamated Association moved that the strike be
set for September 22. His motion was unanimously adopted. The die was
cast. After telegraphing the strike order broadcast, the union men
scattered to their respective posts to organize the walkout.
Then came a bolt from the blue. Next morning the newspapers carried a
telegram from Secretary Tumulty to President Gompers requesting that the
strike be held off until after the Industrial conference, beginning
October 6. The committeemen could hardly believe their eyes, because the
telegram they had received from Mr. Tumulty had said absolutely nothing
about postponing the strike. Besides, since the President had asked Mr.
Gary privately to grant his workers the conference they were seeking,
and so gave him an opportunity to decline without publicity, it was
incredible that he would publicly make a request upon the unions which
involved their destruction, and which they would have openly to refuse,
thus putting them in a bad light and giving their opponents a powerful
weapon. But all doubts were set at rest by this communication from Mr.
Gompers:
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR
Washington, D. C., Sept. 11, 1919
Mr. John Fitzpatrick, Chairman,
National Committee For Organizing Iron
and Steel Workers,
Washington, D. C.
_Dear Mr. Fitzpatrick_:
This morning I received a telegram as follows:
Dickinson, N. Dak., Sept. 10, 1919
Hon. Samuel Gompers,
President American Federation of Labor,
Washington, D. C.
In view of the difficulty of arranging any present
satisfactory mediation with regard to the steel situation,
the President desires to urge upon the steel men, through
you, the wisdom and desirability of postponing action
of any kind until after the forthcoming Industrial conference
at Washington.
J. P. TUMULTY.
You are aware of the reason which prevented my
participating further, the past few days, in the conferences
with the representatives of the various national
and international unions involved in this question.
In transmitting the above to you (which I am doing
by long distance telephone from New York) I want to
express the hope that something can be done without
injury to the workers and their cause to endeavor to
conform to the wish expressed by the President; that
even though the corporations may endeavor to provoke
the men to action, that they may hold themselves in
leash and under self-control, consciously demonstrating
their stamina and willingness to abide by the justice of
their cause and that their rights will be finally protected.
Fraternally yours,
SAMUEL GOMPERS,
President
American Federation of Labor
Upon the receipt of this letter a meeting of the National Committee was
at once called to consider the situation. And a serious one it was
indeed. Before the Committee lay two requests to postpone the strike;
one from President Wilson, clear and categoric; the other from Mr.
Gompers, qualified by the hope that it could be done "without injury to
the workers and their cause." To deny these powerful requests meant to
be accused, in the first instance, of hasty and disloyal action, and in
the second, of practical revolt against the officials of the A. F. of L.
It would be to start the strike under the handicap of an unduly hostile
public opinion. Yet to grant them meant ruin complete.
Conditions in the steel industry were desperate. Everywhere the
employers were making vigorous attacks on the unions. From Chicago,
Youngstown, Newcastle, Steubenville, Wheeling, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and
many other points large numbers of men were being thrown out of work
because of their union membership. Johnstown was a bleeding wound. In
the towns along the Monongahela river thousands of discharged men walked
the streets, and their number was daily being heavily increased.
In the face of this situation it would have been folly to have the steel
workers abandon their strike preparations, even if it could have been
done. It was like asking one belligerent to ground arms in the face of
its onrushing antagonist. The employers gave not the slightest sign of a
truce. Long before anything could be hoped for from the Industrial
conference, they would have cut the unions to pieces, had the workers
been foolish enough to give them the opportunity.
This the steel workers were determined not to do. Immediately after the
story got abroad that the strike might be postponed, they met in their
unions and notified the National Committee that they were going to
strike on September 22, regardless of anything that body might do short
of getting them definite concessions and protection. Many long weary
months they had waited patiently, under the urgings of the organizers,
for a chance to redress their grievances. And now when they had built
their organizations; taken their strike vote; received their strike call
and were ready to deliver a blow at their oppressors, the opportunity of
a generation was at hand, and they were not going to see it lost. They
would not postpone indefinitely, and in all likelihood break up
altogether, the movement they had suffered so much to build, in the
vague hope that the Industrial conference, which they had no guarantee
would even consider their case, and which was dominated by their arch
enemies, Gary and Rockefeller, would in some distant day do something
for them. Their determination to have the strike go on was intensified
by the constant ding-donging of the Steel Trust propaganda in the mills
to the effect that the A. F. of L. unions were cowardly and corrupt;
that they would make no fight for the steel workers, and that a
postponement of the strike would be proof positive that they had sold
out. Under such circumstances the workers could not consent to the
withholding of the strike. Practically all the steel districts in the
country solemnly warned the National Committee that they would strike on
September 22, in spite of any postponement that was not based on
positive assurances that justice would be done. The control of the
situation was in the hands of the rank and file.
The field secretaries and organizers present at the National Committee
meeting, men intimately acquainted with actual conditions, emphasized
the impossibility of postponement. Many of them, among whom were some of
the best and most conservative men in the whole campaign, declared that
an attempt to delay the strike, merely upon the strength of possible
action by the Industrial conference, would result in the swift
destruction of the movement under the worst of circumstances. The
workers would be bound to consider it a gigantic sell-out and to act
accordingly. As for themselves, they declared they would have nothing to
do with it, and would be compelled to present their resignations the
minute a motion to postpone prevailed. Dozens of them took this stand.
To the National Committee two courses were open: (1) It could postpone
the strike with the absolute certainty that it would break the steel
movement by so doing, because the strike would have gone ahead anyway in
a series of wild, uncontrolled, leaderless revolts, waged in an
atmosphere fatally charged with accusations of cowardice and graft. In
all probability the A. F. of L. would suffer one of the worst defeats in
its history, and gain such an evil reputation among the steel workers
that it could not approach them for many years, if ever, with an
organization project. Or (2) it could go ahead with the strike, with a
fighting chance to win. In any event, even if the strike were lost, it
would be through a clean fight and the honor of the movement would be
preserved. The steel workers would be convinced that everything possible
had been done for them. Thus the unions would retain their confidence
and be enabled to re-organize them at an early date.
Between certain, ignominious defeat and possible victory, or at the
worst honorable failure, the National Committee had only one choice.
Practically all the delegates present were of the opinion that the
strike had to go on. But some had to wire their international offices to
cancel their instructions to vote for postponement. On September 18, D.
J. Davis, Assistant President of the Amalgamated Association moved that
September 22 be reaffirmed as the strike date. This was carried.[11]
Then the Conference Committee addressed a long letter to President
Wilson, explaining in detail the situation as the union men saw it and
outlining the reasons for not postponing the strike. The letter closed
as follows:
Mr. President, delay is no longer possible. We have tried to
find a way but cannot. We regret that for the first time
your call upon Organized Labor cannot meet with favorable
response. Believe us the fault is not ours. If delay were no
more than delay, even at the cost of loss of membership in
our organizations, we would urge the same to the fullest of
our ability, notwithstanding the men are set for an
immediate strike. But delay here means the surrender of all
hope. This strike is not at the call of the leaders, but
that of the men involved. Win or lose, the strike is
inevitable and will continue until industrial despotism will
recede from the untenable position now occupied by Mr. Gary.
We have faith in your desire to bring about a conference and
hope you will succeed therein. We fully understand the
hardships that meanwhile will follow and the reign of terror
that unfair employers will institute. The burden falls upon
the men, but the great responsibility therefor rests upon
the other side.
After agreeing that all settlements made with the employers should cover
all trades, and sending a letter to the independent steel companies
inviting conferences with them, the meeting adjourned and the organizers
and delegates left to make good the following strike call, of which
200,000 copies, in seven languages, had been scattered broadcast
throughout the entire steel industry:
STRIKE SEPTEMBER 22, 1919
The workers in the iron and steel mills and blast furnaces,
not working under union agreements, are requested not to go
to work on September 22, and to refuse to resume their
employment until such time as the demands of the
organizations have been conceded by the steel corporations.
The union committees have tried to arrange conferences with
the heads of the steel companies in order that they might
present our legitimate demands for the right of collective
bargaining, higher wages, shorter hours and better working
conditions. But the employers have steadfastly refused to
meet them. It therefore becomes our duty to support the
committees' claims, in accordance with the practically
unanimous strike vote, by refusing to work in the mills on
or after September 22, until such time as our just demands
have been granted. And in our stoppage of work let there be
no violence. The American Federation of Labor has won all
its great progress by peaceful and legal methods.
IRON AND STEEL WORKERS! A historic decision confronts us. If
we will but stand together now like men our demands will
soon be granted and a golden era of prosperity will open for
us in the steel industry. But if we falter and fail to act
this great effort will be lost, and we will sink back into a
miserable and hopeless serfdom. The welfare of our wives and
children is at stake. Now is the time to insist upon our
rights as human beings.
STOP WORK SEPTEMBER 22
NATIONAL COMMITTEE
FOR ORGANIZING IRON AND STEEL WORKERS.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Out of courtesy to the President the National Committee has never
made public these telegrams.
[11] After he had been made fully acquainted with the situation Mr.
Gompers said before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor,
investigating the steel strike: (Hearings, page 109) "Notwithstanding
what any of the officials of the trade unions would have done,
regardless of what the Committee would have done, the strike would have
occurred anyway, a haphazard, loose, disjointed, unorganized strike,
without leadership, without consultation, without advice. It was simply
a choice whether the strike would take place under the guidance and
leadership of men who have proven their worth, or under the leadership
of some one who might spring up for the moment."
VII
THE STORM BREAKS
THE STEEL TRUST ARMY--CORRUPT OFFICIALDOM--CLAIRTON--McKEESPORT
--THE STRIKE--SHOWING BY DISTRICTS--A TREASONABLE ACT--GARY
GETS HIS ANSWER
As the memorable twenty-second of September approached a lurid and
dramatic setting developed for the beginning of the great steel strike.
Everywhere the steel companies made gigantic preparations to crush their
aspiring workers back to slavery. The newspapers shrieked revolution.
The whole country was a-tremble with anxiety and apprehension.
Pittsburgh was the storm center. There, in its stronghold, the Steel
Trust went ahead with strike-breaking measures unprecedented in
industrial history. It provisioned and fortified its great mills and
furnaces, surrounding them with stockades topped off with heavily
charged electric wires, and bristling with machine guns. It assembled
whole armies of gunmen. Brute force was to be used in breaking the
solidarity of the workers. Said the New York _World_ editorially
September 22: "In anticipation of the steel strike, what do we see? In
the Pittsburgh district thousands of deputy sheriffs have been recruited
at several of the larger plants. The Pennsylvania State Constabulary
has been concentrated at commanding points. At other places the
authorities have organized bodies of war veterans as special officers.
At McKeesport alone 3,000 citizens have been sworn in as special police
deputies subject to instant call. It is as though preparations were made
for actual war."
Along the Monongahela river from Pittsburgh to Clairton, a distance of
twenty miles, there were not less than 25,000 armed men in the service
of the Steel Trust. In the entire Pittsburgh district, practically all
the petty parasites who prey upon the steel workers--the professional
and small business men--had been sworn in as deputies and furnished
firearms to defend their great overlord, to whom they all do
unquestioning service no matter how dirty the job. During the strike
Sheriff Haddock of Allegheny county stated to the Senate Committee
investigating the strike that there were 5,000 deputy sheriffs and 5,000
strikers in his jurisdiction, or one deputy for each striker. His totals
should have been multiplied by at least ten in each case; 50,000
deputies and 50,000 strikers would have been well below the mark. It is
noteworthy that although the danger of an uprising in the Pittsburgh
district was widely advertised no appeal was made for troops, nor was
there even any talk of an appeal. The reason was that the Steel Trust
had a vast army of its own, officered by its own officials, and it
needed no outside help.
Western Pennsylvania is controlled body and soul by the Steel Trust. The
whole district has the psychology of a company-owned town. All authority
centers in the steel industry. From there practically every institution
takes its orders. Local governmental agencies are hardly more than
public service departments of the Steel Trust. Their officials, city,
county, state and federal, obey the mandates of the steel magnates just
about as readily and naturally as do the superintendents and mill
bosses. No less than the latter they felt it to be their duty to break
the strike by whatever means their masters told them to use.
With the approach of the strike these lackey officials hastened _en
masse_ to the aid of the Steel Trust. Sheriff Haddock, besides swearing
in an army of guards and turning them over to the steel companies to
carry out their plan of terrorism, issued a flaming proclamation
practically setting up martial law and making it a riotous assembly for
three steel workers to meet together. Next day, September 21, the
organizers tried to hold a meeting in North Clairton--with the Burgess'
permission, and at a place on the public commons especially set aside by
the authorities for union meetings. About 3,000 steel workers gathered
to hear the speakers. Everything was going as peacefully as a Sunday
school picnic, when suddenly a troop of State Constabulary appeared upon
the scene, and without a word of warning, rode full tilt into the crowd,
clubbing and trampling men and women indiscriminately. They tore down
and threw in the mud the American flag floating above the speakers'
stand. Scores were arrested (including organizers J. B. Etchison and P.
H. Brogan) and held for heavy bonds on charges of rioting.[12] Many
were seriously injured, but fearing to report their cases to the doctors
and thus court arrest, as the latter were nearly all deputies, they
cured themselves as best they could. This crying outrage was perpetrated
under the authority of the Sheriff's proclamation. It was endorsed and
lauded by Governor Sproul, than whom the Steel Trust has no more willing
champion.
At the same hour as the Clairton outrage a similar attack was made on
the workers at Glassport, adjoining McKeesport. Not being allowed to
meet at the latter city the organizers had leased a plot of ground in
Glassport and had been holding regular meetings there, with the full
sanction of the local authorities. For the meeting in question they had
an official permit. But just as it was about to begin the State
Constabulary broke it up in true Cossack fashion, almost riding down the
Burgess in so doing. They arrested all they could seize. These were held
as rioters under bail of from $1,000 to $3,000 each. The venal
Pittsburgh papers screamed about the outbreaks that had been crushed by
the gallant State police, and praised them for their bravery in facing
the "rioting mobs."
Despite all these terroristic methods the Steel Trust could not break
the will of its workers. On September 22 they struck throughout the
entire industry with a discipline and universality that will be
remembered so long as steel is made in America. On Tuesday, the
twenty-third, 304,000 had quit their posts in the mills and furnaces.
All week their ranks were augmented until by September 30, there were
365,600 on strike. It was a magnificent effort for freedom, and twice as
big a strike as this country had ever known. By cities and districts,
the numbers of strikers were as follows:
Pittsburgh 25,000
Homestead 9,000
Braddock 10,000
Rankin 5,000
Clairton 4,000
Duquesne & McKeesport 12,000
Vandergrift 4,000
Brackenridge 5,000
New Kensington 1,100
Apollo 1,500
Leechburg 3,000
Donora & Monessen 12,000
Johnstown 18,000
Coatesville 4,000
Youngstown district,
including Youngstown, E. Youngstown,
Struthers, Hubbard, Niles, Canton,
Alliance, Massillon, Warren, Farrell,
Newcastle, Sharon, Butler, etc. 70,000
Wheeling district 15,000
Cleveland 25,000
Steubenville district 12,000
Chicago district,
including Gary, Joliet, DeKalb,
South Chicago, Indiana Harbor, East
Chicago, Hammond, Evanston, Sterling,
Peoria, Milwaukee, etc. 90,000
Buffalo district 12,000
Pueblo 6,000
Birmingham 2,000
5 Bethlehem Plants 20,000
-------
Total 365,600
The shut-down was almost complete. Throughout the country the industry
was stricken with paralysis. On an average the strike was at least 90
per cent. effective. In the great Chicago district practically all the
men struck, hamstringing the big plants in the various steel towns of
that section, Gary, Joliet, Indiana Harbor, South Chicago, etc. The
holding of the organizations in this district for a year, in the face of
Steel Trust opposition, by the organizers under Secretary Evans, and
later, De Young, was one of the most notable achievements of the whole
campaign. When the pent-up force was finally released it swept the
district like a flood, leaving hardly a wheel turning anywhere.
Youngstown is another place where great difficulties had been
encountered in the organizing work, the workers being deeply discouraged
by recently lost local strikes, and the authorities at some points so
hostile that it was impossible to hold meetings in the strategic places.
But so widespread was the discontent at the miserable working
conditions, and so well had the district crew of organizers under
Secretaries McCadden and Hammersmark done their work that when the
strike clarion sounded, the masses of steel workers responded almost to
a man. Trust plants and "independents" alike had to shut down. The steel
working population of the entire Mahoning Valley went on holiday. It was
a clean walkout. In the outer Youngstown district, as established by the
National Committee system, the companies, by the use of desperate
tactics, succeeded in keeping some of their men at work; in Sharon,
Farrell and Newcastle probably twenty per cent refused to obey the
strike call. But in Canton and Massillon, John Olchon and the other
organizers brought all the important mills to a dead stop.
Without exception, the enormous Cleveland mills and furnaces shut down
tight. In Johnstown the Cambria Company was so hard hit that, swallowing
its pride, it had to ask the hated unions for a detachment of workers to
protect its plants. The Buffalo district men struck almost 100 per
cent., after a bitter organizing campaign and an eight months' free
speech fight. The Wheeling and Steubenville districts' steel mills and
blast furnaces were abandoned altogether by their crews. In Coatesville
and Birmingham, the response was poor, in the first locality because of
insufficient organization; and in the second because of discouragement
due to a lost local strike the year before. But in far away Colorado,
the steel workers, hearkening to the voice of freedom abroad in the
land, expressed their contempt for the company-union slavery of John D.
Rockefeller, Jr., by tieing up every department in his big Pueblo
mills.
In the immediate Pittsburgh district, though here more strenuously
opposed by the Steel Trust, the strike ranged from 75 to 85 per cent.
effective. That it did not go as strong as other districts was purely
because of the denial, by the companies and the authorities, of the
workers' rights to meet and to organize. In the "Black Valley" section
of the district, comprising the towns lying along the Allegheny river,
Apollo, Vandergrift, Leechburg, Brackenridge, Natrona and New
Kensington, and notorious as the scene of the brutal murder of organizer
Mrs. Fannie Sellins, the strike went 90 per cent. or better; but in the
Monongahela river section it was not so good. Of the steel towns in that
district, Donora and Monessen took the lead with a 100 per cent. strike.
Due to the terrorism prevailing exact figures were almost impossible to
get for the other towns, but according to the best information
procurable they averaged about as follows; Clairton 95, Braddock 90,
Homestead 80, Rankin 85, McKeesport 70, and Duquesne 50 per cent. In
Pittsburgh itself all the larger mills and furnaces, except those of the
Jones and Laughlin Company, either suspended operations altogether or
lost heavily of their employees during the first two days of the strike.
The Jones and Laughlin men had been profoundly discouraged by a lost
strike two years previously, and had responded poorly to the organizers'
efforts. But when they saw the magnitude of the strike they took heart
somewhat, and by strenuous efforts in a rapid fire campaign, the
organizers had at least 60 per cent. of them on strike by the end of the
first week.
In the plants of the Bethlehem Steel Company the strike did not become
effective until September 29. The cause was to be found in local
conditions. In the early spring of 1918, before the National Committee
began its campaign, ruthless exploitation by the company had resulted in
a strike of machine shop employees. The National War Labor Board settled
the strike, erecting a shop organization to handle grievances. In the
meantime the National Committee came into the field and began active
operations. Up till this time the organized movement, led by David
Williams and Patrick Duffy, had been confined principally to the
Machinists, Electrical workers and a few other skilled trades; but now
it spread to the main body of the employees. To head it off the company
proposed to the National Committee that a Rockefeller union be set up in
the plants. Naturally this was unacceptable. Then they offered to sign
an agreement covering all their shipyard employees if the organization
of their steel plants was given up, feeling no doubt that the shipyard
boom was only temporary. For the National Committee, John Fitzpatrick
spurned this shameful trade, and the organization campaign went on--with
the shipyard men getting their agreement later on just the same.
Technically the employees of the Bethlehem Company should have struck
under the first strike call, as they had no union agreement; but being
tied up with futile negotiations under their "collective bargaining"
arrangement, they did not get out until the twenty-ninth. When they did
strike the response was not so good. A fair average for the plants in
South Bethlehem, Steelton, Reading, Lebanon and Sparrows' Point would
be a 50 per cent. strike.
On the whole the strike affected practically the entire industry,
seventy important steel centres being involved. About the only mills of
consequence to escape it were those located at Midland, Woodlawn, Lorain
and Duluth. And the only reason for this was lack of sufficient
organizers to cover them. It is noteworthy that the strike followed
strictly the lines of organization. In hardly a single instance did the
unorganized go out spontaneously, even though they had previously been
clamoring for the unions to help them. This tends to show how completely
the steel companies dominated their unorganized workers and how hard it
was for the latter to act in concert.
For the most part the great walkout was concentrated on the smelting and
rolling branches of the steel industry. It had been the original
intention to make the movement thoroughly industrial, taking in all the
workers from those who mine the coal and iron to those who transfer the
finished products to the railroad lines. But insufficient resources
compelled the modification of this program, and forced the unions to
confine their work principally to the blast furnaces and rolling mills.
However, where the company mines or fabricating works lay close to the
general plants, or were part of them, the essentially industrial
character of the campaign manifested itself and these departments were
organized along with the rest. In various places, including Gary,
Chicago, Homestead, etc., bridge, car, and other fabricating shops were
an integral part of the drive. The iron miners working close in to
Birmingham responded to some extent, but a big defeat of the local
metal trades in the mills a couple of years previously held them back
from making a strong demonstration. The coal miners struck in several
places. In Johnstown, 2,000 of them working in the Cambria Steel
Company's mines organized during the campaign, became affiliated with
the local mill workers' council, and walked out 100 per cent. on the
historic twenty-second of September.
Although the United States Steel Corporation was recognized as the arch
enemy of the unions, the strike was not directed against it alone. Every
iron and steel mill and furnace in the country not working under union
agreements was included. This meant at least 95 per cent. of the
industry, because the only agreements of any consequence were between
some of the smaller companies and the Amalgamated Association. A number
of these concerns were affected also, their agreements relating only to
skilled workers, and the plants having to close when the laborers
struck. This occurred quite extensively in the Cleveland, Youngstown and
Pittsburgh districts.
Considering the large number of them involved and their traditions of
isolated action, the unions displayed reasonably good solidarity in
going "over the top" against the Steel Trust. The battle line was far
from perfect, however. Much harm was done the morale of the strikers by
local unions here and there that were under the sway of ignorant
blockheads or designing tools of the bosses, refusing to recognize the
National Committee's strike call and insisting upon getting instructions
from their own headquarters, meanwhile scabbing it in the mills. And
the worst of it was that sometimes it was difficult, or even impossible
to have the necessary instructions issued.
Far more serious than this, however, was the action of the executive
officers of the International Union of Steam and Operating Engineers.
Just as the strike was about to begin President Snellings and Secretary
Comerford sharply condemned it by letter and through the press, urging
their men to stay at work upon the flimsy pretext that the President's
industrial conference would attend to their interests. Roused to
indignation by this cold-blooded course, the local unions of engineers,
almost without exception, repudiated their international misleaders and
stuck with the rest of the steel workers. After President Gompers had
been quoted in the newspapers as pledging the support of the A. F. of L.
to the strike (two days after it started) and Labor generally had shown
its determination to stick by the steel workers, the officers of the
Engineers' international were compelled to publicly endorse the strike.
But throughout its duration they nevertheless privately encouraged their
strategically situated tradesmen to return to work, thus doing
incalculable harm when the strikers had begun to weaken a little. This
plain case of official scabbery was inspired by a jurisdictional dispute
between the engineers and the electrical workers over the disposition to
be made of electrical crane-men signed up in the campaign. Because they
could not have their unreasonable way in the matter, the officials of
the engineers deliberately knifed the strike and lent aid and comfort
to the bitterest opponents of Organized Labor on this planet. To such
extremes will union men go in internecine wars over trade demarcations.
But in spite of opposition, blundering and treachery, the steel workers
had spoken. Mr. Gary was answered. Previous to the strike, he declared
that the unions represented only an insignificant minority of his men,
the great bulk of his working force being satisfied. He compelled the
Committee to show its credentials. Result: 365,600 steel workers laid
down their tools. This estimated total has never been disputed by the
steel companies. Here and there, in some individual town or district,
they pointed out a figure occasionally as being excessive; but although
importuned by newspaper men to do so, they never ventured to issue a
statement of the number on strike at all points. The reason was that
they feared to print the grand total which even their lying press bureau
would have to admit. Word came to the Committee from reliable sources
that the steel manufacturers considered the union figure well within the
real total.
While not accurately ascertainable, the number of Mr. Gary's employees
actually taking part in the strike may be closely approximated. Mr. Gary
stated to the Senate Committee that the total number employed by the
United States Steel Corporation in the departments affected by the
strike was 201,065. Against this number should be checked off about half
of the total number of strikers, or 182,500. This is based upon the
theory that the official U. S. Steel Corporation plants form
approximately 50 per cent. of the industry, and that the strike was
just as effective against them as against those of any other company. It
is not asserted that these figures are absolutely accurate; but they
will serve to indicate that the claim of a 90 per cent. strike in the
plants of the Steel Corporation is a fair one. It is exceedingly
doubtful if as many as 10 per cent. of Mr. Gary's employees remained at
their posts and failed to heed the strike call. Fully 125,000 of them
were members of the unions before the strike started, and most of the
rest would have been also, had they dared brave the anger of their
bosses.
The great steel strike thoroughly exposed the hypocrisies of Mr. Gary
and his ilk that in some mysterious way labor policies and conditions in
the steel industry depend upon the wishes of the body of the workers. It
made plain that in the autocratic system now prevailing the democratic
principles of majority and minority do not enter. It is a case pure and
simple of the absolute sway of property rights over human rights. A
handful of social parasites hidden away in Wall street, with no other
interest in the steel industry than to exploit it, settle arbitrarily
the vital questions of wages, hours and working conditions, while the
enormous mass of the workers, actual producers whose very lives are
involved, have no say whatsoever. No matter how bitter their grievances,
when they raise their voice to ask redress, they are discharged,
blacklisted, starved, beaten, jailed and even shot, until they bend the
knee again and yield to the will of their industrial masters.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] In this connection occurred one of the finest incidents in the
strike: Wm. J. Brennan, an able, conscientious attorney of Pittsburgh,
and one of the counsel who defended the Homestead strikers in 1892, went
to Clairton to get the "rioters" released on bonds. But such a state of
terror existed that no one dared to go their bail. Thereupon, Mr.
Brennan himself, without knowing a single one of the defendants, but
smarting under the injustice of it all, pledged his entire property
holdings, amounting to $88,000, to get them set free.
VIII
GARYISM RAMPANT
THE WHITE TERROR--CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS DENIED--UNBREAKABLE
SOLIDARITY--FATHER KAZINCY--THE COSSACKS--SCIENTIFIC
BARBARITY--PROSTITUTED COURTS--SERVANTS REWARDED
It was the misfortune of the steel strike to occur in the midst of the
post-war reaction, which still persists unabated, and which constitutes
the most shameful page in American history. Ours are days when the
organized employers, inspired by a horrible fear of the onward sweep of
revolution in Europe and the irresistible advance of the labor movement
in this country, are robbing the people overnight of their most precious
rights, the fruits of a thousand years of struggle. And the people, not
yet recovered from war hysteria and misled by a corrupt press, cannot
perceive the outrage. They even glory in their degradation. Free speech,
free press, free assembly, as we once knew these rights, are now things
of the past. What poor rudiments of them remain depend upon the whims of
a Burleson, or the rowdy element of the American Legion. Hundreds of
idealists, guilty of nothing more than a temperate expression of their
honest views, languish in prison serving sentences so atrocious as to
shock the world--although Europe has long since released its war and
political prisoners. Working class newspapers are raided, denied the use
of the mails and suppressed. Meetings are broken up by Chamber of
Commerce mobs or thugs in public office. The right of asylum is
gone--the infamous Palmer is deporting hundreds who dare to hold views
different from his. The right of the workers to organize is being
systematically curtailed; and crowning shame of all, workingmen can no
longer have legislative representatives of their own choosing. In a
word, America, from being the most forward-looking, liberty-loving
country in the world, has in two short years become one of the most
reactionary. We in this country are patiently enduring tyranny that
would not be tolerated in England, France, Italy, Russia or Germany. Our
great war leaders promised us the New Freedom; they have given us the
White Terror.
Realizing full well the reactionary spirit of the times, the steel
companies proceeded safely to extremes to crush the steel strike, dubbed
by them an attempt at violent revolution. To accomplish their end they
stuck at nothing. One of their most persistent and determined efforts
was to deprive the steel workers of their supposedly inalienable right
to meet and talk together. Throughout the strike, whenever and wherever
they could find municipal or court officials willing to do their
bidding, the steel barons abolished the rights of free speech and free
assembly, so precious to strikers. Few districts escaped this evil, but
as usual, Pennsylvania felt the blow earliest and heaviest. Hardly had
the strike started when the oily Schwab prohibited meetings in
Bethlehem; the Allegheny and West Penn Steel Companies did the same at
Natrona, jailing organizer J. McCaig for "inciting to riot"; in the
Sharon-Farrell district the steel workers, denied their constitutional
rights in their home towns, had to march several miles over into Ohio
(America they called it) in order to hold their meetings.
Along the Monongahela river the shut-down was complete. Following
Sheriff Haddock's proclamation and the "riots" at Clairton and
Glassport, it was only a few days until the city and borough officials
had completely banned strike meetings in all the territory from
Charleroi to Pittsburgh. The unions' free-speech, free-assembly victory
of the past summer was instantly cancelled. For forty-one miles through
the heart of America's steel industry, including the important centers
of Monessen, Donora, Clairton, Wilson, Glassport, McKeesport, Duquesne,
Homestead, Braddock, Rankin, etc., not a meeting of the steel workers
could be held. Even in Pittsburgh itself meetings were prohibited
everywhere except in Labor Temple. The steel-collared city officials
never could quite muster the gall to close Labor's own building--or
perhaps because it is so far from the mills and so poorly situated for
meetings they felt it to be of no use to the strikers. Thus the Steel
Trust gave its workers a practical demonstration of what is meant by the
phrase, "making the world safe for democracy."
Not only were mass meetings forbidden, but so also were regular business
meetings under the charters of the local unions. To test out this
particular usurpation, Attorney W. H. Rubin, then in charge of the
strike's legal department and possessed of a keener faith in
Pennsylvania justice than the Strike committee had, keener probably than
he himself now has, prayed the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas to
enjoin Mayor Babcock and other city officials from interfering with a
local union of the Amalgamated Association holding its business meetings
on the south side of the city where its members lived and where several
large mills are located. At the hearing the Mayor and Chief of Police
freely admitted that there had been no violence in the strike, and even
complimented the men on their behavior, but they feared there might be
trouble and so forbade the meetings. The honorable Judges Ford and
Shafer agreed with them and denied the writ, saying among other things:
It is the duty of the Mayor and Police Department to
preserve the peace, and it must be sometimes necessary for
that purpose to prevent the congregating in one place of
large numbers of people such as might get beyond the control
of the Police Department, and it must be left to the
reasonable discretion of the officers charged with keeping
the peace when such intervention is made.
In other words, the sacred right of the workers to meet together depends
upon the arbitrary will of any politician who may get into the office
controlling the permits. Shortly before Judges Ford and Shafer handed
down this noble conception of free assembly, Judge Kennedy of the
Allegheny County Court, ruling on the appeal of Mother Jones, J. L.
Beaghen, J. M. Patterson and Wm. Z. Foster in the Duquesne free speech
cases of several weeks prior to the strike, had this to say:
It cannot be questioned that the object of these
meetings--increasing the membership in the American
Federation of Labor--is a perfectly lawful one, but the
location of the meetings in the Monongahela valley, built up
as it is for mile after mile of an unbroken succession of
iron and steel mills, and thickly populated with iron
workers, many of whom obviously are not members of this
association, and among whom, on both sides, there are, in
all probability, some who upon the occasion of meetings such
as these purported to be, might through excitement
precipitate serious actions of which the consequences could
not be foreseen and might be disastrous, presents questions
which are sufficient to cause the court to hesitate before
interfering with the exercise of discretion on the part of
the Mayor in refusing to permit such meetings at this time.
The Court is still hesitating to interfere with Mayor Crawford's
tyranny, and the defendants had to pay $100 and costs each for trying to
hold a meeting on ground they had leased. One would think that the
remedy in the case conjured out of thin air by the learned judge (for in
the thousands of meetings held in the steel campaign he cannot point to
one incident of violence) would be for the local authorities to provide
ample police protection to insure order. But no, in Pennsylvania the
thing to do is to set aside the constitutional rights of the workers.
Would such action be taken in the case of members of a Chamber of
commerce? Wouldn't the governor, rather, order out the state troops, if
necessary, to uphold their right of assembly?
In the hope of getting some relief, or at the least some publicity about
the unbearable situation, a committee of 18 local labor men,
representing the largest trade unions in Western Pennsylvania, went to
Washington and presented to the Allegheny County congressional
delegation a petition expressing contempt for the judges and other
officials in their part of the State and asking Congress to give them
the justice these men refused to mete out. Surely, the Allegheny County
congressmen were exactly the ones to bring the Steel Trust to time. With
a grand flourish they introduced a resolution into the House calling for
an investigation--then they forgot all about it.
The official tyranny and outlawry along the Monongahela was so bad that
the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor had to voice its protest. On
November 1-2 it held a special convention in Pittsburgh, attended by
several hundred delegates. A resolution was adopted demanding that
protection be given the rights of the workers, and that if the
authorities failed to extend this protection, "the Executive Council of
the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor shall issue a call for a State-wide
strike, when in its judgment it is necessary to compel respect for law
and the restoration of liberty as guaranteed by the Constitution of the
United States and of the State of Pennsylvania." For this action
President Jas. H. Maurer of the Federation was hotly assailed and even
menaced with lynching by the lawless business interests.
By some inexplicable mental twist the ex-union man Burgess of Homestead
eventually allowed the unions to hold one mass meeting each week--to
this day the only ones permitted in the forty-one miles of Monongahela
steel towns. They were under the supervision of the State police. At
each meeting a half dozen of these Cossacks, in full uniform, would sit
upon the platform as censors. Only English could be spoken. As the
saying was, all the organizers were permitted to talk about was the
weather. When one touched on a vital strike phase a Cossack would yell
at him, "Hey, cut that out! You're through, you--! Don't ever come back
here any more." And he never could speak there again.
Judging from past experiences the strike in the Pittsburgh district
should have been impossible under such hard circumstances. With little
or no opportunity to meet for mutual encouragement and enlightenment,
the strikers, theoretically, should have been soon discouraged and
driven back to work. But they were saved by their matchless solidarity,
bred of a deep faith in the justice of their cause. In the black,
Cossack-ridden Monongahela towns there were thousands of strikers who
were virtually isolated, who never attended a meeting during the entire
strike and seldom if ever saw an organizer or read a strike bulletin,
yet they fought on doggedly for three and one-half months, buoyed up by
a boundless belief in the ultimate success of their supreme effort. Each
felt himself bound to stay away from the mills, come weal or come woe,
regardless of what the rest did. These were mainly the despised
foreigners, of course, but their splendid fighting qualities were a
never-ending revelation and inspiration to all connected with the
strike.
Through the dark night of oppression a bright beacon of liberty gleamed
from Braddock. There the heroic Slavish priest, Reverend Adelbert
Kazincy, pastor of St. Michel's Roman Catholic church, bade defiance to
the Steel Trust and all its minions. He threw open his church to the
strikers, turned his services into strike meetings, and left nothing
undone to make the men hold fast. The striking steel workers came to his
church from miles around, Protestants as well as Catholics. The
neighboring clergymen who ventured to oppose the strike lost their
congregations,--men, women and children flocked to Father Kazincy's, and
all of them stood together, as solid as a brick wall.
Reverend Kazincy's attitude aroused the bitterest hostility of the steel
companies. They did not dare to do him bodily violence, nor to close his
church by their customary "legal" methods; but they tried everything
else. Unable to get the local bishop to silence him, they threatened
finally to strangle his church. To this the doughty priest replied that
if they succeeded he would put a monster sign high up on his steeple:
"This church destroyed by the Steel Trust," and he would see that it
stayed there. When they tried to foreclose on the church mortgage, he
promptly laid the matter before his heterogeneous congregation of
strikers, who raised the necessary $1200 before leaving the building and
next day brought in several hundred dollars more. Then the companies
informed him that after the strike no more Slovaks could get work in
the mills. He told them that if they tried this, he would do his level
best to pull all the Slovaks out of the district (they are the bulk of
the mill forces) and colonize them in the West. The promised blacklist
has not yet materialized.
Father Kazincy and the clergymen who worked with him, notable among whom
was the Reverend Molnar, a local Slavish Lutheran minister, constituted
one of the great mainstays of the strike in their district. They are men
who have caught the true spirit of the lowly Nazarene. The memory of
their loyal co-operation will long live green in the hearts of the
Pittsburgh district steel strikers.
A description of the repressive measures taken by the Steel Trust
against its workers during the early period of the strikes necessarily
relates almost entirely to Western Pennsylvania. With few exceptions,
the other districts were in a deadlock. So tightly were the mills shut
down that the companies could hardly stir. It took them several weeks to
get their stricken fighting machinery in motion again. But it was
different in Western Pennsylvania, in what we call the greater
Pittsburgh district; that has always been the key to the whole industry,
and there, from the very first, the steel companies made a bitter fight
to control the situation and to break the strike. The tactics used there
are typical in that they came to be universally applied as the strike
grew older, the degree of their application depending upon the amount of
control exercised by the Steel Trust in the several localities.
To carry on the terror so well begun by the suppression of free speech
and free assembly, the Steel Trust turned loose upon the devoted
strikers in Western Pennsylvania the great masses of armed thugs it had
been recruiting since long before the strike. These consisted of every
imaginable type of armed guard, official and unofficial, except
uniformed troops. There were State Constabulary, deputy sheriffs, city
police, city detectives, company police, company detectives, private
detectives, coal and iron police, ordinary gunmen, armed
strike-breakers, vigilantes, and God knows how many others. These
legions of reaction, all tarred with the same brush--a servile,
mercenary allegiance to the ruthless program of the Steel Trust--vied
with each other in working hardships upon the steel workers. In this
shameful competition the State Constabulary stood first; for downright
villainy and disregard of civil and human rights, these so-called
upholders of law and order easily outdistanced all the other plug-uglies
assembled by the Steel Trust. They merit our special attention.
The Pennsylvania State Constabulary dates from 1905, when a law was
enacted creating the Department of State Police. The force is modelled
somewhat along the lines of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the
Canadian Northwest Mounted Police. The men are uniformed, mounted,
heavily armed and regularly enlisted. For the most part they consist of
ex-United States army men. At present they number somewhat less than the
amount set by law, 415 officers and men. Their ostensible duty is to
patrol the poorly policed rural sections of the state, and this they do
when they have nothing else to take up their time. But their real
function is to break strikes. They were organized as a result of the
failure of the militia to crush the anthracite strike of 1902. Since
their inception they have taken an active part in all important
industrial disturbances within their jurisdiction. They are the heart's
darlings of Pennsylvania's great corporations. Labor regards them with
an abiding hatred. Says Mr. Jas. H. Maurer (_The Cossack_, page 3):
The "English Square" is the only open-field military
formation of human beings that has ever been known to
repulse cavalry. All other formations go down before the
resistless rush of plunging beasts mounted by armed men, mad
in the fierce excitement induced by the thundering gallop of
charging horses. A charge by cavalry is a storm from
hell--for men on foot. A cavalry-man's power, courage and
daring are strangely multiplied by the knowledge that he
sits astride a swift, strong beast, willing and able to
knock down a dozen men in one leap of this terrible rush.
Hence, the Cossacks, the mounted militiamen--for crushing
unarmed, unmounted groups of men on strike.
But the State Police do not confine themselves merely to the crude
business of breaking up so-called strike riots. Their forte is
prevention, rather than cure. They aim to so terrorize the people that
they will cower in their homes, afraid to go upon the streets to
transact necessary business, much less to congregate in crowds. They
play unmercifully upon every fear and human weakness. They are skilled,
scientific terrorists, such as Czarist Russia never had.
On a thousand occasions they beat, shot, jailed or trampled steel
workers under their horses' hoofs in the manner and under the
circumstances best calculated to strike terror to their hearts. In
Braddock, for instance, a striker having died of natural causes, about
two hundred of his fellows assembled to accompany the body to the
cemetery. To stop this harmless demonstration all the State Police
needed to do was to send a word to the union. But such orderly,
reasonable methods do not serve their studied policy of frightfulness.
Therefore, without previously informing the strikers in any way that
their funeral party was obnoxious, the Cossacks laid in wait for the
procession, and when it reached the heart of town, where all Braddock
could get the benefit of the lesson in "Americanism," they swooped down
upon it at full gallop, clubbing the participants and scattering them to
the four winds.
Similar outrageous attacks occurred not once, but dozens of times. Let
Father Kazincy speak of his experiences:
Braddock, Pa., Sept. 27, 1919
W. Z. Foster,
Pittsburgh, Pa.,
_Dear Sir_:
The pyramidal impudence of the State Constabulary in denying
charges of brutal assaults perpetrated by them upon the
peaceful citizens of the borough of Braddock prompts me to
send a telegram to the Governor of Pennsylvania, in which I
have offered to bring forth two specific cases of bestial
transgression of their "calling."
On Monday last at 10 A. M. my congregation, leaving
church, was suddenly, without any cause whatever, attacked
on the very steps of the Temple of God, by the Constables,
and dispersed by the iron-hoofed Huns. Whilst dispersing
indignation and a blood frenzy swayed them, a frenzy
augmented by that invisible magnetic force, the murmuring,
raging force of 3,000 strong men. One could feel that
helpless feeling of being lifted up by some invisible force,
forced, thrown against the flux of raging, elemental passion
of resentment, against the Kozaks of this State.
Nevertheless, it was the most magnificent display of
self-control manifested by the attacked ever shown anywhere.
They moved on, with heads lowered and jaws firmly set, to
submit. Oh, it was great; it was magnificent. They, these
husky, muscle-bound Titans of raw force walked home ... only
thinking, thinking hard. Oh, only for one wink from some
one, would there be a puddle of red horseblood mixed with
the human kind.
But no. We want to win the strike. We want to win the
confidence of the public.
Tuesday afternoon the little babies of No. 1 were going to
the school. They loitered for the school bell to summon
them. And here come Kozaks. They see the little innocents
standing on the steps of the school-house, their parents on
the opposite side of the street. What a splendid occasion to
start the "Hunkey's" ire. Let us charge their babies--that
will fetch them to an attack upon us.
They did. But the "Hunkey" even at the supreme test of his
cool-headedness, refused to flash his knife to save his
babies from the onrush of the cruel horses' hoofs.
I am relating to you, Mr. Foster, things as they happened.
You may use my name in connection with your charges against
the Constabulary.
Sincerely yours,
REV. A. KAZINCY,
416 Frazier St.,
Braddock, Pa.
[Illustration: COSSACKS IN ACTION
Brutal and unprovoked assault upon Rudolph Dressel, Homestead, Pa.,
Sept. 23, 1919.
_Photo by International_]
Governor Sproul paid no attention to Father Kazincy's protest, nor did
he to a long letter from Jas. H. Maurer, reciting shocking brutalities
fully authenticated by affidavits--unless it was to multiply his public
endorsements and praises of the State Police.
A favorite method of the Constables was to go tearing through the
streets (foreign quarter), forcing pedestrians into whatever houses they
happened to be passing, regardless of whether or not they lived there.
Read these two typical affidavits, portraying a double outrage:
STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA }
COUNTY OF ALLEGHENY } SS.
Before me, the undersigned authority, personally appeared
John Bodnar, who being duly sworn according to law deposes
and says that he lives at 542 Gold Way, Homestead, Pa., that
on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 1919, at about 2 P. M. he
went to visit his cousin on Fifth Avenue, Homestead, Pa.:
that he did in fact visit his cousin and after leaving the
house of his cousin was accosted on the street by a member
of the State Police who commanded him, the deponent, to
enter a certain house, which house was not known to the
deponent; that deponent informed said State Policeman that
he, deponent, did not live in the house indicated by the
State Policeman; nevertheless, the said State Policeman
said, "It makes no difference whether you live in there or
not, you go in there anyhow"; thereupon in fear of violence
deponent did enter the said house, which house was two doors
away from the house of the cousin of deponent; that after a
time deponent came out of the house into which he had been
ordered, thereupon the same State Policeman returned and
ordered deponent to re-enter the house aforesaid and upon
again being informed by deponent that he, the deponent, did
not live in said house, the said State Policeman forthwith
arrested the deponent and brought him to Homestead police
station, and at a hearing at said station before the burgess
was fined the sum of nine dollars and sixty-five cents,
which amount was paid by deponent.
JOHN BODNAR
Sworn to and subscribed before me
this first day of October, 1919.
A. F. Kaufman, Notary Public.
Here is what happened in the house into which Bodnar was driven:
STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA }
COUNTY OF ALLEGHENY } SS.
Before me, the undersigned authority, personally appeared
Steve Dudash, who being duly sworn according to law deposes
and says that he resides at 541 E. 5th Ave., Homestead, Pa.;
that on Tuesday September 23, 1919, in the afternoon of said
day, his wife, Mary Dudash, was severely scalded, burned,
and injured by reason of a sudden fright sustained when a
State Policeman forced John Bodnar into the home of the
deponent and his wife, Mary Dudash; that said Mary Dudash,
the wife of the deponent, was in a very delicate condition
at the time of the fright and injury complained of, caused
by the State Police and that on Sunday, Sept. 28, 1919,
following the date in question, namely the 23rd, the said
Mary Dudash, wife of deponent, gave birth to a child; that
on account of the action of the State Police in forcing John
Bodnar with terror into the home of deponent and his wife,
Mary Dudash, she, the said Mary Dudash, wife of the
deponent, has been rendered very sick and has suffered a
nervous collapse and is still suffering from the nervous
shock sustained, on account of the action of the State
Police, above referred to.
STEVE DUDASH
Sworn to and subscribed before me
this first day of October, 1919
A. F. Kaufman, Notary Public.
When on a mission of terrorism the first thing the State Troopers do is
to get their horses onto the sidewalks, the better to ride down the
pedestrians. Unbelievable though it may seem, they actually ride into
stores and inner rooms. Picture the horror a foreign worker and his
family, already badly frightened, at seeing a mounted policeman crashing
into their kitchen. The horses are highly trained. Said an N. E. A. news
dispatch, Sept. 26th, 1919:
Horses of the Pennsylvania State Constabulary are trained
not to turn aside, as a horse naturally will do, when a
person stands in its way, but to ride straight over any one
against whom they are directed. Lizzie, a splendid black
mare ridden by Trooper John A. Thorp, on duty at Homestead,
uses her teeth as well as her heels when in action. Her
master will sometimes dismount, leaving Lizzie to hold a
striker with her strong jaws, while he takes up the pursuit
of others on foot.
If this is thought to be an overdrawn statement, read the following
affidavit:
Butler, Pa., October 3, 1919
I, Jacob Sazuta,
21 Bessemer Ave.,
Lyndora, Pa.
Commenced work for the Standard Steel Car Company in
September, 1913, as laborer. About October 1916 was promoted
to car fitter in the erection department; in February, 1919,
was then taken and placed as a wheel roller, and I worked in
this capacity until August 6th, 1919 [the date the steel
strike began there].
On August 25, after receiving my pay, I was standing looking
in a store window, when State Trooper No. 52 rode his horse
upon me, THE HORSE STEPPING ON MY LEFT FOOT. Trooper No. 52
ordered me to move on, BUT AS THE HORSE WAS STANDING ON MY
FOOT I COULD NOT MOVE. He then struck me across the head
with his club, cutting a gash in the left side of my head
that took the doctor three stitches to close up the wound.
After hitting me with his club, he kept chasing me with his
horse.
JACOB SAZUTA
Sworn and subscribed before me
this third day of October, 1919.
E. L. Cefferi, Notary Public.
A few affidavits, and extracts from affidavits, taken at random from
among the hundreds in possession of the National Committee, will
indicate the general conditions prevailing in the several districts:
Clairton, Pa.
John Doban, Andy Niski and Mike Hudak were walking home
along the street when the State Police came and arrested the
three, making ten holes in Mike Hudak's head. Were under
arrest three days. Union bailed them out, $1,000.00 each.
* * * * *
Butler, Pa., Oct. 3, 1919.
I, James Torok, Storekeeper,
103 Standard Ave.,
Lyndora, Pa.,
On about August 15, 1919, I saw State Troopers chase a
crippled man who could not run as fast as his horse, and run
him down, the horse bumping him in the back with his head,
knocked him down. Later three men were coming to my store to
buy some things; the State Troopers ran their horses right
on them and chased them home. One of the men stopped and
said: "I have to go to the store," and the Trooper said:
"Get to hell out of here, you sons -- ----, or I will kill
you," and started after them again, and the people ran home
and stayed away from the store.
JAMES TOROK
Sworn to and subscribed before me
this 3rd day of October, 1919.
E. L. Peffer, Notary Public.
* * * * *
Homestead, Pa.
... two State Policemen made a forcible entry into the home
of deponent, Trachn Yenchenke, at 327 Third Ave, Homestead,
Pa., and came to the place where deponent was asleep, kicked
him and punched him, and handled him with extreme violence
and took deponent without any explanation, without
permitting deponent to dress, dragged him half naked from
his home to waiting automobile and conveyed him against his
will to the Homestead Police Station.... Fined $15.10.
TRACHN YENCHENKE.
* * * * *
Monessen, Pa.
... Concetta Cocchiara, 8 months advanced in a state of
pregnancy, was out shopping with her sister. Two State
Policemen brusquely ordered them home and when they did not
move fast enough to suit, followed them home, forced himself
into the house and struck affiant with a stick on the head
and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her from the kitchen
and forced her into a patrol wagon and took her to the
borough jail.... Sworn to before Henry Fusarini, Notary
Public, October 11, 1919.
* * * * *
Newcastle, Pa.
John Simpel,
1711 Morris Ave.,
Newcastle.
On Sept. 22, about 5.30 P. M. he was walking along
towards his home on Moravia Street. Hearing shots fired he
stopped in the middle of the street and was instantly struck
by bullets three times, one bullet going through his leg,
one through his finger, while the third entered his back and
went through his body, coming out through his abdomen. The
shots were fired from inside the gates of the Carnegie Steel
Company's plant. Mr. Simpel believes the shots were fired
from a machine gun, because of their rapid succession. He
fell on the ground and lay there for about ten minutes,
until he was picked up by a young boy.... He is now totally
disabled. He has a wife and a child and is 48 years of
age....
JAS. A. NORRINGTON, Secretary.
* * * * *
Farrell, Pa.
... There were four men killed here, one in a quarrel in a
boarding house and three by the Cossacks. Half a dozen were
wounded, one of them a woman. She was shot in the back by a
Cossack, while on her way to the butcher shop....
S. COATES, Secretary.
Many hundreds of similar cases could be cited. In the steel strike a
score were killed, almost all on the workers' side; hundreds were
seriously injured, and thousands unjustly jailed. To the State
Constabulary attaches the blame for a large share of this tyranny. The
effect of their activities was to create a condition in Western
Pennsylvania, bordering on a reign of terror. Yet it is extremely
difficult to definitely fasten their crimes upon them. No matter how
dastardly the outrage, when the Steel Trust cracks its whip the local
authorities and leading citizens come forth with a mass of affidavits,
"white-washing" the thuggery in question, and usually sufficing to cast
serious doubts on the statements of the few worker witnesses courageous
enough to raise their voices. What is to be thought of the following
incident?
Testifying before the Senate Committee investigating the strike, Mr.
Gompers related how, in an organizing campaign in Monessen, Pa. several
years ago, A. F. of L. organizer Jefferson D. Pierce was bludgeoned by
Steel Trust thugs, receiving injuries that resulted in his death. Mr.
Gompers had his facts straight. Yet the very next day, Mr. Gary,
testifying before the same Committee, produced a sworn statement from
the son of Mr. Pierce containing the following assertions:
I was with my father the night he received his injuries in
Monessen, Pa., and wish to state very emphatically that his
injury was not caused by any one connected with the United
States Steel Corporation. On the contrary, it was caused by
a member of the I. W. W. organization from out of town, who
was sent there at the time to create trouble, as the I. W.
W. organization was then trying to gain control of the
organizing situation. I wish again most emphatically to
refute Mr. Gompers' statement that this injury was caused by
some one connected with the United States Steel Corporation.
Upon being questioned, Mr. Gary "thought" that Mr. Pierce is employed at
Worcester, Mass. by the American Steel and Wire Company, a subsidiary of
the U. S. Steel Corporation.
Fortunately, however, in the steel strike the photographer secured a
proof of State Police brutality which the most skilled Steel Trust
apologists cannot explain away--a picture of the typically vicious
assault upon Mr. R. Dressel, a hotel keeper of 532 Dickson St. (foreign
quarter), Homestead, Pa. I quote from the latter's statement in
connection therewith:
I, Rudolph Dressel, of the aforesaid address, do hereby make
this statement of my own volition and without solicitation
from any one. That on the 23rd day of September I was
standing in front of my place of business at the aforesaid
address and a friend of mine, namely, Adolph Kuehnemund,
came to visit and consult me regarding personal matters. As
I stood as shown in the picture above mentioned with my
friend, the State Constabulary on duty in Homestead came
down Dickson St. They had occasion to ride up and down the
street several times and finally stopped directly in front
of me and demanded that I move on. Before I had time to
comply I was struck by the State Policeman. (The attitude of
said Policeman is plainly shown in the aforesaid picture,
and his threatening club is plainly seen descending towards
me.)
My friend and I then entered my place of business and my
friend a few minutes afterwards looked out on the street
over the summer doors. The policeman immediately charged him
and being unable to enter my place of business on horseback,
dismounted and entered into my place of business on foot.
My friend being frightened at what had happened to me
retired to a room in the rear of my place of business. The
Policeman entered this room, accompanied by another State
Police, and without cause, reason or excuse, struck my
friend and immediately thereafter arrested him. I was
personally present at his hearing before Burgess P. H.
McGuire of the above city, at which none of the aforesaid
policemen were heard or even present. Burgess asked my
friend what he was arrested for, and my friend referred to
me inasmuch as he himself did not know. The Burgess
immediately replied, "We have no time to hear your
witnesses," and thereupon levied a fine of $10.00 and costs
upon him. My friend having posted a forfeit of $25.00, the
sum of $15.45 was deducted therefrom.
The State Constabulary were sent, unasked for, into the quiet steel
towns for the sole purpose of intimidating the strikers. The following
took place at the meeting of the Braddock Borough Council, October 6:
Mr. Verosky: (County detective and council member) "Mr.
Chairman, the citizens of the borough wish to know by whose
authority the State Constabulary was called into Braddock to
take up their quarters here and to practically relieve the
police of their duties, by patrolling the streets on foot,
mounted, and always under arms."
Mr. Holtzman: (President of Council) "I surely do not know
who called them into town, but were I the Burgess, I would
make it my business to find out, in view of the fact that
the Constabulary is neither wanted nor needed here."
Mr. Verosky: "Well, in that case, the Burgess may throw some
light on the subject."
Mr. Callahan: (Burgess) "The question comes to me as a
surprise and I am sure that I don't know by whose authority
the Constabulary was called in."
Everything was calm in Braddock until the State Police came in. Then the
trouble began. It was the same nearly everywhere. The arrival of these
men was always the signal for so-called riots, and wholesale clubbing,
shooting and jailing of strikers.
Great praise has been poured upon the State Constabulary for their
supposedly wonderful bravery and efficiency, because a few hundred of
them, scattered thinly through a score of towns, have been able
apparently to overawe many thousands of strikers. But the credit is
undeserved. In strikes they always form, in point of actual weight, an
insignificant part of the armed forces arrayed against the strikers. For
instance, in a steel town, during the strike, there would usually be a
dozen or so State Police and from 3,000 to 4,000 deputy sheriffs,
company police, etc. The latter classes of gunmen make up the body of
the real repressive force; the State Police are merely raiders. It is
their particularly dirty job to harass the enemy; to break the strike
by scientifically bulldozing the strikers in their homes and on the
streets. Thus they are thrown into the limelight, while the company
thugs remain in comparative obscurity.
The State Police feel reasonably sure of their skins when carrying on
their calculated campaigns of terrorism, for behind them are large
numbers of armed guards of various sorts ready to spring to their
support at an instant's notice, should the workers dare to resist them.
Besides, they know they have _carte blanche_ to commit the greatest
excesses, since the highest state officials, not to speak of local
courts and other authorities, give them undivided support. They are
above the law, when the rights of the workers are concerned. Moreover,
they realize fully that they can depend upon trade-union leaders to hold
the strikers in check from adopting measures of retaliation. Few of them
are hurt during their depredations. Once in a while, however, they drive
their victims to desperation and get themselves into trouble.
For example, a few days after a fight in Farrell, Pa., that cost the
strikers two dead and a dozen seriously wounded, the local secretary
there, S. Coates, was on his way to Ohio to hold a meeting, when the
delivery truck upon which he was riding overturned, rendering him
unconscious. He woke up in a Sharon hospital. The six beds adjoining his
were occupied by Cossacks, injured in the riot started by themselves in
Farrell. The public knew nothing of their injuries, it being the regular
thing to suppress such facts, in order to surround the dreaded Cossacks
with a reputation for invulnerability. The way the latter "get even"
for their casualties is to victimize and outrage as many workers as they
think necessary to balance the score. But such methods cannot go on
indefinitely. It will be marvellous, indeed, if some day the State
Constabulary, with their policy of deliberate intimidation, are not the
means of causing riots such as this country has not yet experienced in
labor disputes. Not always will the unions be able to hold their men as
steady in the face of brutal provocation as they did in the recent steel
strike.
Hand in glove with the Cossacks in their work of terrorizing
Pennsylvania's steel towns went the less skilful but equally vicious
company police, gunmen, deputy sheriffs, etc., many of whom, ex-service
men, disgraced their uniforms by wearing them on strike duty. Nor were
the city police, save for a few honorable exceptions here and there,
appreciably better. As for the police magistrates, almost to a man they
seconded unquestioningly the work of the sluggers. In fact, all the
forces of "law and order" in Western Pennsylvania, official and
unofficial, worked together like so many machines--in the interest of
their powerful master, the Steel Trust.
Many of the armed guards were murderous criminals; penitentiary birds
scraped together from the slums of the great cities to uphold Garyism by
crushing real Americanism. They took advantage of the strike situation
and the authority vested in them to indulge in an orgy of robbery and
thievery. Dressed in United States army uniforms and wearing deputies'
badges, they even robbed strikers in broad daylight on the main
streets. And if the latter dared to protest they were lucky not to be
beaten up, jailed and fined for disorderly conduct. The strike
committees have records of many such cases. And worse yet, more than one
striker was robbed while he was in jail. Liberty bonds and cash
disappeared frequently. To lose watches, knives, etc., was a common
occurrence.
Picketing was out of the question, although, like many other liberties
denied the steel strikers, it is theoretically permitted under the laws
and court rulings of Pennsylvania. Strikers foolhardy enough to attempt
it were usually slugged and arrested. Even the right to strike was
virtually overthrown. The practice was for several company and city
police, without warrants, to seek a man in his home, crowd in and demand
his return to work. Upon refusal he would be arrested and fined from $25
to $100 for disorderly conduct. Then he would be offered his money back,
if he would agree to be a scab. This happened not once, but scores, if
not hundreds of times. Like practices were engaged in almost everywhere.
In Monessen State Police and other "peace officers" would regularly
round up batches of strikers before the mill gates. Those that agreed to
go to work were set free; the rest were jailed. Many were kept overnight
in an old, unlighted building and threatened from time to time with
hanging in the morning, if they would not become scabs. This was
particularly terrifying, as the strikers, mainly foreigners knowing
little of their supposed legal rights, had very good reason to think
that State Police, as well as armed thugs, would go to any extreme
against them. In Pittsburgh itself, the decisive question asked petty
prisoners in the police courts was, "Are you working?" Those who could
show that they were strike-breakers were released forthwith; while those
who admitted being on strike were usually found guilty without further
questioning. Throughout the whole district, to be a scab was to be a
peaceable, law abiding citizen; to be a striker was criminal.
The courts put every obstacle in the way of the strikers getting
justice. In those towns where it was possible to get lawyers at all no
courtesies were extended the representatives of the men. They were
denied the right of cross-examination; could not get the necessary
papers for appeals, and in some cases were actually ordered out of
court. Attorney Roe was arrested in McKeesport for attempting to confer
with a dozen of his clients in a private hall. The strikers were held
under excessive bail and fined shamefully for trivial charges, to
disprove which they were often denied the right to produce witnesses.
The following quotations from a report by J. G. Brown, formerly
president of the International Union of Timber Workers, who was a
general organizer in the Pittsburgh district and later director of the
legal department of the National Committee, will give an indication of
the situation and some of the reasons therefor:
... The next day came the strike. The jails swarmed with
arrested strikers. This was especially true in the Soho
district of Pittsburgh, where are located the main entrances
of the National Tube Works, and the Jones and Laughlin
Company's plants. In the afternoon two organizers who were
walking down the street in this section were taken to jail,
held without bail on charges of being "suspicious persons."
Information was given to us that only the Supt. of Police
had authority to fix bail. He could not be located. Indeed,
that these men were arrested at all was learned only through
the newspapers. They were not allowed to communicate with
their friends or attorneys. Attorney Brennan eventually
found the Chief of Police and went bail for the men.
Deciding to utilize the right of picketing, which the laws
of the state permit, a group of men were chosen for this
work, captains assigned and stationed at the entrances of
the mills in Soho. No sooner had they arrived there than
they were hustled right on to jail, which was already filled
to overflowing. Many were convicted on disorderly conduct
charges; others were warned of dire things in store for
them, and all were advised to return to their work in the
mills.
Many women and young girls were among the victims of police
brutalities in the Soho district. Located in this section
were only city policemen; the State Constabulary did not
"work" much within the city limits. Much wonder was created
by the undiminishing brutality of the Soho police. The
Central Labor Council of Pittsburgh tried to have the City
Council inaugurate an investigation of the shameful state of
affairs, but nothing could be done.
Shortly after the strike was called off the Pittsburgh
papers carried a story to the effect that the city policemen
working in the Soho district had been "paid" $150 each by
the National Tube Co. It was stated also that the same men
were paid a like amount by the Jones and Laughlin Company.
This explains, perhaps, why justice was so blind in this
section.
On the opposite side of the Monongahela river, where the
Jones and Laughlin Company has other immense works the
police were equally bad, the police magistrate even worse.
The Police Commissioner was boss of the situation. And now
come the Pittsburgh papers with the story that this very
Commissioner, Peter P. Walsh, has made application to be
retired from the Pittsburgh police force on half pay in
order that he might accept the appointment as chief of the
mill police of the Jones and Laughlin Company. The half pay
allowance gives, according to reports, $1800 per year. The
new position Mr. Walsh is to fill is popularly understood to
carry with it a salary of $5000 per year.... The Central
Labor Council is making an effort to have this matter
investigated, but without serious hope of success.
When a labor committee demanded that Mayor Babcock of Pittsburgh
investigate the situation, the honorable gentleman refused. He admitted
that the action of the steel companies was ill-advised; the money should
have been given to the pension fund, instead of to a few men; however,
the matter was now past history, and there was nothing to be added to
the fair name of Pittsburgh by airing it in public. The Mayor admitted,
though, that he would object to having labor unions raise funds to pay
policemen to favor them during strikes. So reason public officials in
the steel districts.
* * * * *
Suppression of the rights of free speech and free assembly; gigantic
organized campaigns of outlawry by the State Police and armies of
selected plug-uglies; subornation and intimidation of city, county,
state and federal officials and police; prostitution of the
courts--these are some of the means used to crush the strike of the
steel workers, and to force these over-worked, under-paid toilers still
deeper into the mire of slavery. And the whole monstrous crime was
hypocritically committed in the name of a militant, 100 per cent.
Americanism.
IX
EFFORTS AT SETTLEMENT
THE NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE--THE SENATE COMMITTEE
--THE RED BOOK--THE MARGOLIS CASE--THE INTERCHURCH WORLD
MOVEMENT
Upon October 6 the National Industrial Conference opened its sessions in
Washington, D. C. This body was called together by President Wilson to
make an effort to solve the pressing labor difficulties confronting the
country, and was the one, pending whose deliberations the steel workers
had been asked to postpone their strike. It was a three-party
arrangement, Capital, Labor and the Public being represented. Naturally
it was only advisory in character; and under the rules adopted all
action taken, not relating merely to methods of procedure, had to have
the endorsement of all three sections, each of which voted as a unit in
accordance with the majority sentiment of its members.
The Conference met in the midst of a tense situation. The steel industry
was almost completely paralysed; the miners were just about to launch
their national general strike; the railroaders were in a foment of
discontent, and many other large and important sections of workers were
demanding better conditions. Capital and Labor were arrayed against
each other as never before. Both appeared determined to fight; Capital
in a bitter, revengeful spirit to oust Labor from the favorable position
won during the war, and Labor in a decided effort to hold what it had
and to make more winnings to offset the rapidly mounting cost of living.
The United States seemed upon the brink of an industrial war.
From the beginning the touchstone of the Conference, the measure by
which all its activities were gauged, was the steel strike. It was clear
that its attitude towards this great issue would settle its general
policy. This was felt by all parties to the Conference, even though some
hated the thought. The labor delegation, headed by Samuel Gompers,
precipitated matters by introducing, by previous arrangement with the
National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers, the following
resolution:
WHEREAS, The Nation-wide strike now in progress in
the steel industry of America affects not only the men and
women directly concerned, but tends to disturb the relations
between employers and workers throughout our industrial
life; and
WHEREAS, This conference is called for the purpose
of stabilizing industries and bringing into being a better
relation between employers and employees; and
WHEREAS, Organized Labor wishes to manifest its
sincere and fair desire to prove helpful in immediately
adjusting this pending grave industrial conflict; therefore,
be it,
RESOLVED, That each group comprising this
conference select two of its number and these six so
selected to constitute a committee to which shall be
referred existing differences between the workers and
employers in the steel industry for adjudication and
settlement. Pending the findings of this committee, this
conference requests the workers involved to return to work
and the employers to re-instate them in their former
positions.
This resolution provoked a storm of opposition from the reactionary
employers, who, headed by Mr. Gary (ironically seated with John D.
Rockefeller, Jr., as a representative of the Public) insisted that the
Conference ignore the steel strike situation altogether, its purpose
being, according to them, not the settlement of existing disputes, but
the formulation of principles and plans which would provide for the
prevention of such disputes in the future. Finally, seeing that if they
insisted upon their resolution it would wreck the Conference, the
workers held it in abeyance temporarily and submitted the following:
The right of wage earners to organize without
discrimination, to bargain collectively, to be represented
by representatives of their own choosing in negotiations and
adjustments with employers in respect to wages, hours of
labor and relations and conditions of employment, is
recognized.
Such a mild proposition as this would hardly meet with serious
opposition in a similar conference in any other important country than
ours. All over Europe it would be far too conservative to fit the
situation. In England, for example, the British Industrial Conference
recently adopted the following:
The basis of negotiation between employers and work people
should, as is presently the case in the chief industries of
the country, be the full, frank acceptance of the employers'
organizations on the one hand, and trade unions on the other
as the recognized organizations to speak and act on behalf
of their members.
And just across our border, in Canada, this advanced conception was
formulated but a few months before:
On the whole we believe the day has passed when any employer
should deny his employees the right to organize. Employers
claim that right for themselves and it is not denied by the
workers. There seems to be no reason why the employer should
deny like rights to those who are employed by him. Not only
should employees be accorded the right of organizing, but
the prudent employer will recognize such organization and
will deal with the duly accredited representatives thereof
in all matters relating to the interests of the employees
when it is fairly established to be representative of them
all.
But Mr. Gary and his associates care nothing about the reputation of
America as a progressive, liberty-loving country. They have their
prerogatives, and they intend to exercise them, cost what it may. They
organize as they see fit and pick out such representatives as they will;
but by virtue of their economic strength they deny to their workers
these same rights. So they voted down Labor's collective bargaining
resolution, and at the same time the one providing for a settlement of
the steel strike. The employers insisted upon absolute rule by
themselves.
This action discredited the Conference, and sentenced it to dissolution.
By its refusal to meet the great steel strike issue the Conference
showed that it had neither the will nor the power to settle industrial
disputes. Labor, openly denied the fundamental right of organization,
could no longer sit with it. The workers' representatives, therefore,
took the only honorable course left to them; they withdrew, allowing the
whole worthless structure to collapse. Said Mr. Gompers in his final
speech:
Gentlemen, I have sung my swan song in this conference. You
have, by your action--the action of the employers'
group--legislated us out of this conference. We have nothing
further to submit; and with a feeling of regret we have not
been enabled with a clear conscience to remain here longer.
We have responsibilities to employees and workers and those
dependent upon them. We must fulfill these obligations.
Thus ingloriously ended the Conference upon which the steel workers had
been asked to hang all their hopes. Even with powerful organizations
intact and with their industry almost entirely at a standstill, the
latter could get no consideration from it. What, then, would have been
their fate if they had postponed the strike? With their forces
shattered, half of their men being on strike and the rest at work
thoroughly disgusted, they would have been helpless and unable to strike
in any event. They would have been absolutely at the mercy of the
employers. And any one who may imagine that the latter would have done
anything short of giving the steel workers their _coup de grace_ at the
Conference is an optimist indeed. The steel strike was a clean fight
and an honorable defeat for Labor. Its bad effects will soon wear off.
But it would have been a ruinous calamity, with ineradicable harm, had
the strike been postponed for the sake of the ill-fated Industrial
Conference.
* * * * *
Pursuant to a resolution adopted by the Senate on September 23, in the
white heat of the strike excitement, the Committee on Education and
Labor was instructed to investigate the steel strike and to report back
to the Senate as soon as possible. Accordingly this Committee held
sittings in Washington and Pittsburgh, hearing about one hundred
witnesses all told. Its active members were Senators Kenyon (Chairman),
McKellar, Walsh (Mass.), Sterling and Phipps.
For the workers Samuel Gompers, John Fitzpatrick, M. F. Tighe and many
organizers and strikers testified, setting forth in detail the
grievances and demands of the men. For the steel companies came the
usual crop of strike-breakers and company officials, pliable city
authorities and business men from the steel towns. The star witness was
Judge Gary, who presented practically the entire case for the whole
steel industry. It is noteworthy that with the exception of one minor
hothead, the so-called "independents" made no defense before the
committee. They left it all to their master, the United States Steel
Corporation.
Mr. Gary was a good witness. Not for him were the antiquated blusterings
of a "divine-right" Baer or a "public-be-damned" Vanderbilt. He used the
modern method,--a mass of silky hypocrisies and misrepresentations for
the public, to cover up the mailed fist he has for his workers. He was
suave, oily, humble, obliging, persuasive, patriotic. He pictured the
steel industry as a sort of industrial heaven and the U. S. Steel
Corporation as a beneficent institution, leading even the trade-union
movement in reform work.
Inasmuch as Mr. Gary's peculiar notions of the "open shop," minority
rule by the unions, etc., set forth afresh by him at the strike
hearings, are discussed quite generally throughout this book, there is
no need to review them again here. We will note his testimony no more
than to give the facts of the death of Mrs. Fannie Sellins, of whose
murder he was so anxious to clear the Steel Trust.
Mrs. Fannie Sellins was an organizer for the United Mine Workers of
America, stationed in the notorious, anti-union Black Valley district
along the Allegheny river. An able speaker, and possessed of boundless
courage, energy, enthusiasm and idealism, she was a most effective
worker. Due largely to her efforts many thousands of miners and
miscellaneous workers in this hard district were organized. She was the
very heart of the local labor movement, which ranked second to none in
Pennsylvania for spirit and progress. When the steel campaign began,
Mrs. Sellins threw herself whole-heartedly into it. She worked
indefatigably. More than any other individual she was responsible for
the unionization of the big United States Steel Corporation mills at
Vandergrift, Leechburg and New Kensington, as well as those of the
so-called independent Allegheny and West Penn Steel Companies at
Brackenridge. The results secured by her will compare favorably with
those of any other organizer in the whole campaign.
By her splendid work in behalf of the toilers Mrs. Sellins gained the
undying hatred of the untamed employers in the benighted Black Valley
district. Open threats were made to "get" her. The opportunity came on
August 26, 1919, when she was deliberately murdered under the most
brutal circumstances.
The miners of the Allegheny Coal and Coke Company were on strike at West
Natrona. The mine is situated in the mill yard of the Allegheny Steel
Company and furnishes fuel for that concern. All was going peacefully
when a dozen drunken deputy sheriffs on strike duty, led by a mine
official, suddenly rushed the pickets, shooting as they came. Joseph
Strzelecki fell, mortally wounded. Mrs. Sellins, standing close by,
rushed first to get some children out of danger. Then she came back to
plead with the deputies, who were still clubbing the prostrate
Strzelecki, not to kill him. What happened then is told in the _New
Majority_ (Chicago) of September 20:
---- ----, the mine official, snatched a club and felled the
woman to the ground.
This was not on company ground, but just outside the fence
of a friend of Mrs. Sellins.
She rose and tried to drag herself toward the gate.
---- shouted: "Kill that -- -- -- -- -- --!"
Three shots were fired, each taking effect.
She fell to the ground, and ---- cried: "Give her another!"
One of the deputies, standing over the motionless and
silent body, held his gun down and, without averting his
face, fired into the body that did not move.
An auto truck, in waiting, was hurried to the scene and the
body of the old miner thrown in; then Mrs. Sellins was
dragged by the heels to the back of the car. Before she was
placed in the truck, a deputy took a cudgel and crushed in
her skull before the eyes of the throng of men, women and
children, who stood in powerless silence before the armed
men. Deputy ---- picked up the woman's hat, placed it on his
head, danced a step, and said to the crowd: "I'm Mrs.
Sellins now."
Thus perished noble Fannie Sellins: shot in the back by so-called peace
officers. And she 49 years old, a grandmother, and mother of a boy
killed in France, fighting to make the world safe for democracy.
Many people witnessed this horrible murder. The guilty men were named
openly in the newspapers and from a hundred platforms. Yet no one was
ever punished for the crime. Witnesses were spirited away or
intimidated, and the whole matter hushed up in true Steel Trust fashion.
A couple of deputies were arrested; but they were speedily released on
smaller bonds than those often set for strikers arrested for picketing.
Eventually they were freed altogether.
The killing of Mrs. Sellins, right in the teeth of the strike as it was,
lent much bitterness to the general situation. Rightly or wrongly, the
steel workers, almost to a man, felt that this devoted woman was a
martyr to their cause.
[Illustration: MRS. FANNIE SELLINS, TRADE UNION ORGANIZER
Killed by Steel Trust gunmen, West Natrona, Pa., Aug. 26, 1919.]
Upon November 8, the Senate Committee, having completed its hearings,
made public its report. This document is a strange mixture of
progressive and reactionary principles. In some respects, especially
where it grants, however confusedly, the right of collective bargaining
and the eight hour day, it is just and meets the situation; but in other
respects it is so unfair to the workers' cause as to be grotesque. For
one thing it shoulders upon the unions the entire responsibility for the
failure to postpone the strike, choosing to disregard completely the
clearly established fact that the steel companies were discharging men
so fast that for the unions it was a case of strike or perish. In fact,
the report ignores altogether the bitter grievance of men being
discharged for union membership. Mr. Gary had said that this practice
was not engaged in, and that apparently settled it so far as the
Committee was concerned,--the testimony of dozens of victimized workers
(with thousands more available) to the contrary notwithstanding. Other
sins of the Steel Trust, the suppression of free speech and free
assembly, etc., were passed over lightly; but the alleged virtues of its
housing and welfare plans were very highly lauded.
Nowhere are the workers more ruthlessly robbed and exploited by their
employers than in the steel industry. Speaking recently in Brooklyn on
the subject of profiteering, Mr. Basil Manly, formerly Joint Chairman of
the National War Labor Board, cited Page 367 of the Treasury report as
showing one steel company "earning" $14,549,952 in 1917 on a capital of
$5,000, or a profit of 290,999 per cent. As the department conveniently
suppresses all details, it is impossible to learn the name of this
company or how it made such fabulous profits. On the same page appeared
another steel company with a profit rate of 20,180 per cent. Speaking of
the United States Steel Corporation's returns, which of course were
garbled so that no outsider could understand them, Mr. Manly said:
For this reason I am unable to tell you, on the basis of the
Treasury Department's figures, what the net income of the
Steel Corporation is, but on the basis of its own published
report I can tell you that in two years, 1916 and 1917, the
net profits of the Steel Corporation, after payment of
interest on bonds and after making allowance for all charges
growing out of the installation of special war facilities,
amounted to $888,931,511. This is more by $20,000,000 than
the total capital stock of the Steel Corporation (which is
$868,583,600). In other words, in 1916 and 1917 every dollar
of the capital stock of the Steel Corporation was paid for
in net profits. In this connection it should be remembered
that when the Steel Corporation was formed its entire
$500,000,000 worth of common stock represented nothing but
water.
The other steel companies did as well or better, proportionately. W.
Jett Lauck, acting on behalf of the railroad workers, submitted figures
to the United States Railroad Labor Board (A. P. dispatches May 19,
1920) showing that during the years 1916-18 the Bethlehem Steel
Corporation "earned" average annual profits of $29,000,000, or six times
its pre-war average. In 1916 its profits amounted to 146 per cent. on
its capital stock. Our Johnstown friend, the Cambria Steel Company, in
1916-17 cleaned up $50,000,000 on $45,000,000 capital stock; while the
Lackawanna, Republic, Colorado Fuel and Iron, Jones and Laughlin,
Crucible, etc., companies made similar killings.
As against useless, non-producing drones getting these millions, the
great mass of workers actually operating the industry were receiving the
beggarly wages of from 42 to 48 cents per hour. They had received no
increase for a year before the strike, notwithstanding the skyrocketing
cost of living. Yet the Senate Committee could discover no discontent at
this condition nor see any injustice in it. Upon page 10 of its report
appears the startling statement that "The question of wages is not
involved in this controversy." Forty-two cents per hour would hardly buy
cigars for these smug, well-fed gentlemen; still they would have us
conclude that it is enough for a steel worker to raise a family upon.
The fact is, of course, that an increase in wages was a cardinal demand
of the strikers, even though the Senate Committee did not get to learn
of it.[13] And so great was the steel workers' need for more money that
the strike had scarcely ended when the United States Steel Corporation,
followed soon after by the "independents," granted its lesser skilled
help 10 per cent. increase in wages, and promised "an equitable
adjustment" to the widely advertised small minority of highly paid men.
Part of the strike-breaking strategy of the Steel Trust was to alienate
public sympathy from the strike by denouncing it as an incipient
revolution which had to be put down at all costs. Public opinion was
already violently inflamed against everything savoring no matter how
slightly of radicalism, and it was not difficult for the reactionary
newspapers to make the steel strike unpopular, even as they had, under
various pretexts, the movements of the miners and railroad men of the
period. One weapon they used extensively against the steel strike was an
almost forgotten pamphlet, "Syndicalism," written by Earl C. Ford and
myself eight years ago.
Throughout the hearings the investigating senators went along with this
Steel Trust propaganda, which was not so surprising considering the fact
that of the five active committee men, one was a steel magnate, and
three others typical Bourbons. By playing up the "little red book" they
systematically fed the newspapers with the sensationalism they wanted
and which the steel companies desired them to get. I was called before
the Committee and gruffly ordered to express my opinion on the doctrines
in the booklet. In reply, I stated that the steel movement had been
carried on according to the strictest trade-union principles. It was
overseen by the National Committee, consisting of twenty-four
presidents of large international unions. As secretary of this committee
I had necessarily worked under the close scrutiny of these men and
dozens of their organizers--not to speak of the highest officials in the
American Federation of Labor. Yet none of these trade unionists, keen
though they be to detect and condemn unusual practices and heresy in the
ranks, had found fault with the character of my work. Nor could the crew
of detectives and stool pigeons of the steel companies and Department of
Justice, who had dogged my footsteps for a year past, cite a single word
said, a thing done, or a line written by me in the entire campaign which
would not measure up to most rigid trade-union standards. I contended
that my private opinions were immaterial as they did not and could not
enter into the organizing work or the strike.
But the nation-wide head hunt of the radicals was on in full cry, and
the Senators had a good blood scent. They would follow it to the end.
They insisted that I express my opinion upon the wage system, the state,
morality, patriotism, marriage, etc. Finally, in a last effort to
protect the interests of the 2,000,000 men, women and children affected
by the strike, I stated that if the vulture press, which was bound to
misrepresent what I said, was removed from the room, I would be glad to
oblige the Senators with a frank expression of my views upon any
subject. But this simple fairness to the steel workers and their
families they denied. The newspapers were clamoring for red meat, and
the Senators seemed determined they should have it. Having made my
protest and my prediction, I was compelled to yield; but the first
newspapers on the streets proved the soundness of my fears. My answers
were garbled and twisted against both the steel movement and me.
Then there was the Margolis case. I charge that to be a deliberate
frame-up against the steel strike. To prove the Steel Trust's contention
that the strike was a desperate revolutionary _coup_, engineered by men
seeking to destroy our civilization generally, somewhat more was
required than merely an eight year old booklet. The thing had to be
brought down to date and a far-reaching plot constructed. Hence the
Senate Committee dragged in Mr. Margolis and made him a scapegoat. Mr.
Margolis is a well known Anarchist attorney of Pittsburgh. He has the
reputation of having served ably as counsel for several trade-union
organizations, and has a wide circle of acquaintances among labor men.
The Senate Committee selected him as the man who had organized, with my
hearty support and co-operation, the real force behind the strike, the
I. W. W.'s, Anarchists and Bolshevists.
Now the fact is that Mr. Margolis had nothing whatever to do, officially
or unofficially, with the policies or management of either the
organizing campaign or the strike. He had no connection with the Strike
committee; nor did he ever even speak at a union meeting of steel
workers during the whole movement in question. If he wrote an article in
some radical paper, or spoke to a meeting of Russian workmen in
Youngstown, endorsing the strike, as is said, he did it purely as an
individual sympathizer acting upon his own initiative. Mr. Margolis
freely stated this on the stand, and every union official in Pittsburgh
knew it to be the case. So did the investigating Senators; but it the
better served their purpose to enlarge upon Mr. Margolis' activities, in
the hope that his radical reputation would lend color to the plot theory
which they were laboring so hard to establish, and which was so
advantageous to the Steel Trust.
In their final report the Senators continued their plot "evidence" and
insinuations, so persistently worked up all through their hearings. They
ignored highly important testimony tending to put the movement in its
right light as a strictly trade-union affair, and gave prominence to
everything to the contrary. They elevated unheard-of I. W. W.'s into
powerful strike leaders and surrounded the most ordinary comings and
goings with revolutionary mystery. Where they lacked facts they cast
suspicion, leaving a vicious daily press to draw its own conclusions.
Although they expressed great concern for the sufferings of the public
in strikes, and advocated the establishment of an industrial tribunal to
prevent them in the future, the worthy Senators, nevertheless,
recommended no means to end the steel strike. So far as they were
concerned, apparently they were willing to have the steel strike fought
to a conclusion. At one of the Senate Committee hearings, John
Fitzpatrick, Chairman of the National Committee, agreed to arbitration.
But later Mr. Gary gave an emphatic "No" to this proposition. Mr. Gary's
wishes usually had decisive weight with the Senators, so the matter was
settled.
On October 1-3, 1919, a national conference called by the Industrial
Relations Department of the Interchurch World Movement met at the Hotel
Pennsylvania in New York and adopted a resolution providing for a full
investigation of the steel strike, then a burning public question. Under
the terms of this resolution the Industrial Relations Department set up
an independent Commission of Inquiry, composed of representative
churchmen from all over the country who should be responsible for
carrying out the investigation. This Commission consisted of Bishop
Francis J. McConnell (Methodist), Chairman, Dr. Daniel A. Poling
(Evangelical), vice-Chairman, Dr. John McDowell (Presbyterian), Mrs.
Fred Bennett (Board of Foreign Missions), Dr. Nicholas Van Der Pyl
(Congregational), Dr. Alva W. Taylor (Disciples), and Mr. Geo. W.
Coleman (Baptist).
In order to commit the investigation of technical data to the hands of
trained men, the Industrial Relations Department obtained the services
of the Bureau of Industrial Research, New York, which, besides its own
researches, obtained the co-operation of various other scientific
agencies and organized a staff of field workers whose principal members
were: Mr. George Soule, Mr. David J. Saposs, Miss Marian D. Savage, Mr.
Marion K. Wisehart and Mr. Robert Littell. A member of the Bureau of
Industrial Research, Mr. Heber Blankenhorn, had charge of the field work
and later acted as Secretary to the Commission of Inquiry, which held
hearings in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and other steel centres.
The Interchurch World Movement, representing as it does the organized
Protestant millions of America, is a conservative and respectable body,
if there is such in this country. Yet when it stepped upon the toes of
the Steel Trust by starting the investigation it found itself soon
classed among the revolutionaries. Persistent rumors were sent
broadcast, and even newspaper stories, to the effect that the
Commission's investigators were "Bolsheviks" and that the Interchurch
World Movement was permeated with "anarchists." This hampered the work
greatly, especially among employers. Finally a threat of legal action
was necessary against a large commercial organization which had
circulated the rumors officially. It eventually retracted in full. As
for the workers, they gave the fullest co-operation to the
investigation.
Impressed by the scientific methods and apparent desire to get at the
truth of the strike situation manifested in the Interchurch
investigation--which stood in striking contrast to the slipshod,
haphazard system, "red" mania, and violent partiality towards the steel
companies shown by the Senate Committee,--the strike leaders decided to
ask the Commission to undertake a settlement of the strike by mediation,
which the Commission had the power to do under the resolution creating
it. The workers' representatives felt that no stone should be left
unturned to get a settlement, and that if the powerful Interchurch
movement stirred in their behalf possibly Mr. Gary would be dislodged
from his position.
Consequently, John Fitzpatrick, Chairman of the National Committee, put
before Mr. Blankenhorn a plan for the settlement of the strike by
mediation. Mr. Blankenhorn felt, however, that it might be better to
recommend that the Commission move independently, rather than as merely
representing the strikers, and submitted the following plan, which was
adopted by the Commission:
1. To mediate in behalf of all the steel workers, both those
on strike and those who had gone back to work.
2. That the purpose of the mediation should be to establish
a new deal in the steel industry rather than merely to end
the strike.
3. That the ending of the strike should be arranged solely
with a view to giving the new deal the best possible chance.
On December 1, the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel
Workers met and formally accepted this proposition of mediation. What
happened next is told in an official statement to the writer of this
book:
On December 5 a committee from the Commission, consisting of
Bishop McConnell, Dr. Poling and Dr. McDowell, called on Mr.
Gary with the purpose of, first, ascertaining if he would
accept their office as mediators; next, of proposing their
plan of mediation and pressing the acceptance of it by the
employers; and, finally, of ordering the men back to work,
the strike leaders to step out of the situation, and the
Commission to set up a permanent mediation body to bring
about a conference between employers and employees in the
steel industry. There was the feeling in the Commission that
extraordinary concessions had been made by the leaders of
the strike and that any reasons advocated by the employers
for not accepting the mediation plan would have to be
weighty.
Mr. Gary received the Commission courteously and after
minutely cross-examining them concerning the "anonymous"
report of the presence of "Bolsheviks" among them, he heard
the Commission to the extent of learning the first step in
their proposal. He made his reply immediately, an absolute
refusal of arbitration or mediation. The Commission
therefore never had any opportunity to present the
authorized acceptance of the mediation plan by the other
side and in no sense conveyed to Mr. Gary the extent of the
concessions which the strikers were then willing to make.
Mr. Gary, however, clearly understood that acceptance of the
mediation plan would mean that the men would all return to
work at once.
Mr. Gary based his refusal on the grounds that any dealings
which in any way involved representatives of the men then on
strike would be an acceptance of the closed shop, sovietism,
and the forcible distribution of property. Mr. Gary said
that if the Commission represented the men who had gone back
to work, those men were content; if the Commission
represented the men who had not gone back to work, those men
are nothing but red radicals whom the plants did not want
anyway. He said that there was absolutely no issue for
discussion with the U. S. Steel Corporation.
The Commission presented its viewpoint on the advisability
of mediation at great length and with insistence. Mr. Gary
did not in any respect modify his immediate decision.
The Commission felt it necessary therefore to drop the plan
and transmitted the following to the National Committee:
December 6, 1919
Memorandum for Mr. Fitzpatrick:
The independent Commission of Inquiry, instituted by the
Interchurch World Movement to investigate the steel strike,
received on December 2 a communication marked
"confidential," dealing with an official action taken by the
National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers,
signed by Mr. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Foster.
On December 5, members of the Commission informally
conversed with Mr. Gary for two hours, proposing to plan a
new basis of relations in the steel industry, with an ending
of the strike best calculated to further better relations.
They offered to act as mediators both on behalf of the men
still on strike, whose leaders were to order them back and
then step out of the situation, and on behalf of still
dissatisfied men who had nevertheless returned to work.
Mr. Gary refused to confer with these representatives of the
churches as mediators in behalf of any interests represented
by you in the strike, on the ground that the men still out
were Bolshevist radicals who were not wanted in the mills
and who would not be taken back.
And as to mediating in behalf of any other interests, Mr.
Gary said that the men were contented and that "there is no
issue."
I am requested to communicate the above information to you
by the Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry.
Very truly yours,
H. BLANKENHORN.
At the time this book goes to press the findings and recommendations of
the Commission have not yet been made public.
This made the sixth attempt of the National Committee to settle the
steel controversy--not to mention the individual effort of the
Amalgamated Association. They were: (1) The letter from Mr. Gompers to
Mr. Gary requesting a conference; (2) the visit to his office of the
National Committee conference committee, equipped with the power to set
a strike date; (3) the appeal to President Wilson to arrange a
conference; (4) Organized Labor's resolution in the National Industrial
Conference to have that body select an arbitration board; (5) The offer
of arbitration by John Fitzpatrick while testifying before the Senate
Committee; and, (6) the Interchurch mediation incident.
But they were all futile. Mr. Gary's policy is the time-honored one of
all tyrants, rule or ruin. The unions had no option but to fight, and
this they did to the best of their ability.
FOOTNOTE:
[13] There seemed to be many important things of which this committee
had never heard. For instance, when in my testimony I referred to Lester
F. Ward, Senator Sterling innocently inquired who he was. He had
apparently never even heard of this eminent American sociologist, who
was perhaps the greatest scholar ever born in the western hemisphere,
and whose name is honored by scientific minds the world over. And what
makes Senator Sterling's ignorance the more inexcusable is that he was
actually holding office in Washington at the same time that Professor
Ward was carrying on his brilliant studies in that very city. For one
who stresses so much his 100 per cent. Americanism as does the Senator
it is indeed a sad showing not to be familiar with this great native
product.
X
THE COURSE OF THE STRIKE
PITTSBURGH DISTRICT--THE RAILROAD MEN--CORRUPT NEWSPAPERS
--CHICAGO DISTRICT--FEDERAL TROOPS AT GARY--YOUNGSTOWN
DISTRICT--THE AMALGAMATED ASSOCIATION--CLEVELAND--THE ROD
AND WIRE MILL STRIKE--THE BETHLEHEM PLANTS--BUFFALO AND
LACKAWANNA--WHEELING AND STEUBENVILLE--PUEBLO--JOHNSTOWN
--MOB RULE--THE END OF THE STRIKE.
Although the Steel strike was national in scope and manifested the same
general, basic tendencies everywhere, nevertheless it differed enough
from place to place to render necessary some indication of particular
events in the various districts in order to convey a clear conception of
the movement as a whole. It is the purpose of this chapter to point out
a few of these salient features in the several localities and to draw
some lessons therefrom.
In the immediate Pittsburgh district, due to the extreme difficulties
under which the organizing work was carried on and the strike
inaugurated, the shut-down was not so thorough as elsewhere.
Considerable numbers of men, notably in the skilled trades, remained at
work, and the mills limped along, at least pretending to operate. This
was exceedingly bad, Pittsburgh being the strategic centre of the
strike, as it is of the industry, and the companies were making
tremendous capital of the fact that the mills there were still producing
steel. Accordingly, the National Committee left no stone unturned to
complete the tie-up, already 75 per cent. effective. But under the
circumstances, with meetings banned and picketing prohibited, it was out
of the question to reach directly the men who had stayed at work. The
key to the situation was in the hands of the railroad men.
Operating between the various steel plants and connecting them up with
the main lines, there are several switching roads, such as the Union
Railroad and the McKeesport and Monongahela Connecting Lines. They are
the nerve centers of the local steel industry. If they could be struck
the mills would have to come to a standstill. The National Committee
immediately delegated organizers to investigate the situation. These
reported that the body of the men in the operating departments were
organized; that they had no contracts with the steel companies, and that
they were ready for action, but awaiting co-operation from their
respective national headquarters.
Consequently, the National Committee arranged a conference in Washington
with responsible representatives of the Brotherhoods and laid the
situation before them. In reply they stated that their policy was
strictly to observe their contracts wherever they had such, and that
their men would be forbidden to do work around the mills not done by
them prior to the strike. It was up to the men on the non-contract roads
and yards to decide for themselves about joining the strike. We informed
them then that the situation was such, with the men scattered through
many locals, that merely leaving it up to them was insufficient; it
would be impossible for them to act together without direct aid and
encouragement from their higher officials. We made the specific request
that each of the organizations send a man into Pittsburgh to take a
strike vote of the men in question, who are all employees of the steel
companies. They took the matter under advisement; but nothing came of
it, although long afterwards, when the opportune moment had passed,
organizer J. M. Patterson of the Railway Carmen (also of the Trainmen)
was authorized to take a strike vote. Thus was lost the chance to close
down these strategic switching lines and with them, in all likelihood,
several big mills in the most vital district in the entire steel
industry.
Throughout the strike zone general disappointment was expressed by the
steel workers at the apparent lack of sympathy with their cause shown by
the officials of the Brotherhoods. The steel workers, bitterly oppressed
for a generation and fighting desperately towards the light in the face
of unheard-of opposition, turned instinctively for aid to their closely
related, powerfully organized fellow workers, the railroad men. And the
latter could easily have lent them effective, if not decisive assistance
without violating a contract or in any way endangering their standing.
It was not to be expected that the trunk line men, working as they were
under government agreements, would refuse to haul the scab steel; but
there were many other ways, perfectly legitimate under current
trade-union practice and ethics, in which help could have been given;
yet it was not. From Youngstown and elsewhere the railroad men who did
go on strike in the mill yards complained with bitterness that they were
neglected and denied strike benefits, and that the rule that no road man
should do work around the mills not customary before the strike was
flagrantly violated. Usually the rank and file were strongly disposed to
assist the hard-pressed steel workers, and they could have everywhere
wonderfully stiffened the strike, but the necessary encouragement and
cooperation from the several headquarters was lacking. Truth demands
that these unpleasant things be set down. Labor can learn and progress
only through a frank acknowledgment and discussion of its weaknesses,
mistakes and failures.
In addition to all their other handicaps the Pittsburgh district
strikers had to contend with a particularly treacherous local press.
Everywhere our daily papers are newspapers only by courtesy of a
misapplied term. They are sailing under false colors. Pretending to be
purveyors of unbiased accounts of current happenings, they are in
reality merely propaganda organs, twisting, garbling and suppressing
facts and information in the manner best calculated to further the
interests of the employing class. The whole newsgathering and
distributing system is a gigantic mental prostitution. Consequently,
considering the issues involved, it was not surprising to see the big
daily papers take such a decided stand against the steel workers.
Everywhere in steel districts the papers were bad enough, but those in
the Pittsburgh district outstripped all the rest. They gave themselves
over body and soul to the service of the Steel Trust.
From the first these Pittsburgh papers were violently antagonistic to
the steel workers. Every sophistry uttered by Mr. Gary to the effect
that the strike was an effort to establish the "closed shop," a bid for
power, or an attempt at revolution, the papers echoed and re-echoed _ad
nauseum_. They played up the race issue, virtually advising the
Americans to stand together against the foreigners who were about to
overwhelm them. They painted the interests of the country as being
synonymous with those of the steel companies and tried to make
Americanism identical with scabbery. For them no further proof of one's
patriotism was needed than to go back to the mills. Every clubbing of
strikers was the heroic work of the law-abiding against reckless mobs.
Strike "riots" were manufactured out of whole cloth. For instance, when
the senators investigating the strike were visiting the Homestead mills,
a couple of strike-breakers quarreling with each other, several blocks
away, fired a shot. An hour later screaming headlines told the startled
populace of Pittsburgh that "STRIKERS SHOOT AT SENATORS" and "MOB
ATTACKS SENATE COMMITTEE." Even the stand-pat senators had to protest
that this was going it too strong.
In revenge for an alleged dynamiting in Donora, Pa., the authorities
swooped down upon the union headquarters, arrested 101 strikers present,
including organizer Walter Hodges, and charged them with the crime.
Since there was not a shred of evidence against the accused, they were
all eventually discharged. Then the Donora _Herald_, which forever
yelped that the organizers advocated violence, had this to say:
One of the reasons we have sedition preached in America is
because we have grand juries like that at Washington (Pa.)
this week which ignored the dynamiting cases. Possibly the
biggest mistake of all was made in not using rifles at the
time instead of turning the guilty parties over to the very
sensitive mercies of the grand jury.
But the journalistic strike-breaking master-stroke was an organized
effort to stampede the men back to work by minimizing the strike's
effectiveness. First the papers declared that only a few thousands of
Pittsburgh's steel workers went out. Then they followed this for weeks
with stories of thousands of men flocking back to the mills. Full page
advertisements begged the men to go back; while flaming headlines told
us that "MEN GO BACK TO MILLS," "STEEL STRIKE WANING," "MILLS OPERATING
STRONGER," "MORE MEN GO BACK TO WORK," etc. It became a joke, but the
patient Pittsburgh people couldn't see it. Said Wm. Hard in the
_Metropolitan_ for February, 1920:
"Mr. Foster," I said, "I am going to be perfectly frank with
you. I know your strike's a fizzle of course, but I know
more. I not only take pains to read the telegraphic
dispatches of the news from the managers of the steel mills,
but I keep the clippings. I have the history of your strike
in cold print. Hardly anybody struck anyhow, in most places,
except some foreigners; and then they began at once to go
back in thousands and thousands and new thousands every day
for months. If you claim there were 300,000 strikers, I
don't care. I've counted up the fellows that went back to
work, and I've totalled them up day by day. They're a little
over 4,800,000. So you're pretty far behind."
But despite everything--the suppression of free speech and free
assembly, Cossack terrorism, official tyranny, prostitution of the
courts, attacks from the lying press, and all the rest of it--the steel
workers in the immediate Pittsburgh district (comprising the towns along
the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers from Apollo to Monessen) made a
splendid fight. The very pressure seemed to hold them the better
together. Their ranks were never really broken, the strike being
weakened only by a long, costly wearing-away process. The stampede back
to work, so eagerly striven for by the employers, did not materialize.
In the beginning of the strike the Pittsburgh district was the weakest
point in the battle line; at the end it was one of the very strongest.
* * * * *
The Chicago district struck very well, but it weakened earlier than
others. This was because the employers scored a break-through at Indiana
Harbor and Gary, particularly the latter place, which shattered the
whole line.
Gary, the great western stronghold of the United States Steel
Corporation, was the storm center of the Chicago district at all times.
Hardly had the organization campaign begun in 1918, when the Gary
_Tribune_ bitterly assailed the unions, accusing them of advocating
evasion of the draft, discouragement of liberty bond sales, and general
opposition to the war program. These lies were run in a full page
editorial in English, and repeated in a special eight page supplement
containing sixteen languages, a half page to each. Many thousands of
copies were scattered broadcast. Other attacks in a similar vein
followed. It was a foul blast straight from the maw of the Steel Trust.
Incidentally it created a situation which shows how the steel men
control public opinion.
The new unions immediately boycotted the _Tribune_. Result: the Gary
_Post_, somewhat friendly inclined, doubled its circulation at once. The
_Post_ then became more friendly; whereupon, it is alleged, a leading
banker called the editor to his office and told him that if he did not
take a stand against the unions his credit would be stopped, which would
have meant suspension within the week. That very day the _Post_ joined
the _Tribune's_ campaign of abuse. Apparently the _Post's_ youthful
editor had learned a new wrinkle in journalism.
The Steel Trust did all it could to hold Gary from unionizing; but when
the strike came the walkout was estimated to be 97 per cent. At first
everything went peacefully, but the Steel Corporation was watching for
an opportunity to get its strategic Gary mills into operation. The
occasion presented itself on October 4, when strikers coming from a
meeting fell foul of some homeward bound scabs. Local labor men declare
the resultant scrimmage "did not make as much disturbance as ordinarily
would occur in a saloon when two or three men were fighting." It was a
trivial incident--a matter for the police. Only one man was injured, and
he very slightly. But the inspired press yelled red murder and pictured
the hospitals as full of wounded. The militia were ordered in. The
unions offered to furnish 700 ex-service men to enforce law and order;
but this was rejected. Later the militia were transferred to Indiana
Harbor; on October 6, a provisional regiment of regular troops, under
command of General Leonard Wood, came to Gary from nearby Fort Sheridan,
and martial law was at once proclaimed. The Steel Corporation now had
the situation in hand; and the Gary strike was doomed.
Grave charges were voiced against the misuse made of the Federal troops
in Gary. John Fitzpatrick writes me as follows, basing his statements
upon reliable witnesses:
Now we have military control, the city of Gary being placed
under martial law. The strike leaders and pickets were
arrested by the soldiers and put to work splitting wood and
sweeping the streets. This was most humiliating, because the
camp was across the street from the city hall and in the
most frequented part of the city.
When street-sweeping here did not break their spirits, these
men were taken to the back streets, where they had their
homes and where their own and the neighbor's children
watched them through the windows.
The so-called foreigners have great respect for law and
authority, especially military authority, which plays such a
big part in their native environments. The U. S. Steel
Corporation did not fail to take advantage of this. In the
first place they gave out the impression that the letters
"U. S." in the corporation's name indicated that it was
owned by the U. S. Government, and that the Government
soldiers being in town meant that any one interfering with
the steel company's affairs would be deported or sent to
Fort Leavenworth.
Then a mill superintendent would take a squad of soldiers
and go to the home of a striker. The soldiers would be lined
up in front of the house; the superintendent would go in. He
would tell John that he came to give him his last chance to
return to work, saying that if he refused he would either go
to jail or be deported. Then he would take John to the
window and show him the row of soldiers. John would look at
the wife and kids and make up his mind that his first duty
was to them; that was what the strike was for anyway. So he
would put on his coat and go back to the mills. Then the
superintendent would go to the next house and repeat the
performance.
Such tactics, coupled with spectacular midnight raids to "unearth" the
widely advertised "red" plotters,--conveniently ignored until the
strike,--the suppression of meetings, limitations on picketing, and the
hundred forms of studied intimidation practiced by the soldiery, in a
few weeks broke the backbone of the strike. And while the regular troops
operated so successfully and systematically against the workers in Gary,
the militia did almost as well in Indiana Harbor, where the strike also
cracked.
The great reactionary interests which backed General Wood for the
Republican presidential nomination, including the Steel Trust, are
giving him boundless credit for breaking the steel strike in Gary.
Consequently there are many workers who believe the whole affair was
staged to further his political fortunes. If not, how did it happen that
the militia, who could have handled the situation easily, were sent out
of Gary to make room for his regulars? And why was it that before there
was a sign of trouble General Wood had formed his provisional regiment,
shipped it from Fort Dodge to Fort Sheridan, and made other active
preparations to invade Gary? And then, how did it come that he took
charge of the situation in person, when at best it was only a colonel's
job? In fact, how about the whole wretched business? Was it merely a
political stunt to give General Wood the publicity that came to him for
it?
The collapse at Gary and Indiana Harbor affected adversely South Chicago
and almost the whole Chicago district. Worse still, it weakened the
morale everywhere; and thus undermined, the strike rapidly
disintegrated. By the middle of November, district secretary De Young
reported that all the mills in the district, except those in Joliet and
Waukegan, were working crews from 50 to 85 per cent. of normal,
although, due to green hands and demoralized working forces, production
averaged considerably lower. And the situation gradually grew worse.
Joliet and Waukegan, however, held fast to the end, making a fight
comparable with that of the men in Peoria and Hammond, who had gone out
several weeks before September 22. It was at the latter place that
police and company guards brutally shot down and killed four strikers on
September 9.
* * * * *
In the immediate Youngstown district the strike was highly effective,
hardly a ton of steel being produced anywhere for several weeks. This
was due largely to the walkout of the railroad men employed in the mill
yards, who acted on their own volition. Many of these belonged to the
Brotherhoods, and others to the Switchmen's Union, while some were
unorganized; but all struck together. Then they held joint mass
meetings, got an agreement from the A. F. of L. unions that they would
be protected and represented in any settlement made, and stuck loyally
to the finish. They were a strong mainstay of the strike.
The weakening of the strike began about November 15. In a number of
plants, notably those of the Trumbull Steel Company and the Sharon Steel
Hoop Company, the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers
had agreements covering the skilled steel making trades, but when the
laborers struck these skilled men had to quit also. The break in the
district came when the Amalgamated Association virtually forced the
laborers back to work in these shops in order to get them in operation.
This action its officials justified by the following clause in their
agreements:
It was agreed that when a scale or scales are signed in
general or local conferences, said scales or contracts shall
be considered inviolate for that scale year, and should the
employees of any departments (who do not come under the
above named scales or contracts) become members of the
Amalgamated Association during the said scale year, the
Amalgamated Association may present a scale of wages
covering said employees, but in case men and management
cannot come to an agreement on said scale, same shall be
held over until the next general or local conference, and
all men shall continue work until the expiration of the
scale year.
Relying upon their rights under this clause, the companies naturally
refused to give the laborers any consideration whatever until the end of
the scale year. This meant that the latter were told to work and wait
until the following June, when their grievances would be taken up. The
result was disastrous; the laborers generally lost faith in the
Amalgamated Association, feeling that they had been sacrificed for the
skilled workers. They began to flock back to work in all the plants.
Then men in other trades took the position that it was foolish for them
to fight on, seeing that the Amalgamated Association was forcing its men
back into the mills. A general movement millward set in. By December 10
the strike was in bad shape. In passing it may be noted that in
Pittsburgh and other places where it had contracts, the Amalgamated
Association took the same action, with the same general results,
although not so extensive and harmful as in the Youngstown district. In
Cleveland the charters were taken from local unions that refused to
abide by this clause.
The other trades affiliated with the National Committee protested
against the enforcement of the clause. They declared it to be invalid,
because it violated trade-union principles and fundamental human
rights. Seeing that no consideration was given the laborers under the
agreement, their right to strike should have been preserved inviolate.
It verged upon peonage to tie them up with an agreement that gave them
no protection yet deprived them of the right to defend themselves. These
trades freely predicted that to enforce the clause would break the
strike in the Youngstown district, as it was altogether out of the
question to ask men who had been on strike two months (especially men
inexperienced in unionism) to resume work upon such conditions. But all
arguments were vain; the Amalgamated Association officials were as
adamant. They held their agreements with the employers to be sacred and
to rank above any covenants they had entered into with the co-operating
trades. They would enforce them to the letter--the interests of the
laborers, the mechanical trades, and even the strike itself, to the
contrary notwithstanding. Being a federated body, the National Committee
had to bow to this decision and stand by, helpless, while its effects
worked havoc with the strike.
Into Youngstown, in common with all the other districts, armies of scabs
were poured. It was the policy of the United States Steel Corporation to
operate, or at least to pretend to operate its mills, regardless of
cost. So all the "independents" had to do likewise. Word came to the
National Committee of several companies which, rather than try to run
with the high-priced, worthless strike-breakers, would have been glad
either to settle with the unions or to close their plants. But they were
afraid to do either; Gary had said "Operate," and it was a case of do
that or risk going out of business.
The demand for scabs was tremendous. Probably half the strike-breaking
agencies in the country were engaged in recruiting them. Thousands of
negroes were brought from the South, and thousands of guttersnipe whites
from the big northern cities. But worst of all were the skilled steel
workers from outlying sections. There were many of such men who went on
strike in their own home towns, sneaked away to other steel centres and
worked there until the strike was over. Then they would return to their
old jobs with cock-and-bull stories (for the workers only) of having
worked in other industries, thus seeking to escape the dreaded odium of
being known as scabs. These contemptible cowards, being competent
workers, wrought incalculable injury to the strike everywhere,
especially in the Youngstown district.
The Youngstown authorities, to begin with, were reasonably fair towards
the strikers; but as the strike wore on and the steel companies and
business men became desperate at the determined resistance of the
workers, they began to apply "Pennsylvania tactics." In Youngstown and
East Youngstown, Mayors Craver and McVey prohibited meetings, "the
object of which is discussion of matters pertaining to prolonging the
strike."[14] On November 22, district secretary McCadden, and organizers
John Klinsky and Frank Kurowsky were arrested in East Youngstown,
charged with criminal syndicalism and held for $3,000 bonds each. Later
a whole local union, No. 104 Amalgamated Association, was arrested in
the same town for holding a business meeting. "Citizens' committees"
were formed, and open threats made to tar and feather all the organizers
and drive them out of town. But the steel companies were unable to
inflame public opinion sufficiently for them to venture this outrage.
Afterward the organizers were discharged; and in releasing the men
arrested for holding a business meeting, Judge David G. Jenkins said:
I regard the ordinance (E. Youngstown anti-free assembly) as
a form of hysteria which has been sweeping the country,
whereby well-meaning people, in the guise of patriots, have
sought to preserve America even though going to the extent
of denying the fundamental principles upon which Americanism
is based, and free assemblage is one of those fundamentals.
In the principal outlying towns of the Youngstown district, namely
Butler, Farrell, Sharon, Newcastle and Canton, the strikers were given
the worst of it. The first four being Pennsylvania towns, no specific
description of them is necessary. Suffice it to say that typical Cossack
conditions prevailed. In Canton it was not much better. The companies
turned loose many vicious gunmen on the strikers. The mayor was removed
from office and his place given to a company man; and a sweeping
injunction was issued against the strikers, denying them many
fundamental rights.[15] The district, nevertheless, held remarkably
well.
Cleveland from the first to the last was one of the strong points in
the battle line. On September 22 the men struck almost 100 per cent. in
all the big plants, and until the very end preserved a wonderful
solidarity. Under the excellent control of the organizers working with
Secretary Raisse there was at no time a serious break in the ranks, and
when the strike was called off on January 8, at least 50 per cent. of
the men were still out, with production not over 30 per cent. of normal.
Thousands of the men refused to go back to the mills at all, leaving
them badly crippled.
The backbone of the Cleveland strike was the enormous mills of the
American Steel and Wire Co. This calls attention to the fact that, as a
whole, the employees of this subsidiary of the U. S. Steel Corporation
made incomparably a better fight than did the workers in any other
considerable branch of the steel industry. Long after the strike had
been cracked in all other sections of the industry, the rod and wire
mill men of Cleveland, Donora, Braddock, Rankin, Joliet and Waukegan
stood practically solid. Even as late as December 27, only twelve days
before the end, the companies were forced to the expedient of assembling
a rump meeting in Cleveland of delegates from many centres, for the
purpose of calling off the strike. But the men voted unanimously for
continuation under the leadership of the National Committee. When the
strike was finally ended, however, they accepted the decision with good
grace, because they were penetrated with the general strike idea and
realized the folly of trying alone to whip the united steel companies.
The remarkable fight of the rod and wire mill men was due in large
measure to the peculiar circumstances surrounding their organization.
These are highly important and require explanation: The regular system
used by the National Committee resulted usually in organization from the
bottom upward; that is, in response to the general appeals made to the
men in the great mass meetings, ordinarily the first to join the unions
were the unskilled, who are the workers with the least to lose, the most
to gain, and consequently those most likely to take a chance. Gradually,
as the confidence of the men developed, the movement would extend on up
through the plants until it included the highest skilled men. Given time
and a reasonable opportunity, it was an infallible system. It was far
superior to the old trade-union plan of working solely from the top
down, because the latter always stopped before it got to the main body
of the men, the unskilled workers.
The "bottom upward" system was used with the rod and wire mills, the
same as with all others. But while it was operating the skilled men who
had been attracted to the movement in Joliet, Donora and Cleveland
started a "top downward" movement of their own. They sent committees to
all the large rod and wire mills in the country, appealing to the
skilled men to organize. These committeemen, actual workers and
acquainted with all the old timers in the business, could do more real
organizing in a day with their tradesmen than regular organizers could
in a month. Hardly would they go into a locality, no matter how
difficult, than they would at once inspire that confidence in the
movement which is so indispensable, and which takes organizers so long
to develop. The result was a "top downward" movement working
simultaneously with the "bottom upward" drive, which produced a high
degree of organization for the rod and wire mill men.
A great weakness of the strike was the failure of many skilled workers
to participate therein. This tended directly to aid the employers, and
also to discourage the unskilled workers, who looked for their more
expert brothers to take the lead in the strike as well as in the regular
shop experiences. The explanation has been offered that this aloofness
was because the skilled men are "unorganizable." But this is a dream. In
the mills controlled by it, the Amalgamated Association (which is really
a skilled workers' union) has thousands of them in its ranks, most of
whom earn higher wages than employees of similar classes in the Trust
mills. If the proper means to organize them could have been applied, the
skilled workers would have been the leaders in the late strike, instead
of generally the scabs. The same thing done in the rod and wire mills
should have been done in all the important sections of the industry,
blast furnaces, open hearths, sheet, tin, rail, plate, tube mills, etc.
Committees of well-known skilled workers in these departments should
have been sent forth everywhere to start movements from the top to meet
the great surge coming up from the bottom. Had this been done, then Gary
with all his millions could not have broken the strike. The tie-up would
have been so complete and enduring that a settlement would have been
compulsory.
But it was impossible; the chronic lack of resources prevented it. With
the pitifully inadequate funds and men at its disposal, all the National
Committee could do was to go ahead with its general campaign, leaving
the detail and special work undone. It is certainly to be hoped that in
the next big drive this committee system will be extensively followed.
It is the solution of the skilled worker problem, and when applied
intelligently in connection with the fundamental "bottom upward"
movement, it must result in the organization of the industry.
* * * * *
In the Bethlehem Steel Company's plants the strike was not very
effective. This was due principally to the failure of previous strikes
and to general lack of organization. In Reading and in Lebanon there had
been strikes on for many weeks before the big walkout. The workers'
ranks there were already broken. In Sparrows' Point likewise several
departments had been on strike since May 3. Not more than 500 men,
principally laborers and tin mill workers, responded to the general
strike call; but they made a hard fight of it. In Steelton the men had
been very strongly organized during the war; but the error was made of
putting all the trades into one federal union. Then when the craft
unions insisted later that their men be turned over to them, the
resultant resistance of the members, and especially of the paid
officers, virtually destroyed the organization. When the strike came
only a small percentage struck, nor did they stick long.
Speaking of the strike in the main plant at Bethlehem, Secretary
Hendricks says:
The strike was called September 29, and about 75 per cent.
of the men responded. These were largely American workers.
The Machinists, which comprise about 40 per cent. of the
total workers, were the craft most involved. In the mill and
blast furnace departments, the response was among the
rollers, heaters, and highly skilled men generally, which
led to the complete shut-down of these departments. The
molders practically shut the foundries down. Electrical
workers, steamfitters, millwrights, and general repairmen
responded well. The patternmakers did not go out.
The first break came a week later. It was charged largely to the steam
engineers, who heeded the strike-breaking advice of their international
officials and returned to work. Another factor was the failure of
support from the railroad men on the inter-plant system. Had these two
bodies of men been held in line by their officers, the Bethlehem strike
would have been a success.
In the Bethlehem situation too much reliance was placed in the skilled
trades; more attention should have been given to the organization of the
real fighting force, the unskilled workers. Another mistake was to have
allowed the strikes to take place in Reading, Lebanon and Sparrows'
Point. Even a tyro could see that they had no hope of success. Those
men could easily have been held in line until the big strike, to the
enormous strengthening of the latter. The National Committee had little
to do with the Bethlehem situation before the strike, the movement
developing to a great extent independently.
Nowhere in the strike zone was there a more bitter fight than in the
Buffalo district, which was directed by organizers Thompson and
Streifler. All the important plants were affected, but the storm
centered around the Lackawanna Steel Company. This concern left nothing
undone to defeat its workers. For eight months it had prevented any
meetings from being held in Lackawanna, and then, when the workers broke
through this obstruction and crowded into the unions, it discharged
hundreds of them. This put the iron into the workers' hearts, and they
made an heroic struggle. So firm were their ranks that when the general
strike was called off on January 8, they voted to continue the fight in
Lackawanna. But this was soon seen to be hopeless.
Much company violence was used in the Lackawanna strike. The New York
State Constabulary and the company guards, of a cut with their odious
Pennsylvania brethren, slugged, shot and jailed men and women in real
Steel Trust style. Many strikers were injured, and two killed outright.
One of these, Joseph Mazurek, a native-born American, was freshly back
from the fighting in France. Lackawanna was just a little bit of an
industrial hell.[16]
As a strike measure the Lackawanna Steel Company evicted many strikers
from the company houses. In Braddock, Rankin, Homestead, Butler,
Wierton, Natrona, Bethlehem and many other places, the companies put
similar pressure upon their men, either evicting them or foreclosing the
mortgages on their half-paid-for houses. Threats of such action drove
thousands back to work, it being peculiarly terrifying to workers to
find themselves deprived of their homes in winter time. Where evictions
actually occurred the victims usually had to leave town or find crowded
quarters with other strikers. The much-lauded housing schemes of the
steel companies are merely one of a whole arsenal of weapons to crush
the independence of their workers. No employer should be permitted to
own or control the houses in which his men live.
* * * * *
The Wheeling district is noted as strong union country. The
"independent" mills therein had provided the main strength of the
Amalgamated Association for several years prior to this movement; but
the Trust mills were still unorganized. Under the guidance of National
Committee local secretary J. M. Peters, however, these men, in the mills
of Wheeling, Bellaire, Benwood and Martin's Ferry, were brought into the
unions. On September 22 they struck 100 per cent., completely closing
all the plants. They held practically solid until the first week in
December, when they broke heavily.
The immediate cause of this break merits explanation. The National
Committee, at the outset of the strike, organized a publicity
department, headed by Mr. Edwin Newdick, formerly of the National War
Labor Board. In addition to getting out strike stories for the press,
many of which were written by the well-known novelist, Mary Heaton
Vorse, this department assembled and issued in printed bulletin form
statistical information relative to the progress and effectiveness of
the strike. The steel companies, through spies in the unions,
newspapers, etc., disputed this information, telling the strikers that
they were being victimized as the mills in all districts except their
own were in full operation, and advising them to send out committees to
investigate the situation.
It was a seductive argument and many were deceived by it. Consequently,
quite generally, such committees (usually financed and chaperoned by the
local Chambers of Commerce) went forth from various localities. Of
course, they returned the sort of reports the companies wished. Much
harm was done thereby. The Steubenville district suffered from the lying
statement of such a committee, the strikers having made a winning fight
up till the time it was made public, the middle of November. But nowhere
was the effect so serious as in the Wheeling district.
The Wheeling committee was headed by one Robert Edwards, widely known
for years as an extreme radical. It visited many points in the steel
industry, taking its figures on steel production and strike conditions
from employers' sources, and completely ignoring national and local
strike officials everywhere. The ensuing report pictured the steel
industry as virtually normal. Although he had been recently expelled
from the Amalgamated Association Edwards still had great influence with
the men, and his report broke their ranks. In future general strikes
drastic disciplinary measures should be taken to forestall the
activities of such committees.
* * * * *
Of the 6500 men employed by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. in its Pueblo
mills, 95 per cent. walked out on September 22. When the strike was
called off three and one-half months later not over 1500 of these had
returned to their jobs. Production was below 20 per cent. of normal.
Locally the tie-up was so effective that on January 9, at the biggest
labor meeting in Pueblo's history, National Committee local secretary W.
H. Young and the other organizers had to beg the men for hours to go
back to work. These officials knew that the great struggle had been
decided in the enormous steel centers of the East (Pueblo being credited
with producing only two per cent. of the nation's steel) and that it
would be madness for them to try to win the fight alone.
The heart of the Pueblo strike was opposition to the Rockefeller
Industrial Plan, in force in the mills. This worthless, tyrannical
arrangement the men could not tolerate and were determined to contest to
the end. Realizing the minor importance of the Pueblo mills in the
national strike, the men offered at the outset to waive all their
demands pending its settlement, provided the company would agree to meet
with their representatives later to take up these matters. But this was
flatly refused; it was either accept the Rockefeller Plan or fight, even
though 98 per cent. of the men had voted to abolish it.
Shortly after this incident John D. Rockefeller, Jr., gained much
favorable comment and pleasing publicity by his glowing speech about
industrial democracy and the right of collective bargaining, delivered
at the National Industrial Conference at Washington, D. C. He was hailed
as one of the country's progressive employers. But when the striking
Pueblo workers wired him, requesting that he grant them these rights, he
referred them to Mr. Welborn, President of the C. F. and I. Company,
well knowing that this gentleman would deny their plea.
The strike was markedly peaceful throughout, no one being hurt and
hardly any one arrested. But on December 28, the state militia were
suddenly brought in, ostensibly because of an attack supposed to have
been made two days previously upon Mr. F. E. Parks, manager of the
Minnequa works. The public never learned the details of this mysterious
affair which served so well to bring in the troops. Nor was the
"culprit" ever located, although large rewards were offered for his
capture.
* * * * *
The Johnstown strike was so complete that for eight weeks the great
Cambria Steel Co., despite strenuous efforts, could not put a single
department of its enormous mills into operation. Every trick was used
to break the strike. The Back-To-Work organization[17] labored
ceaselessly, holding meetings and writing and telephoning the workers to
coax or intimidate them back to their jobs. Droves of scabs were brought
in from outside points. But to no effect; the workers held fast. Then
the company embarked upon the usual Pennsylvania policy of terrorism.
I, personally, was the first to feel its weight. I was billed to speak
in Johnstown on November 7. Upon alighting from the train I was met by
two newspaper men who advised me to quit the town at once, stating that
the business men and company officials had held a meeting the night
before and organized a "Citizens' Committee," which was to break the
strike by applying "Duquesne tactics." Beginning with myself, all the
organizers were to be driven from the city. Disregarding this warning, I
started for the Labor Temple; but was again warned by the newspapermen,
and finally stopped on the street by city detectives, who told me that
it would be at the risk of my life to take a step nearer the meeting
place. I demanded protection, but it was not forthcoming. I was told to
leave.
[Illustration: STEEL TRUST NEWSPAPER PROPAGANDA Pittsburgh _Chronicle
Telegraph_, October 6, 1919.]
In the meantime, Secretary Conboy arriving upon the scene, the two of us
started to the Mayor's office to protest, when suddenly, in broad
daylight, at a main street corner in the heart of the city, a mob of
about forty men rushed us. Shouldering me away from Mr. Conboy, they
stuck guns against my ribs and took me to the depot. While there they
made a cowardly attempt to force me to sign a Back-To-Work card, which
meant to write myself down a scab. Later I was put aboard an eastbound
train. Several of the mob accompanied me to Conemaugh, a few miles out.
The same night this "Citizens' Committee," with several hundred more,
surrounded the organizers in their hotel and gave them twenty-four hours
time to leave town. The city authorities refused to stir to defend them,
and the following day organizers T. J. Conboy, Frank Hall, Frank
Butterworth, and Frank Kurowsky were compelled to go. Domenick Gelotte,
a local organizer of the miners, refused to depart and was promptly
arrested. Up to this time the strike had been perfectly peaceful. The
shut-down was so thorough that not even a picket line was necessary.
The mob perpetrating these outrages (duly praised by the newspapers as
examples of 100 per cent. Americanism) was led by W. R. Lunk, secretary
of the Y. M. C. A., and H. L. Tredennick, president of the chamber of
commerce. This pair freely stated that the strike could never be broken
by peaceful means, and that they were prepared to apply the necessary
violence, which they did. Of course, they were never arrested. Had they
been workers and engaged in a similar escapade against business men,
they would have been lucky to get off with twenty years imprisonment
apiece.
After a couple of weeks the organizers returned to Johnstown. Their
efforts at holding the men together were so fruitful that the Cambria
Company, in its own offices, organized a new mob to drive them out
again. But this time, better prepared, they stood firm. On November 29,
when the fresh deportation was to take place, Secretary Conboy demanded
that Mayor Francke give him and the others protection. He offered to
furnish the city a force of 1000 union ex-service men to preserve law
and order. This offer was refused, and the Mayor and Sheriff reluctantly
agreed to see that peace was kept. They informed the business men's mob
that there was nothing doing. It was a tense situation. Had the
threatened deportation been attempted, most serious trouble would surely
have resulted.
In the meantime numbers of the State Constabulary had been sent into
town (the city and county authorities denying responsibility for their
presence) and they terrorized the workers in their customary, brutal
way. Eventually the result sought by all this outlawry developed; a
break occurred in the ranks of the highly-paid, skilled steel workers.
Although small at first, the defection gradually spread as the weeks
rolled on, until, by January 8, about two-thirds of the men had returned
to work.
* * * * *
Considered nationally, strike sentiment continued strong until about the
middle of the third month, when a feeling of pessimism regarding the
outcome began to manifest itself among the various international
organizations. Consequently, a meeting of the National Committee was
held in Washington on December 13 and 14, to take stock of the
situation. At this meeting I submitted the following figures:
_Men on Strike_ _Men on Strike_
_District_ _Sept. 29_ _Dec. 10_
Pittsburgh 25,000 8,000
Homestead 9,000 5,500
Braddock-Rankin 15,000 8,000
Clairton 4,000 1,500
Duquesne-McKeesport 12,000 1,000
Vandergrift 4,000 1,800
Natrona-Brackenridge 5,000 1,500
New Kensington 1,100 200
Apollo 1,500 200
Leechburg 3,000 300
Donora-Monessen 12,000 10,000
Johnstown 18,000 7,000
Coatesville 4,000 500
Youngstown district 70,000 12,800
Wheeling district 15,000 3,000
Cleveland 25,000 15,000
Steubenville district 12,000 2,000
Chicago district 90,000 18,000
Buffalo 12,000 5,000
Pueblo 6,000 5,000
Birmingham 2,000 500
Bethlehem Plants (5) 20,000 2,500
------- -------
365,600 109,300
Estimated production of steel, 50 to 60 per cent. of normal
capacity.
Owing to the chaotic conditions in many steel districts, it was
exceedingly difficult at all times to get accurate statistics upon the
actual state of affairs. Those above represented the very best that the
National Committee's whole organizing force could assemble. The
officials of the Amalgamated Association strongly favored calling off
the strike, but agreed that the figures cited on the number of men still
out were conservative and within the mark. The opinion prevailed that
the strike was still effective and that it should be vigorously
continued.
On January 3 and 4, the National Committee met in Pittsburgh. At this
gathering it soon became evident that the strike was deemed hopeless,
so, according to its custom when important decisions had to be made, the
National Committee called a special meeting for January 8, all the
international organizations being notified. The situation was bad.
Reliable reports on January 8 showed the steel companies generally to
have working forces of from 70 to 80 per cent., and steel production of
from 60 to 70 per cent. of normal. Possibly 100,000 men still held out;
but it seemed merely punishing these game fighters to continue the
strike. They were being injured by it far more than was the Steel Trust.
There was no hope of a settlement, the steel companies being plainly
determined now to fight on indefinitely. Therefore, in justice to the
loyal strikers and to enable them to go back to the mills with clear
records, the meeting adopted, by a vote of ten unions to five, a
sub-committee's report providing that the strike be called off; that the
commissaries be closed as fast as conditions in the various localities
would permit, and that the campaign of education and organization of the
steel workers be continued with undiminished vigor.
At this point, wishing to have the new phase of the work go ahead with a
clean slate, I resigned my office as Secretary-Treasurer of the National
Committee. Mr. J. G. Brown was elected to fill the vacancy. The
following telegram was sent to all the strike centers, and given to the
press:
The Steel Corporations, with the active assistance of the
press, the courts, the federal troops, state police, and
many public officials, have denied steel workers their
rights of free speech, free assembly and the right to
organize, and by this arbitrary and ruthless misuse of power
have brought about a condition which has compelled the
National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers to
vote today that the active strike phase of the steel
campaign is now at an end. A vigorous campaign of education
and reorganization will be immediately begun and will not
cease until industrial justice has been achieved in the
steel industry. All steel strikers are now at liberty to
return to work pending preparations for the next big
organization movement.
John Fitzpatrick
D. J. Davis,
Edw. J. Evans,
Wm. Hannon,
Wm. Z. Foster.
The great steel strike was ended.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Youngstown _Vindicator_, November 24, 1919.
[15] No history of the movement in the Youngstown district could be
complete without some mention of the assistance rendered the workers by
Bishop John Podea of the Roumanian Greek Catholic church, Youngstown,
and Rev. E. A. Kirby, pastor of St. Rose Roman Catholic church of
Girard, Ohio. Usually the churchmen (of all faiths) in the various steel
towns were careful not to jeopardize the fat company contributions by
helping the unions. But not these men. They realized that all true
followers of the Carpenter of Nazareth had to be on the side of the
oppressed steel workers; and throughout the entire campaign they
distinguished themselves by unstinted co-operation with the unions. The
service was never too great nor the call too often for them to respond
willingly.
[16] In connection with this matter it is interesting to note that after
the strike had ended the union men entered suits against the steel
companies for heavy damages. Up to the present writing the Lackawanna
Steel Company, realizing the indefensibility of the outrages, has made
out-of-court settlements to the extent of $22,500.
[17] These Back-To-Work organizations were formed in many steel towns;
their purpose was to recruit scabs. They were composed of company
officials, business men and "loyal" workers. The companies furnished the
wherewithal to finance them.
XI
NATIONAL AND RACIAL ELEMENTS
A MODERN BABEL--AMERICANS AS SKILLED WORKERS--FOREIGNERS AS
UNSKILLED WORKERS--LANGUAGE DIFFICULTIES--THE NEGRO IN THE
STRIKE--THE RACE PROBLEM
In order to prove its charge that the purpose of the steel strike was
contrary to the spirit of our institutions, the Steel Trust's great
propaganda organization never ceased asserting, (1) that the strike was
a movement of foreigners, (2) that the Americans in the mills were
opposed to it for patriotic reasons and were taking no part therein. The
vicious press made much capital of these allegations, using them heavily
against the strike. Now let us see how much truth there was in them:
1. Unquestionably the foreign-born were in the majority among the
strikers; but how could it be otherwise in view of the fact that they
make up the bulk of the working force in the industry? The following
table, submitted to the Senate Committee by Mr. A. F. Diehl, General
Manager of the Duquesne Works of the Carnegie Steel Co., illustrates
this fact:[18]
RECAPITULATION OF NATIONALITIES, AS OF AUG. 1ST, 1919, FOR TOTAL PLANT,
DUQUESNE WORKS
_Nationality_ _Total_ _Per cent._
American 2,097 34.6
American (colored) 344 5.7
English 147 2.4
Scotch 41 .7
Welsh 28 .5
Irish 58 .9
Canadian 4 .1
German 104 1.8
French 6 .1
Swedish 79 1.3
Italian 128 2.1
Greek 23 .4
Swiss 5 .1
Norwegian 4 .1
Danish 1 .0
Hollander 1 .0
Russian 185 3.0
Lithuanian 201 3.3
Lattis 3 .0
Bohemian 3 .0
Croatian 222 3.7
Magyar 742 12.2
Slovak 930 15.3
Roumanian 7 .1
Ruthenian 82 1.3
Bulgarian 25 .4
Servian 219 3.6
Polish 246 4.0
Armenian 34 .5
Dalmatian 6 .1
Macedonian 10 .2
Hebrew 10 .2
Turkish 80 1.3
----- -----
Totals 6,075 100.0
This condition is typical of steel mills generally in the greater
Pittsburgh and Middle West districts, where the body of the industry is
located. In Clairton, of 4,600 employees, divided into 39 nationalities,
35 per cent. are Americans. On page 480 of the report of the Senate
Committee Steel Strike Hearings, appears a table covering the employees
of the Homestead Steel Works, Howard Axle Works, and Carrie Furnaces (an
industrial unit), submitted by General Manager J. S. Oursler. It shows a
total of 14,687 employees, of 54 nationality divisions. Of these
employees, 5,799, or 39.45 per cent. are stated to be American whites.
But as Mr. Oursler re-iterated in his testimony that he had classed as
Americans all those who had their citizenship papers, both these figures
should therefore be considerably reduced. Besides, it must be borne in
mind that these several tables include the office forces, bosses, etc.,
which are almost entirely American, and which were not involved in the
strike. In the steel districts in question it is exceedingly doubtful if
over 25 per cent. of the actual workers are American-born whites. How,
then, can a general strike of steel workers be anything else than
largely a strike of foreigners?
2. Regarding the alleged non-participation of Americans in the movement:
Although in many districts where the strike was practically 100 per
cent. effective, the Americans struck almost to a man with the other
workers and fought gamely to the finish, nevertheless it must be
admitted that in the main, when compared with the foreigners,[19] they
made a poor showing. To begin with they organized slowly; then they
struck reluctantly and scatteringly; and finally, they showed little
tenacity as strikers. But this general sluggishness originated, however,
not in patriotic objections to the movement or lack of sympathy with its
aims; but chiefly because the Americans, as skilled workers, were
naturally slower and less determined in action than the foreigners, or
unskilled workers.
In the steel industry the most skilled men are to be found in those
trades actually engaged in the making and rolling of iron and
steel--the melters, puddlers, shearmen, rollers, roughers, heaters,
Bessemer blowers, etc. These men are paid upon a tonnage basis and
generally receive considerably higher wages than the mechanical
tradesmen--bricklayers, machinists, boilermakers, riggers, firemen,
engineers, electrical workers, blacksmiths, etc., who build, maintain
and generally operate the plants. It is among the favored tonnage
trades that the Americans are especially intrenched.
In the old days these highly skilled workers took the initiative in the
struggle for human rights in the steel industry--the mechanical trades
and unskilled workers playing a very minor part. Homestead was one of
their great battles, only 752 of the 3800 men employed being union
members in good-standing. They were then bold, militant and tenacious as
bull dogs. But since those times they have been defeated so often, due
to a weakening of their proportional strength and strategical position,
that they have lost much of the independent spirit which once
characterized them. They now fear the power of the Steel Trust; they
dread its pitiless blacklist; they hesitate to put in jeopardy their
comparatively good jobs, which they secured only after long years of
service in minor positions, and which, once lost, are so hard to regain.
They want better conditions now as much as they ever did, but they lack
the self-confidence to fight for them. All through the campaign their
attitude, barring the exceptions here and there, was to wait until the
lesser skilled men had so far perfected the organization as to make it
seem safe for them to join it. When the strike came the unskilled
workers led the way; then came the mechanical trades; with the
aristocratic steel workers bringing up the rear. But in scurrying back
to scab in the mills, the order was just the reverse. This was the
experience in virtually every section of the industry.
It would be wrong, however, to say that the failure of American workers
to participate more heartily in the movement was due solely to their
favored position in the industry. To some extent race prejudice also
came into play, especially in those districts where the organization had
not yet reached far enough up into the plants to include the skilled
workers. Everywhere American-born workingmen, unfortunately, are prone
to look with some suspicion, if not contempt and hatred, upon
foreigners, whom they have been taught to believe are injuring their
standard of living. The companies made the most of this. Dubbing the
walkout a "hunky" strike, they told the Americans that if it succeeded
the latter would have to give over to the despised foreigners all the
good jobs and shop privileges they enjoyed. Their slogan was "Don't let
the 'hunkies' rule the mills." They openly circulated handbills inciting
to race war. The following, from Elwood, Pa., where a National Tube
Company plant is located, is typical:
WAKE UP AMERICANS!!
ITALIAN LABORERS, organized under the American
Federation of Labor are going to strike Monday and are
threatening workmen who want to continue working.
These foreigners have been told by labor agitators that if
they would join the union they would get Americans' jobs.
They are being encouraged by ITALIAN MERCHANTS, who are in
sympathy with them. ARE YOU GOING TO SLEEP AND LET MOB RULE
THREATEN THE PEACE OF OUR TOWN?
In towns where often the foreign population is three-fourths of the
whole, such propaganda was most inflammatory. The newspapers did all
they could to make it more so. They solemnly warned of the danger of a
foreign uprising and advised a campaign of militant, 100 per cent.
Americanism; which meant, on the one hand for the local authorities,
gunmen, and business men to set up a reign of terror, and on the other,
for the workers all to go back to work at once. The courts and so-called
peace officers did their part. They jailed, clubbed and shot the
foreigners and left the Americans, even if they were strikers, in
comparative immunity. Nothing was left undone to create a race issue,
and it is not surprising that many American workers, unorganized and
ignorant, were mislead by this and inveigled back to the mills.
It has been charged that the unions neglected the American steel workers
and concentrated upon the organization of the foreigners. If anything,
the reverse is true; for by far the weight of the appeal made was to the
English speaking elements. Every piece of literature put out stressed
heavily the English language. Of twenty-five National Committee district
and local secretaries, only three were born in Europe; of a dozen
Amalgamated Association organizers, not one spoke anything but English,
and of the crew as a whole, over 80 per cent. were American born. By its
very nature such an organizing force had to make strong appeal to the
American workers. In fact, the foreigners constantly insisted upon this,
because, strangers in a strange land, they always crave and seek
American co-operation in their union movements. That this co-operation
was not more in evidence in the steel campaign was the cause of much
bitter complaint among them.
* * * * *
But if the Americans and skilled workers generally proved indifferent
union men in the steel campaign, the foreign, unskilled workers covered
themselves with glory. Throughout the whole affair they showed an
understanding discipline, courage and tenacity of purpose that compared
favorably with that shown in any organized effort ever put forth by
workingmen on this continent. Beyond question they displayed trade-union
qualities of the very highest type. Their solidarity was unbreakable;
their fighting spirit invincible. They nobly struggled onward in the
face of difficulties that would try the stoutest hearts. They proved
themselves altogether worthy of the best American labor traditions.
Thousands of them were intending to return to Europe shortly and
apparently had slight reason to establish good conditions here; but they
fought on, many spending their little savings during the strike, and
thus postponing indefinitely the long-looked-for trip to the homelands.
This attitude of the foreign workers is a bitter pill for the Steel
Trust. For many years it had scoured the countries of Eastern and
Southern Europe, and packed its mills with poor, dispirited, ignorant
immigrants of three score nationalities, in the hope that it was finally
supplanting its original crew of independent American and Western
European workmen by a race of submissive, unorganizable slaves. And for
a long time this shameful policy worked well. Wages sank to nowhere;
conditions became unspeakably wretched; every strike of the old-time,
organized workers was smothered by an avalanche of job-hungry
immigrants.[20] But now these foreigners are waking up; in consequence
of hard economic conditions, a better acquaintance with our language and
institutions, an inherent class solidarity, the example of union men in
other industries, and the social upheavals in Europe, these men are
opening their eyes; and they are fast taking their place in the very
front rank of the working class fighters for industrial liberty. And now
the Steel Trust, discovering that its hoped-for-scabs are in truth
highly rebellious workingmen, is making the welkin ring with
inconsistent denunciation of the "revolutionary foreigners," with whom
just a short while ago it was so anxious to crowd its plants. The biter
has been very badly bitten.
For the unions the nationality problem was serious throughout the entire
campaign--the employers had worked for years to make it an insoluble
one. Something of the situation may be gleaned when it is recalled that
the steel industry comprises hundreds of mills, scattered through a
dozen states, and employing half a million workers. These speak dozens
of widely differing languages, worship through many mutually
antagonistic religions, and are moved by numberless racial and national
animosities. Yet the National Committee, with the skimped resources it
had in hand, had to and did weld together this vast polyglot,
heterogeneous mass into a voluntary organization, kept it thinking
alike, and held it in strong discipline for months in the face of the
bitter opposition of the Steel Trust, which sought in every conceivable
way to divide the workers by playing upon their multiplicity of fears
and prejudices.
In accomplishing this huge task the first requisite was to overcome the
language difficulty sufficiently to permit the message of trade unionism
to be brought forcefully to the many diverse elements. Because doing so
would have rendered the meetings ruinously cumbersome and unwieldy, it
was out of the question to utilize all the languages or any considerable
number of them; so the plan was followed of using only the predominant
ones; the theory being that if the large bodies of workers speaking them
could be reached, they in turn would find means to influence the
minorities speaking other languages.
As the various foreign groups tend strongly to colonize in certain
districts, the basic languages spoken in a given plant, regardless of
how many nationalities work therein, ordinarily number not more than
four or five, including always English, usually a couple of the Slavic
tongues (Slavish, Polish, Russian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Serbian, etc.),
often Hungarian, and occasionally Italian, Roumanian or Greek. For
example, among the fifty-four nationalities in the big Homestead plants,
the principal languages spoken are, in the order of their numerical
importance, English, Slavish, Russian, Hungarian and Polish. Move these
predominate language groups and you move the whole working force; that
was the system in the steel campaign. Seldom was a piece of literature
issued, even for national circulation, with as many as six languages
upon it; the vitally important strike call had but seven, while four was
the customary number.
About twenty-five organizers who spoke these predominating languages
were put in the field. Great care was taken by the A. F. of L., National
Committee and co-operating unions to select reliable, level-headed men
of influence and standing among their respective peoples, men who could
be depended upon to go along with the general program, and not to work
upon some destructive side-issue of their own. Besides, efforts were
made to take every possible advantage of the fact that practically all
the foreign workers have some slight smattering of English. Accordingly,
the English-speaking organizers were coached to get rid of all
trade-union technical expressions and to confine their talks to
fundamentals; to speak slowly, distinctly, and in the simplest, even
"pidjinized" terms, to illustrate the whole with sign language, and to
follow out a system of repetition and restatement that was bound to make
their meaning plain to the most unknowing. Such talks, while not
calculated to stir the emotions, made clear the situation and were
greatly appreciated by the foreigners, thousands of whom, during the
steel campaign, for the first time felt the pleasure and encouragement
of understanding the despairingly difficult English spoken from a
platform. The steel workers' meetings were schools in practical
Americanization.[21]
With the language problem solved in even this imperfect way, the
persistent advocacy of labor union principles, backed up by a few
thoroughgoing, common-sense systems of organization, did the rest.
Gradually the great armies of linguistically, religiously, racially
divided steel workers were united into the mighty force which threw
itself against the Steel Trust. In the main the foreign workers were
simple, sincere, earnest minded folk, naturally disposed to co-operative
effort. While the individualistic, sophisticated American workers all
too often attended the ball games and filled the pool rooms, the
foreigners packed the union meeting halls. Their worst fault was a
woeful unacquaintance with trade-union methods. This the organizers
diligently labored to overcome by patient instruction and a faithful
attendance to their duties. The general result was that the foreign
workers developed a confidence in the organizers and a loyalty to the
unions, which not even the heavy shock of the loss of the strike has
been able to destroy.
* * * * *
The indifference, verging often into open hostility, with which negroes
generally regard Organized Labor's activities, manifested itself
strongly in the steel campaign. Those employed in the industry were
extremely resistant to the trade-union program; those on the outside
allowed themselves to be used freely as strike-breakers.
According to the Immigration Commission's Report, which furnished the
latest official figures (period 1907-08), 4.7 per cent. of the total
number of steel industry employees at that time were negroes, most of
whom were located in the Alabama and Maryland districts. Since then,
however, considerable additions to their numbers have been made, and in
many northern mills will be found groups of them, ranging in strength
from 1 to 20 per cent. of the whole working force. They work mostly at
hard, rough, unskilled labor, especially in the blast furnace
department.
Generally speaking, these bodies of negroes took small part in the
movement. In certain districts, notably Cleveland and Wheeling, it is
true that they organized 100 per cent. and struck very creditably; but
in most places, and exactly those where their support was needed the
worst, they made a wretched showing. Consider the situation, for
instance, in the Homestead Steel Works. In these plants (including the
Carrie Furnaces at Rankin), of the 14,687 employees, 1,737 are negroes.
Making deductions for office forces, bosses, etc., this would make them
from 12 to 14 per cent. of the actual workers, a most important factor
indeed. During the organizing campaign, of all these men, only eight
joined the unions. And of these but one struck. He, however, stayed
loyally to the finish. The degree of this abstention from the movement
may be gauged when it is recalled that of the white unskilled workers in
the same plants at least 75 per cent. joined the unions, and 90 per
cent. struck.
Throughout the immediate Pittsburgh district, where the unions operated
under such great handicaps and had to rely so much on the initiative of
the individual workers, the same condition prevailed. In Duquesne, of
344 negroes employed, not one struck; in Clairton, of 300, six joined
the unions and struck for two weeks. Of the several hundred working in
the Braddock plants, not one joined a union or went on strike; and a
dozen would cover those from the large number employed in the mills in
Pittsburgh proper who walked out with the 25,000 whites on September 22.
Similar tendencies were shown in the Chicago, Youngstown, Buffalo,
Pueblo, Sparrows' Point and other districts. In the entire steel
industry, the negroes, beyond compare, gave the movement less
co-operation than any other element, skilled or unskilled, foreign or
native.
Those on the outside of the industry seemed equally unsympathetic.
National Committee secretaries' reports indicate that the Steel Trust
recruited and shipped from 30,000 to 40,000 negroes into the mills as
strike-breakers. Many of these were picked up in Northern cities, but
the most of them came from the South. They were used in all the large
districts and were a big factor in breaking the strike. The following
statement illustrates some of the methods used in securing and handling
them:
Monessen, November 23, 1919
Eugene Steward--Age 19--Baltimore, Md.
My native place is Charleston, South Carolina.
I arrived in Monessen on Wednesday, November 19. There were
about 200 of us loaded in the cars at Baltimore; some were
white; and when we were loaded in the cars were told that we
were being taken to Philadelphia.
We were not told that a strike was in progress. We were
promised $4.00 a day, with the understanding that we should
be boarded at $1.00 a day.
When we took the train a guard locked the doors so that we
were unable to get out, and no meals were given us on the
way, although we were promised board.
We were unloaded at Lock 4 and had a guard placed over us,
and were then marched into the grounds of the Pittsburgh
Steel Products Co. We were then told to go to work, and when
I found out that there was a strike on I got out. They
refused to let me out at the gate when I protested about
working, and I climbed over the fence, and they caught me
and compelled me to go back and sign a paper and told me
that I would have to go to work. I told them that I would
not go to work if they kept me there two years. I was placed
on a boat. There were about 200 other people there. The
guards informed me that if I made any attempt to again run
away that they would shoot me. I got a rope and escaped, as
I will not work to break the strike.
his
Eugene X Steward
mark
Witness Jacob S. McGinley
Few, however, of the imported negro strike-breakers showed the splendid
spirit of this unlettered boy. Most of them seemed to take a keen
delight in stealing the white men's jobs and crushing their strike. They
clashed badly with the pickets, where picketing was allowed. And between
them and the white strike-breakers many murderous encounters occurred in
the mills, although the companies were very careful to suppress news of
these outbreaks.
So serious was the race situation in the steel strike that the National
Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers requested President
Gompers to arrange a conference between prominent negro leaders and
trade-union officials, to the end that the proper remedies may be
indicated. The need for action looking towards better relations between
whites and blacks in the industrial field should be instantly patent;
for there can be no doubt but that the employing class, taking advantage
of the bitter animosities of the two groups, are deliberately attempting
to turn the negroes into a race of strike-breakers, with whom to hold
the white workers in check; on much the same principle as the Czars used
the Cossacks to keep in subjection the balance of the Russian people.
Should they succeed to any degree it would make our industrial disputes
take on more and more the character of race wars, a consummation that
would be highly injurious to the white workers and eventually ruinous to
the blacks.
For the tense situation existing the unions are themselves in no small
part to blame. Many of them sharply draw the color line, thus feeding
the flames of race hatred. This discriminatory practice is in direct
conflict with the fundamental which demands that all the workers be
organized, without regard to sex, race, creed, politics or nationality.
It injures Labor's cause greatly. Company agents harp upon it
continually, to prevent negroes from joining even the organizations
willing to take them in. This was the case in the steel campaign.
Moreover these same company agents cited this discriminatory practice
most effectively to induce thousands of outside colored workers to come
into the industry as strike-breakers. Such a condition cannot be allowed
to persist. But to relieve it the unions will have to meet the issue
honestly and broad-mindedly. They must open their ranks to negroes, make
an earnest effort to organize them, and then give them a square deal
when they do join. Nothing short of this will accomplish the desired
result.[22]
This action by the unions will be a step in the right direction, but it
alone will not solve the vexed problem. The best negro leaders must join
heartily in destroying the pernicious anti-union policies so deeply
rooted among their people. It is a lamentable fact, well known to all
organizers who have worked in industries employing considerable numbers
of negroes, that there is a large and influential black leadership,
including ministers, politicians, editors, doctors, lawyers, social
workers, etc., who as a matter of race tactics are violently opposed to
their people going into the trade unions. They look upon strike-breaking
as a legitimate and effective means of negro advancement. Time and
again, they have seen their people, by use of it, readily work their way
into trades and industries previously firmly sealed against them by the
white workers' and white employers' prejudices. Nor can they see any
wrong in thus taking advantage of the white man, who has so brutally
oppressed them for centuries. On the contrary, they consider it a
justified retaliation. They are in a race war. Inasmuch as the steel
strike resulted in more negroes being in the industry than was the case
before, they look upon the outcome as a victory. For these elements, and
they are numerous and powerful among negroes, the color line clauses in
the union constitutions are meat and drink; such leaders don't want them
abolished,--they make too strong an argument against the unions.
Consider the situation faced by the unions in the campaign to organize
the Chicago packing houses in 1917-18. The negroes in this industry are
a strong factor (numbering 14,000 of a total of some 65,000 employees),
and the unions were determined to organize them. But no sooner had
organizers begun the work than they met the firm opposition of the negro
intelligencia above-noted. These warned their people to have nothing to
do with the movement, as their interest lay in working with the packers
to defeat the unions. They said that was how the negroes came into the
packing industry, and that was how they would progress in it.
Naturally, they repeated the accusations about white men not taking
negroes in their unions, a charge which was not true in the packing
industry. The organizers replied by launching a vigorous campaign to get
them into the unions. Then the propaganda was sent forth that the only
reason the whites were willing to take the blacks into their locals was
because the latter, being in a minority, could exert no control; that
the whites would not dare to give them a local of their own, etc. This
was met by the establishment of a negro local of miscellaneous workers
in a convenient neighborhood. Then the Jim Crow cry was raised that the
whites wanted the blacks to herd by themselves. This the organizers
answered by insisting that a free transfer system be kept up between the
white and black locals. These were affiliated with the basic
organization of the industry, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher
Workmen of North America.
But even this did not satisfy; the anti-union propaganda went on
undiminished and with tremendous effect. It is true that some
far-sighted negro intellectuals defended the unions; but they were as
men crying in the wilderness; the others prevailed. And although the
unions kept a crew of negro organizers in the field, and won many
concessions for the packing house workers, including the eight hour day,
right of collective bargaining, large increases in wages, 40 hour weekly
guarantee, retroactive pay, seniority rights, etc., they have never
succeeded in organizing the negroes.
They know little of the race problem in industry who declare that it can
be settled merely by the unions opening their doors to the negroes. It
is much more complex than that, and will require the best thought that
conscientious whites and blacks can give it. The negro has the more
difficult part to solve, in resisting the insidious efforts of
unscrupulous white employers and misguided intellectuals of his own race
to make a professional strike-breaker of him. But I am confident that he
will win out and will take his place where he belongs in the industrial
fight, side by side with the white worker.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Senate Committee Steel Strike Hearings, page 532.
[19] In steel industry usage (followed in this book unless otherwise
noted) the term "foreigners" applies chiefly to the nationalities of the
later immigrations, including the Slavic races, Roumanians, Bulgarians,
Hungarians, Greeks, Italians and others from Eastern and Southern
Europe. These are the so-called "hunkies." The peoples of the earlier
immigrations--the English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, Germans and
Scandinavians--who speak our language, hold good jobs, and are generally
well established, are not exactly considered Americans, but they are
rarely called foreigners.
[20] The brazen frankness with which this policy was carried out is
illustrated by the following advertisement, which appeared in the
Pittsburgh _Gazette-Times_, July 15, 1909, during the big steel strike
of that time:
MEN WANTED--Tinners, catchers and helpers to work in open
shops. Syrians, Poles and Roumanians preferred. Steady
employment and good wages to men willing to work. Fare paid
and no fees charged.
[21] During the great organization drive in the Chicago packing houses
in 1917-18, this method was used for several months in the large local
union of car builders and repairmen, fully 90 per cent. of whom, born in
Eastern Europe, were supposedly non-English-speaking. As a result they
acquired such confidence in their ability to use the language that they
dropped the customary practice of translating all their business into
several languages and took to using English only.
[22] The Miners, Building Laborers and several other unions are taking
the lead in this direction and are getting good results. Negroes are
joining their ranks in considerable numbers and are proving themselves
to be excellent union men.
XII
THE COMMISSARIAT--THE STRIKE COST
THE RELIEF ORGANIZATION--RATIONS--SYSTEM OF DISTRIBUTION
--COST OF COMMISSARIAT--STEEL STRIKE RELIEF FUND--COST OF
THE STRIKE TO THE WORKERS, THE EMPLOYERS, THE PUBLIC, THE
LABOR MOVEMENT
In all strikes the problem of keeping the wolf from the door is a
pressing one. Usually it is met by the unions involved paying regular
benefits of from $5.00 to $15.00 per week to each striker. But in the
steel strike this was out of the question.[23] The tremendous number of
men on strike and the scanty funds available utterly forbade it. To have
paid such benefits would have required the impossible sum of at least
$2,000,000 per week. Therefore, the best that could be done was to
assist those families on the brink of destitution by furnishing them
free that most basic of human necessities, food. Ordinarily in strikes
the main body of men are able to take care of themselves over an
extended period. The danger point is in the poverty-stricken minority.
From them come the hunger-driven scabs who so demoralize and discourage
the men still out. Hence, to take care of this weaker element was
scientifically to strengthen the steel strike, and to make the best use
of the resources available.
The great mass of strikers and their incomplete organization making it
manifestly impossible for each union to segregate and take care of its
own members, the internationals affiliated with the National Committee
(with the two exceptions noted) pooled their strike funds and formed a
joint commissariat.[24] They then proceeded to extend relief to all
needy strikers, regardless of their trades or callings, or even
membership or non-membership in the unions. To get relief all that was
necessary was to be a steel striker and in want. This splendid
solidarity and rapid modification of trade-union tactics and
institutions to meet an emergency is probably without a parallel in
American labor annals.
The commissariat was entirely under the supervision and direction of the
National Committee. Its national headquarters was in Pittsburgh, with a
sub-district in Chicago. Goods were shipped from these two points. In
Pittsburgh they were bought and handled through the Tri-State
Co-operative Association, with National Committee employees making up
the shipments. In Chicago the same was done through the National
Co-operative Association. As Bethlehem, Birmingham, Pueblo and a few
other strike-bound towns lay beyond convenient shipping distance from
the two distributing points, the men in charge there were sent checks
and they bought their supplies locally.
The General Director of the commissariat was Robert McKechan, business
manager of the Central States Wholesale Co-operative Association. He was
paid by the Illinois Miners, District No. 2. He was ably assisted by A.
V. Craig (Ass't. Director), Enoch Martin (Auditor--also paid by Illinois
miners), Wm. Orr (Warehouse Manager), and E. G. Craig. Secretary De
Young was in charge of the Chicago sub-district. The local distributing
centres were operated altogether by National Committee local secretaries
and volunteer strike committees, with an occasional paid assistant.
All told, 45 local commissaries were set up throughout the strike zone.
This elaborate organization was created and put in motion almost over
night. Within a week after Mr. McKechan arrived in Pittsburgh, he and
officials of the National Committee had devised the commissary
system--with hardly a precedent to go by,--organized its nation-wide
machinery, and started the first shipment _en route_ to the many strike
centres. To break in this machinery, a small pro rata of provisions,
based upon the number of men on strike, was sent to each place. The
following week this was doubled, and each succeeding week it was
increased to keep pace with the growing need. It finally developed into
a huge affair. Few strikers had to be turned away for lack of food, and
these only for a short while until the necessary additional stuff could
be secured from the shipping points. Throughout the fourteen weeks it
was in operation the commissariat, despite the tremendous difficulties
it had to contend with, worked with remarkable smoothness. It was one of
the greatest achievements of the entire steel campaign.
[Illustration: JOHN FITZPATRICK _Chairman, National Committee for
Organizing Iron and Steel Workers._]
The wide extent of the relief work made it necessary to develop the most
rigid simplicity and standardization in the apportionment of food to the
strikers. Hence, only two sizes of rations could be used; one for
families of five or less, and the other for families of six or more.
These were varied from time to time, always bearing in mind the cooking
facilities of the strikers and the many food likes and dislikes of the
various nationalities. To facilitate the carrying away of the food and
to make it last the better, two commissary days were held each week, in
each locality. The rations were listed on large posters (white for
families of five or less, and green for families of six or more) which
were prominently displayed in the local commissaries in order that the
strikers could see exactly how much provisions they were entitled to.
The following are typical rations:
FAMILIES OF FIVE OR LESS
First Half Week Second Half Week
Potatoes 15 lbs. Bread 4 loaves
Bread 4 loaves Tomatoes 1 can
Tomatoes 1 can Corn 1 can
Peas 1 can Peas 1 can
Navy beans 4 lbs. Red beans 4 lbs.
Oatmeal 1 box Kraut 2 cans
Bacon 1 lb. Dry salt meat 1 lb.
Coffee 1 lb. Syrup 1 can
Milk 1 can
FAMILIES OF SIX OR MORE
First Half Week Second Half Week
Potatoes 10 lbs. Potatoes 10 lbs.
Bread 5 loaves Bread 5 loaves
Tomatoes 1 can Tomatoes 1 can
Corn 1 can Corn 1 can
Peas 1 can Peas 1 can
Navy beans 5 lbs. Kraut 2 cans
Oatmeal 2 boxes Red beans 5 lbs.
Bacon 1 lb. Dry salt meat 1 lb.
Coffee 1 lb. Milk 1 can
Milk 1 can Syrup 1 can
It was not contended that these rations were enough to sustain
completely the recipients' families; but they helped mightily. Few, if
any, went hungry. Single men in need received a half week's rations to
last the week. The greatest care was taken to have the supplies of the
best quality and in good condition. Whatever the unions gave they wanted
the strikers to understand was in the best spirit of brotherly
solidarity.[25]
The provisions were distributed strictly according to the following card
system:
1. Identification card: An applicant requesting relief would be referred
to a credentialed volunteer relief committee. If this committee deemed
the case a needy one, it would issue the striker an identification card.
This he was required to show when dealing at the commissary.
2. Record card: In addition, the relief committee would write out the
data of the case upon a record card and turn it over to the local
secretary in charge of the commissary, who would keep it on file.
3. Commissary card: When the applicant presented his identification card
at the commissary, the local secretary, referring to the record card on
file, would make him out a commissary card, white or green, accordingly
as his family was of five or less, or six or more members. This
commissary card entitled him to draw supplies.
The commissary card had a stub attached. When a striker got his first
half week's supplies, this stub would be detached and retained by the
commissary clerk. Upon his next visit the body of the card would be
taken up. Two important purposes were served by this collection of the
commissary cards--rather than having permanent cards and merely punching
them. First, the canceled cards being sent to the commissariat national
headquarters, it proved conclusively that the strikers had actually
received the provisions shipped to the district; and second, by
compelling the strikers to get new commissary cards each week, it
enabled the local secretaries to keep in close touch with those on the
relief roll.
To lighten the load upon the many inexperienced men working in the
various commissaries, a special effort was made to do as much of the
technical work as possible in the main offices of the National
Committee. Otherwise the commissariat could not possibly have succeeded.
This consideration was a prime factor in restricting the buying of
provisions to Pittsburgh, Chicago and the fewest practical number of
outlying points. It also caused the adoption of the package system, all
bulk goods, except potatoes, being prepared for delivery before leaving
the warehouses. Likewise, the local bookkeeping was simplified to the
last degree. In fact, for the most part the secretaries in charge of the
commissaries hardly needed books at all. The whole system checked itself
from the central points.
As an example of its working, let us suppose that the allotment of a
certain town was 1000 rations. Accordingly, there would be shipped to
that place exactly enough of each article to precisely cover the
allotted number of rations. Then, if the secretary simply saw to it that
he got what he was charged with and issued his supplies carefully in the
right proportions, the whole transaction would balance to a pound, with
hardly a scratch of a pen from him. The bookkeeping was all done at the
general offices. The latter's assurances that each striker had received
his proper ration and that the right number of rations had been issued
were, in the first place, the ration posters hanging on the walls of the
commissary; and in the second, the returned canceled commissary cards.
Barring an occasional slight disruption from delayed shipments, spoiled
goods, shortages, and a little carelessness here and there, the system
worked very well.
The commissariat was in operation from October 26 until January 31,
three weeks after the strike had ended. It was continued through this
extra period in order to help to their feet the destitute strikers who
had fought so nobly. Probably nothing done by the unions in the entire
campaign won them so much good will with the steel workers as this one
act.
The total cost of operating the commissariat was $348,509.42. The
significance of this figure stands out when it is reduced to a per man
basis. At the strike's start there were 365,600 men out, and at its
finish about 100,000. Considering that few serious breaks occurred until
the eighth to tenth weeks, a fair average for the whole period would be
about 250,000. Accordingly, this would give (disregarding the three
weeks after January 8) a total relief cost of a fraction less than $1.40
per man for the entire fifteen weeks of the strike, or about one day's
strike benefits of an ordinary union. Reduced to a weekly basis, it
amounts to but 9-1/3 cents for each striker. Just how unusually small
this sum is may be judged from the fact that the International Molders'
Union paid the few men it had on strike regular benefits of $9.00 per
week after the first week. The fact is that, except for a small,
impoverished minority, the steel workers made their long, hard fight
virtually upon their own resources.[26]
To help finance the commissariat the American Federation of Labor was
requested to issue a general appeal for funds, which it did. Then, to
add force to this call, the National Committee recruited and put in the
field a corps of solicitors, including among others, Anton Johannson, J.
D. Cannon, J. W. Brown, J. G. Sause, Jennie Matyas and G. A. Gerber. At
a meeting in Madison Square Garden on November 8 a collection of
$150,000 was taken up. Many local unions, notably those of Altoona, Pa.,
gave half their local treasuries and assessed their members one day's
pay each. The Marine Engineers, local 33 of New York, contributed
$10,000; the International Fur Workers' Union $20,000; the International
Ladies Garment Workers' Union, $60,000; and the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers of America, $100,000. All these donations were highly
praiseworthy, but especially the last one mentioned, because the
organization making it is not affiliated to, nor even in good grace
with, the A. F. of L.
The total amount collected and turned over to the National Committee was
$418,141.14. This more than covered the entire cost of the commissariat,
leaving $69,631.42 to be applied to other expenses. Thus, taking them as
a whole, the co-operating international unions in the National Committee
were not required to pay a penny to the feeding of the strikers and
their families. The commissariat was a monument to the solidarity of
Labor generally with the embattled steel workers.
Naturally, the employers bitterly hated the commissaries. They sneered
at the quantity and quality of the food given out by them, and in many
places printed handbills in several languages advising the strikers to
go at once to union headquarters and demand strike benefits in cash. And
by the same token, the strikers held the commissaries in high esteem.
The foreign-born among them especially, would stand around watching
with never-ceasing wonder and enthusiasm the stream of men and women
coming forth laden with supplies. To them there was something sacred
about the food. Many of them in desperate circumstances had to be
practically compelled to accept it; not because they felt themselves
objects of charity, but because they thought others needed help worse
than they. They conceived the whole thing as a living demonstration of
the solidarity of labor. The giving of the food produced an effect upon
their morale far better than could have come from the distribution of
ten times its value in money. The commissariat enormously strengthened
the strikers. Without it the strike would have collapsed many weeks
before it did. Unions in future great walkouts will do well to study the
steel strike commissary plan.
* * * * *
Strikes, even the smallest, affect so many people in so many ways that
it is difficult under the best of circumstances to compile accurate data
upon their cost. In the case of the steel strike it is next to
impossible to do so. The great number of steel companies and the armies
of men involved; the wide scope of the strike; the condition of outlawry
in many steel districts; the fact that the strike was lost; the workers'
numerous nationalities and imperfection of organization--all these and
various other factors make it exceedingly difficult, at least at this
early date, to give more than a hint of the strike's cost.
In the steel strike, as in all others, the burden of suffering fell to
the workers' lot. To win their cause they gave freely of their lives,
liberty, blood and treasure. A poll of the National Committee local
secretaries yields the following list of strike dead:
Buffalo 2
Chicago 1
Cleveland 1
Farrell 4
Hammond 4
Newcastle 2
Pittsburgh 1
West Natrona 2
Wheeling 1
Youngstown 2
--
Total 20
The killed were all on the strikers' side, except two. The above list
properly includes Mrs. Fannie Sellins. But it does not include the
scores of scabs who, because of their own or other incompetent workers'
ineptness, were roasted, crushed to death, or torn to pieces in the
dangerous steel-making processes during the strike. Although the steel
companies were exceedingly alert in suppressing the names of these
ignoble victims to their greed, it is a well-known fact that there were
many of them. There was hardly a big mill anywhere that did not have
several to its account.
How many hundreds of strikers were seriously injured by being clubbed
and shot will never be known, because most of them, especially in
Pennsylvania, healed themselves as best they might. With good grounds
they feared that disclosing their injuries to doctors would lead to
their arrest upon charges of rioting. The number of arrested strikers
ran into the thousands. But so orderly were the strikers that few
serious charges could be brought against them. They were jailed in
droves and fined heavily mostly for minor "offenses." Except in Butler,
Pa., where a score of strikers were arrested for stopping a car of scabs
on the way to work (framed-up by the State Police) and sent to the
penitentiary, no strikers anywhere in the whole strike zone received
heavy jail sentences. Considering the terrific provocations offered the
men and the extreme eagerness with which the courts punished them, this
remarkable record is an eloquent testimonial to their orderliness.[27]
Of course, the companies did not neglect to avail themselves of the
heartless blacklist. Just now hundreds of their former employees, denied
work and forced to break up their homes and leave town, are
criss-crossing the country looking for opportunities to make new starts
in life.
As for the cost to the strikers in wages, the Philadelphia _Public
Ledger_ of January 10, two days after the strike was called off, carried
a special telegram from Pittsburgh, stating (authority not quoted) that
the wage loss in that district was $48,005,060.35, specified as
follows:
Clarksburg, W. Va. $310,000.00
Wheeling District 6,100,000.00
Donora 1,200,000.00
Steubenville dist. 2,260,000.00
Youngstown 15,500,000.00
Monessen 2,660,000.00
Brackenridge 450,000.00
New Kensington 375,000.00
McKeesport 597,869.00
Port Vue 900,000.00
Sharon-Farrell 1,250,000.00
New Castle 705,000.00
Homestead 737,840.00
Duquesne 55,030.00
Johnstown 5,712,321.35
Ellwood City 35,000.00
Butler 1,450,000.00
Aliquippa 10,000.00
Pittsburgh 5,715,000.00
Sharpsburg, Ætna 435,000.00
Vandergrift 357,000.00
Clairton 165,000.00
Rankin 375,000.00
Braddock 650,000.00
To the above, the New York _Herald_ of January 12 editorially adds an
estimate of $39,000,000 for steel districts other than Pittsburgh,
making a grand total of $87,000,000 as the strikers' wage loss. But
these figures, bearing the earmarks of Steel Trust origin, are too low.
On the basis of the minimum figures of an average of 250,000 strikers
for 90 working days (actual strike length 108 days) at $5.00 per day per
man, we arrive at a total of $112,500,000.00, or $450.00 per average
striker. Doubtless these figures are also too low, but they will serve
to indicate the tremendous sums of money the already poverty-stricken
steel workers were willing to sacrifice in order to change the
conditions which Mr. Gary so glowingly paints as ideal.
The loss to the steel companies must have been enormous. Without doubt
it runs into several hundred millions of dollars. The items going to
make up this huge bill are many and at this time impossible of accurate
estimate. There must have been not only a complete cessation of profits
during the strike period, but also a vast outlay of money to finance the
strike-breaking measures, such as maintaining scores of thousands of
gunmen to guard the plants; paying rich graft to employment offices and
detective agencies for recruiting armies of scabs, who, receiving high
strike wages, idled for weeks around the plants, shooting craps, playing
cards, pitching quoits, and absolutely refusing to work; keeping on the
payroll great staffs of office workers with nothing to do, and high paid
skilled workers doing the work of common laborers; corrupting police and
court officials to give the strikers the worst of it, etc., etc.
Besides, there should be added the cost of repairing the great injuries
done the furnaces by their sudden shutting down, this item alone
amounting to many millions of dollars. But a more important factor than
all, perhaps, in counting the cost of the strike to the companies was
the serious injury done to their wonderful producing organization by the
permanent loss of thousands of competent men who have quitted the
industry; the dislocation of many thousands more from jobs for which
they were well fitted and the substitution in their places of green men;
the lowering of the men's morale generally, due to disappointment and
bitterness at the loss of the strike, etc. We may depend upon it that
the companies, following out their policy of minimizing the strike's
effects, will so juggle their financial and tonnage statements as to
make it impossible for years to figure out what it really cost them, if
it can ever be done.
The cost to the people at large is indicated by the New York Sun, quoted
by the _Literary Digest_, January 31, 1920, as follows:
There was the loss to the railroads not only in freights
from the steel plants, but in freights from general mills
and factories which, failing to get their steel supplies,
could not maintain their production and fulfill their own
deliveries. There was the loss in wages in such mills and
factories due to that failure to get their material on which
their wage-earners could work. There was the loss in such
communities to trade folk whose customers thus had their
spending power reduced by the steel strike.--Hence this loss
of steel tonnage begins at once to widen until the loss
eventually could be figured in the billions.
For the privilege of having an autocracy in the steel industry the
American people pay not only huge costs in unearned dividends each year,
but also, occasionally, such monster special charges as the above.
Garyism is an expensive luxury.
The foregoing figures and statements merely serve to point out the
immensity of the steel strike by indicating its approximate cost to the
strikers, the steel companies, and the public. Admittedly they are but
loose estimates, based upon scanty data. Absolute accuracy is not
claimed for them. The expenditures of the labor movement in the campaign
can be more closely calculated, although they, too, are far from
definite. They fall into three general classes: (1) those by the general
office of the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers;
(2) those by the A. F. of L. and co-operating international steel trades
unions not through the office of the National Committee; (3) those by
local steel workers' councils and unions from their own treasuries. Of
these the latter may be eliminated as impossible of estimation, there
being so many local organizations involved and the after-strike
conditions so unfavorable to statistics gathering. They were a minor
element of expense compared to the other two, which we will try to
approximate as closely as may be.
1. From the beginning of the steel campaign, August 1, 1918, until
January 31, 1920, the total net disbursements of the National Committee
for all purposes, after making deductions for refunds, transfers, etc.,
amounted to $525,702.72. This stretch of time may be divided into two
parts: (a), Organizing period, from August 1, 1918, until September 22,
1919--during which time virtually all the 250,000 men enrolled in the
campaign (see end of Chapter VII) had joined the unions; (b), Strike
period, from September 22, 1919, until January 31, 1920--during which
time the heavy special strike expenses were incurred. This period is
extended three weeks past the date of the strike's close, because the
commissariat was still in operation and other important strike expenses
were going on.
The total net disbursements made by the National Committee during the
organizing period were $73,139.66, which amounts to a small fraction
over 29 cents for each of the 250,000 men organized. The total net
disbursements of the National Committee during the strike period were
$452,563.06, or $1.81 for each of the 250,000 average strikers. Adding
these two figures together gives $2.10 as the cost to the National
Committee of organizing each steel worker and taking care of him during
the whole strike.
2. The disbursements of the National Committee covered general
organizing and strike expenses, such as commissary, legal, rent,
printing, salaries, etc. The A. F. of L. and the co-operating
international unions also incurred heavy expenses upon their own
account, whose chief items were for keeping organizers in the field,
paying strike benefits, and making lump donations to strike-bound local
unions. At this date these expenditures may be only approximated.
For the above bodies almost the sole expense during the organizing
period was for maintaining organizers. Forty would be a fair average of
the number of these men actually kept at the steel industry work. In the
earlier part of the campaign the number was far less; in the later part,
considerably more. The cost of maintaining them per month may be set at
not more than $400.00 each, for salaries and general expenses. Thus, for
the 13-3/4 months of the organizing period the expense to the A. F. of
L. and co-operating unions for this item would be about $220,000, or 88
cents per man organized. This is a top figure.
During the strike period, on an average, 75 organizers were kept in the
field by these bodies. Due to increases in wages, etc., their upkeep
should be calculated at about $500.00 per month each. For 4-1/4 months,
September 22 to January 31, our strike period, this would amount to
$159,375. To this should be added $100,000, which according to reports
received approximates what the organizations paid in strike benefits and
donations direct to their strikers and not through the office of the
National Committee. This would make their total expenditures for the
strike period $259,375, or slightly less than $1.04 per striker. Adding
together the amounts for the organizing period and the strike period, we
arrive at a grand total of $479,375, or $1.92 per man, spent during the
entire campaign by the A. F. of L. and co-operating internationals.
The figures for the A. F. of L. and co-operating internationals are
estimates,--the constant shifting of organizers during the campaign,
their widely varying rates of pay, etc., making accuracy impossible. But
from my knowledge of what went on I will venture that the figures cited
are close enough to the reality to give a fair conception of this class
of expenditures.
Combining the National Committee expenditures with those of the A. F. of
L. and co-operating unions, we arrive at the following totals:
ORGANIZING PERIOD:
_Expenditures_ _Per Man_
By Nat. Com. $ 73,139.66 $.29
By A. F. L. & Unions 220,000.00 .88
------------------------- -------------
Total cost of organizing work $293,139.66 $1.17
STRIKE PERIOD:
By Nat. Com. $452,563.06 $1.81
By A. F. L. & Unions 259,375.00 1.04
------------------------- ------------
Total cost of strike $711,938.06 $2.85
WHOLE CAMPAIGN:
Total cost to Nat. Com., ------------------------- ------------
A. F. L. & Unions $1,005,007.72 $4.02
In order to approximate more closely the actual cost of the campaign to
the A. F. of L. and the twenty-four co-operating internationals forming
the National Committee, the total of $479,375, figured in a previous
paragraph as their independent expenditures, must be increased by
$101,047.52, the amount they contributed directly to the National
Committee for organizing and for strike expenses during the course of
the campaign;[28] making a grand total outlay for them of $580,422.52.
This in turn should be reduced by $118,451.23, the amount in the
National Committee treasury on January 31, 1920. Against the remaining
$461,971.29 must be checked off what the steel workers paid into these
organizations in initiation fees and dues.
Inasmuch as the co-operating internationals received directly $1.00 to
$2.00 (mostly the latter) from the initiation fees of the approximately
250,000 steel workers signed up during the campaign, not to speak of
thousands of dollars in per capita tax from armies of dues payers over a
period of many months, it is safe to say that their net outlay of
$461,971.29 would be nearly if not altogether offset by their income. It
is true that some of the organizations, like the Miners and the A. F. of
L. itself made large expenditures, with little return; and that others,
like the Structural Iron Workers, broke about even; while the
Amalgamated Association put a huge sum in its treasury. All things
considered, taking the twenty-four organizations as a whole, one is not
much wrong in saying that so far as their national treasuries were
concerned, the great movement of the steel workers, including the
organizing campaign and the strike, was, financially speaking, just
about self-sustaining.
Was the steel strike, then, worth the great suffering and expenditure of
effort that it cost the steel workers? I say yes; even though it failed
to accomplish the immediate objects it had in view. No strike is ever
wholly lost. Even the least effective of them serve the most useful
purpose of checking the employers' exploitation. They are a protection
to the workers' standards of life. Better by far a losing fight than
none at all. An unresisting working class would soon find itself on a
rice diet. But the steel strike has done more than serve merely as a
warning that the limit of exploitation has been reached; it has given
the steel workers a confidence in their ability to organize and to fight
effectively, which will eventually inspire them on to victory. This
precious result alone is well worth all the hardships the strike cost
them.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] Exceptions to this were the cases of the Molders' and Coopers'
Unions. These organizations were compelled by constitutional
requirements to pay regular strike benefits. But they included only a
very small percentage of the total number of strikers.
[24] The commissariat was suggested by John Fitzpatrick, as a result of
his experiences in the Chicago Garment Workers' strike of a decade ago.
[25] In addition to the regular commissaries, the local organizations,
grace to their own funds or occasional donations from their
international unions, had relief enterprises of various sorts, such as
soup kitchens, milk, clothes, rent and sickness funds. In Monessen and
Donora the strikers actually served a big turkey dinner on Thanksgiving
Day. Strikers paid five cents a plate for all they wished to eat.
Sympathizers donated liberally according to their means. But the
commissary system was the main source of strike relief.
[26] It is true, as noted above, that several other unions besides the
Molders and Coopers made occasional contributions to their strike-bound
locals, but when measured against the vast armies of strikers, these
funds dwindled almost into insignificance.
[27] This was largely because the men were sober. In fact, prohibition
helped the steel campaign in several important respects; (1) because
having no saloons to drown their troubles in, the workers, clear-headed,
attended the union meetings and organized more readily; (2) when the
strike came they did not waste their few pennies on liquor and then run
back to work in the old way; they bought food with them and stayed on
strike; (3) being sober, they were the better able to avoid useless
violence and to conduct their strike effectively.
[28] This sum represents the actual cash given by these affiliated
organizations directly to the National Committee throughout the entire
movement. It divides itself as follows:
Blacksmiths $ 6,273.28
Boilermakers 10,448.92
Bricklayers 4,199.05
P. & S. Iron Workers 7,335.78
Coopers 907.76
Electrical Workers 6,138.80
Engineers 100.00
Firemen 2,395.53
Foundry Employees 1,030.51
Hod Carriers 1,350.00
Iron, Steel and Tin Workers 11,881.81
Machinists 16,622.33
Mine, Mill, Smelter Workers 3,583.53
Mine Workers 2,600.00
Molders 4,199.05
Pattern Makers 615.52
Plumbers 2,581.04
Quarry Workers 412.50
Railway Carmen 10,448.30
Seamen 3,081.04
Switchmen 4,115.52
Sheet Metal Workers 100.00
Steam Shovelmen 627.25
-----------
Total $101,047.52
XIII
PAST MISTAKES AND FUTURE PROBLEMS
LABOR'S LACK OF CONFIDENCE--INADEQUATE EFFORTS--NEED OF
ALLIANCE WITH MINERS AND RAILROADERS--RADICAL LEADERSHIP AS
A STRIKE ISSUE--MANUFACTURING REVOLUTIONS--STRIKES:
RAILROAD SHOPMEN, BOSTON POLICE, MINERS, RAILROAD YARD AND
ROAD MEN--DEFECTION OF AMALGAMATED ASSOCIATION
In preceding chapters I have said much about the injustices visited upon
the steel workers by the steel companies and their minions; the mayors,
burgesses, police magistrates, gunmen, State Police, Senate Committees,
etc. But let there be no mistake. I do not blame the failure of the
strike upon these factors. I put the responsibility upon the shoulders
of Organized Labor. Had it but stirred a little the steel workers would
have won their battle, despite all the Steel Trust could do to prevent
it.
By this I mean no harsh criticism. On the contrary, I am the first to
assert that the effort put forth in the steel campaign was wonderful,
far surpassing anything ever done in the industry before, and marking a
tremendous advance in trade-union tactics. Yet it was not enough, and it
represented only a fraction of the power the unions should and could
have thrown into the fight. The organization of the steel industry
should have been a special order of business for the whole labor
movement. But unfortunately it was not. The big men of Labor could not
be sufficiently awakened to its supreme importance to induce them to sit
determinedly into the National Committee meetings and to give the
movement the abundant moral and financial backing so essential to its
success. Official pessimism, bred of thirty years of trade-union failure
in the steel industry, hung like a mill-stone about the neck of the
movement in all its stages.
At the very outset this pessimism and lack of faith dealt the movement a
fatal blow. When the unions failed to follow the original plan of the
campaign (outlined in Chapter III) to throw a large crew of organizers
into the field at the beginning and thus force a settlement with the
steel companies during war time, as they could easily have done, they
made a monumental blunder, one for which Organized Labor will pay
dearly. Notwithstanding all their best efforts in the long, bitter
organizing campaign and the great strike, the organizers could not
overcome its effects. It was a lost opportunity that unquestionably cost
the unionization of the steel industry.
And the same pessimism which caused this original deadly mistake made
itself felt all through the steel campaign, by so restricting the
resources furnished the National Committee as to practically kill all
chance of success. Probably no big modern trade-union organizing
campaign and strike has been conducted upon such slender means.
Considering the great number of men involved, the viciousness of the
opposition and the long duration of the movement (18 months), the
figure cited in the previous chapter as covering the general expenses,
$1,005,007.72, is unusually low. It amounts to but $4.02 per man, or
hardly a half week's strike benefits for each. Compared to the sums
spent in other industrial struggles, it is proportionally insignificant.
For example, in the great coal miners' strike in Colorado, begun
September 23, 1913, and ended December 10, 1914, the United Mine Workers
are authoritatively stated to have spent about $5,000,000.00 As there
were on an average about 12,000 strikers, this would make the cost
somewhere about $400.00 per man involved. And in those days a dollar was
worth twice as much as during the steel strike. Had a fraction of such
amounts been available to the steel workers they would have made
incomparably a better fight.
The unions affiliated with the National Committee have at least two
million members. Even if they had spent outright the total sum required
to carry on the organizing campaign and strike it would not have
strained them appreciably. But they did not spend it, nor any
considerable part of it. In the previous chapter we have seen that with
donations from the labor movement at large, and initiation fees and dues
paid in by the steel workers, the movement was virtually self-sustaining
as far as the co-operating unions were concerned--taking them as a
whole. Now, in the next campaign, all that must be different. The unions
will have to put some real money in the fight. Then they may win it.
When I say that there was a shortage of resources in the steel campaign
I include particularly organizers from the respective international
unions. Of these there were not half enough. Often the National
Committee had to beg for weeks to have a man sent in to organize a local
union, the members for which it had already enrolled. Hundreds of local
unions suffered and many a one perished outright for want of attention.
Whole districts had to be neglected, with serious consequences when the
strike came.
Moreover, the system used by many internationals in handling their
organizers was wrong. They controlled them from their several general
headquarters, shifting them around or pulling them out of the work
without regard to the needs of the campaign as a whole. This tended to
create a loose, disjointed, undisciplined, inefficient organizing force.
It was indefensible. Now, in the next drive there are two systems which
might be used. (1) The international unions could definitely delegate a
certain number of organizers to the campaign and put them entirely under
the direction of the National Committee. This was the plan followed by
the A. F. of L., the Miners, and the Railway Carmen. It worked well and
tended to produce a homogeneous, well-knit, controllable, efficient
organizing force. (2) The organizers definitely assigned to the steel
campaign by the internationals could be formed into crews, each crew to
be controlled by one man and charged with looking after the needs of its
particular trade. The Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, Machinists, and
Electrical Workers used this system to some extent. A series of such
crews, working vertically along craft lines while the National
Committee men worked horizontally along industrial lines, would greatly
strengthen the general movement. When the strike came it would not only
be an industrial strike but twenty-four intensified craft strikes as
well. Of the two systems, the first is probably the better, and the
second, because of the individualism of the unions, the more practical.
Either of them is miles superior to the plan of controlling the field
organizers from a score of headquarters knowing very little of the real
needs of the situation.
But more than men and money, the steel workers in their great fight
lacked practical solidarity from closely related trades. In their
semi-organized condition they were unable to withstand alone the
terrific power of the Steel Trust, backed by the mighty capitalistic
organizations which rushed to its aid. They needed from their organized
fellow workers help in the same liberal measure as Mr. Gary received
from those on his side. And help adequate to the task could have come
only by extending the strike beyond the confines of the steel industry
proper.
When the steel unions end their present educational campaign and launch
the next big drive to organize the steel workers (which should be in a
year or two) they ought to be prepared to meet the formidable employer
combinations sure to be arrayed against them by opposing to them still
more formidable labor combinations. The twenty-four unions should by
then be so allied with the miners' and railroad men's organizations that
should it come to a strike these two powerful groups of unions would
rally to their aid and paralyse the steel industry completely by
depriving it of those essentials without which it cannot operate, fuel
and rail transportation. How effective such assistance would be was well
indicated by the speedy and wholesale shutting down of steel mills,
first during the general strike of bituminous miners in November and
December of 1919, and then during the "outlaw" railroad strike in April,
1920. With such a combination of allied steel, mine and railroad workers
confronting them, there is small likelihood that the steel companies (or
the public at large) would consider the question of the steel workers'
right to organize of sufficient importance to fight about. Mr. Gary
might then be brought to a realization that this is not Czarist Russia,
and that the men in his mills must be granted their human rights.
That the miners and railroaders have sufficient interests at stake to
justify their entrance into such a combination no union man of heart
will attempt to deny. Not to speak of the general duty of all unionists
to extend help to brothers in trouble, the above-mentioned groups have
the most powerful reasons of their own to work for the organization of
the steel industry. The United States Steel Corporation and so-called
"independent" steel mills are the stronghold of industrial autocracy in
America. Every union in the labor movement directly suffers their evil
effects in lower wages, longer hours and more difficult struggles for
the right to organize than they otherwise would have. No union will be
safe until these mills are under the banner of Organized Labor. Beyond
question the organization of the steel workers would tremendously
benefit the miners and railroaders. The latter cannot possibly do too
much to assist in bringing it about. It is their own fight.
For the miners and railroad men to join forces with the steel workers
would mean no new departure in trade-unionism. It would be merely
proceeding in harmony with the natural evolution constantly taking place
in the labor movement. For instance, to go no further than the two
industries in question, it is only a few years since the miners
negotiated agreements and struck, district by district. Even though one
section walked out, the rest would remain at work. And as for the
railroaders, they followed a similar plan upon the basis of one craft or
one system. Each unit of the two industries felt itself to be virtually
a thing apart from all the others when it came to common action against
the employers. It was the heyday of particularism, of craft unionism
complete. And anyone who did not think the system represented the acme
of trade-union methods was considered a crank. But both groups of
organizations are fast getting away from such infantile practices. We
now find the miners striking all over the country simultaneously, and
the railroad men rigging up such wide-spreading combinations among
themselves that soon a grievance of a section hand in San Diego,
California will be the grievance of an engineer in Bangor, Maine. The
man who would advocate a return to the old method of each for himself
and the devil take the hindmost would be looked upon today, to say the
least, with grave suspicion.
During the recent steel strike the National Committee tried to arrange a
joint meeting with the officials of the miners and railroad brotherhoods
to see if some assistance, moral if nothing else, could be secured for
the steel workers. But nothing came of it. In the next big drive,
however, these powerful organizations should be allied with the steel
workers and prepared to give them active assistance if necessary. And in
the tuning and timing of movements to permit of such a condition, so
that no lots, legal or contractual, need be cut across, there are
involved no technical problems which a little initiative and
far-sightedness on the part of the labor men in control could not
readily overcome.
In order to cover up their own inveterate opposition to Organized Labor
in all its forms and activities, and to blind the workers to the real
cause of the defeat, namely lack of sufficient power on the employees'
side, great employing interests caused to be spread over the whole
country the statement that the steel strike failed because of radical
leadership, and that if such "dangerous" men as John Fitzpatrick and
myself had not been connected with it everything would have been lovely.
They were especially severe against me for my "evil" influence on the
strike. But somehow their propaganda did not seem to strike root among
labor men, especially those who were backing the steel campaign. The
workers are getting too keen these days to let the enemy tell them who
shall or shall not be their officials; and when they see one of these
officials made the target of bitter attack from such notorious interests
as the Steel Trust they are much inclined to feel that he is probably
giving them a square deal.
As for myself, and I know John Fitzpatrick took the same position
regarding himself, I was willing to resign my position on the National
Committee the very instant it was indicated by those associated with me
that my presence was injuring the movement. I felt that to be my duty.
But to the last, that indication never came. When I finally resigned as
Secretary-Treasurer on January 31, it was entirely of my own volition.
The avalanche of vituperation and personal abuse was started several
months before the strike, when a traitor labor paper in Pittsburgh (one
of the stripe which lives by knifing strikes and active unionists for
the employers) published articles containing quotations from the "red
book," and the other stuff later bruited about in the daily press. To
hear this sheet tell it, the revolution was at hand. Immediately after
the articles appeared I sent copies to the presidents of all the
twenty-four co-operating unions, with the result that almost all of
these officials wrote me, advising that I pay no attention to these
attacks, but continue with my work. They seemed to consider it something
of a compliment to be so bitterly assailed from such a quarter. Again,
at the very moment when President Gompers was dictating his letter to
Judge Gary asking for a conference (long after the above-mentioned
attacks) I stated that possibly too much prominence for me in the
movement might attract needless opposition to it and I offered to resign
from the conference committee which handled all negotiations concerning
the steel strike. But my objections were over-ruled and I was continued
on the committee. Moreover, at any time in the campaign a word from the
executive officers of the A. F. of L. would have brought about my
resignation. This they were aware of for months before the strike. All
of which indicates that the men responsible for the organizations in the
movement were satisfied that it was being carried on according to
trade-union principles, and also that in consideration of the Steel
Trust's murderous tactics in the past it was a certainty that if the
opposition had not taken the specific form it did, it would have
manifested itself in some other way as bad or worse. It was to be
depended upon that some means would have been found to thoroughly
discredit the movement.
This conviction was intensified by the unexampled fury with which each
important move of Labor during the past year has been opposed, not only
by employers but by governmental officials as well. All through the war
the moneyed interests watched with undisguised alarm and hatred the
rapid advance of the unions; but they were powerless to stop it. Now,
however, they are getting their revenge. The usual method of defeating
such movements during this period of white terrorism is to attach some
stigma to them; to question the legitimacy of their aims, and then, when
the highly organized and corrupted press has turned public sentiment
against them, to crush them by the most unscrupulous means. It makes no
difference how mild or ordinary the movement is, some issue is always
found to poison public opinion against it.
The first important body of workers to feel the weight of this
opposition was the railroad shopmen. The Railroad Administration having
dilly-dallied along with their demands for several months, these
under-paid workers, goaded on by the mounting cost of living, finally
broke into an unauthorized strike in the early summer of 1919. This
almost destroyed the organizations. Officials who ought to know declared
that at one time over 200,000 men were out. Naturally the press roundly
denounced them as Bolsheviki. Upon a promise of fair treatment they
returned to work. When the matter finally came to President Wilson for
settlement, he declared that to raise wages would be contrary to the
Government's policy of reducing the cost of living, and requested that
the demands be held in abeyance. This statement was a Godsend to all the
reactionary elements, who used it to break up wage movements everywhere.
Thus came to grief the effort of the shopmen. Up to May, 1920, they have
secured no relief whatsoever.
Next came the affair of the Boston police in September, 1919. This
developed from an effort of typically conservative policemen to
organize. The strike was deliberately forced by the action of State
politicians, inspired by big business, in cold-bloodedly discharging a
number of the officers of the new union and stubbornly refusing to
re-instate them. When the inevitable strike occurred they labelled it
not merely an attempted revolution, but a blow at the very foundations
of civilization. The press did the rest. The strike was buried beneath a
deluge of abuse, misrepresentation and vilification.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF ORGANIZERS
Standing, left to right: W. Searl, F. Wilson, A. V. Craig, M.
Mestrovich, E. Martin, J. M. Peters, R. W. Beattie, J. Moskus, S.
Coates, J. Manley, _Striker_, T. A. Harris, E. O. Gunther, B. J. Damich,
_Striker_, C. Foley, M. Bellam, T. A. Daley, _Striker_, W. Z. Foster.
Seated, left to right: J. Lenahan, F. J. Sweek, J. Klinsky, F.
Wiernicki, I. Liberti, A. DeVerneuil, C. Claherty, J. N. Aten, J. W.
Hendricks, S. Rokosz, R. W. Reilly, J. A. Norrington, F. Kurowsky, J. G.
Brown, G. W. Troutman, J. E. McCadden, W. Murphy, S. T. Hammersmark.]
Then came the coal miners in November, 1919. During the war this body
of men sent fully 60,000 members to the front in France. They bought
untold amounts of liberty bonds and worked faithfully to keep the
industries in operation. But no sooner did they make demand for some of
the freedom which they thought they had won in the war than they found
themselves crowded into a strike, and their conservative, old-line,
trade-union leaders harshly assailed as revolutionists. For instance,
said Senator Pomerene:[29]
Years ago the American spirit was startled because a
Vanderbilt had said, "The public be damned." But Vanderbilt
seems to have no patent on the phrase, or if he had it is
being infringed today by men who have as little regard for
the public welfare as he himself had. There is no difference
in kind between him and a Foster, who, aided by the extreme
Socialist and I. W. W. classes of the country, aims to
enlist under his leadership all the iron and steel workers
of a nation and to paralyze industry, or a Lewis (President
of the United Mine Workers of America), who, to further his
own ambitions, aided as he was by the same elements, calls
400,000 men out of the mines and says to the public, "Freeze
or starve."
The Government condemned the strike as "unjustifiable and unlawful" and
invoked against it the so-called Lever law. This law, a war measure
against food and fuel profiteers, was, when up for adoption, distinctly
stated by its author, Representative Lever, and by Attorney General
Gregory, as not applying to workers striking for better conditions.[30]
Moreover, since the armistice it had fallen into disuse,--as far as
employers were concerned; but upon the strength of it the miners' strike
was outlawed, Federal Judge Anderson issuing an injunction which
commanded the union officials to rescind the strike order and to refuse
all moral and financial assistance to the strikers. Rarely has a labor
union found itself in so difficult a situation. The only thing that
saved the miners from a crushing defeat was their splendid organization
and strategic position in industry. On November 11, after the union
officials had agreed to rescind the strike order, the Philadelphia
_Public Ledger_ expressed an opinion widely held when it said:
The truth of the matter is that we all "got it wrong" on
this coal situation. This is the time to say in entire
frankness that _the Government handled the situation with
the tact, timeliness and conciliatory spirit of a German war
governor jack-booting a Belgium town into docility_.
And now we have the unauthorized strike of the Railroad yard and road
men; this is clearly an outbreak of workers exasperated on the one hand
by a constantly increasing cost of living, and on the other by dilatory
methods of affording relief. The orthodox tactics are being employed to
break it. The Lever law, disinterred from the legislative graveyard to
beat the miners, has been galvanized into life again and is being used
to jail the strike leaders. This is not all, however. Probably there
never was a big strike in this country more spontaneous and unplanned
than the one in question. But that does not worry our Department of
Justice; it has just announced to a credulous world that the whole
affair is a highly organized plot to overthrow the Government. Within
the hour I write this (on April 15) I read in the papers that I have
been singled out by Attorney-General Palmer as one of the strike
leaders. Eight-column headlines flare out the charge, "PALMER BLAMES
FOSTER FOR RAIL STRIKE," etc.[31]
To Mr. Palmer's "penny dreadful" plot, the local newspapers add lying
details of their own. The Pittsburgh _Leader_, for instance, recites _in
extenso_ how I returned from the West in disguise to Pittsburgh several
days ago--presumably after a trip plotting with Mr. Palmer's wonderful
revolutionaries, who not only can bring whole industries to a standstill
by a wave of the hand, but can do it in such a manner that although many
thousands of workers are "in the know" the Department of Justice never
gets to hear about it until the strikes have occurred.
Now the fact is that I have been so busy writing this book that I have
hardly stirred from the house for weeks. Since the steel strike ended I
have not been beyond the environs of Pittsburgh. Moreover, I do not know
a solitary one of the men advertised as strike leaders, nor has there
been any communication whatsoever between us. I have not attended any
strike meetings, nor have I even seen a man whom I knew to be a striker.
But of course such details are irrelevant to the Department of Justice
and the newspapers. The latter boldly announce that it is officially
hoped that Mr. Palmer's charges will stampede the men back to work.[32]
In fact that is their aim. These charges are a strike-breaking measure,
pure and simple, and have no necessary relation to truth.[33]
Similar instances might be multiplied to illustrate the extreme
virulence of the attacks on Labor in late struggles--how the press
manufactured the general strikes in Seattle and Winnipeg into young
revolutions; and how even when Mr. Gompers announced some time back that
the American Federation of Labor would continue its customary political
policy of "rewarding its friends and punishing its enemies," the scheme
was denounced in influential quarters as an attempt to capture the
Government and set up a dictatorship of the proletariat. But enough. The
steel strike was a drive straight at the heart of industrial autocracy
in America; it could expect to meet with nothing less than the most
desperate and unscrupulous resistance. If the issue used against the
strike had not been the charge of radical leadership, we may rest
assured there would have been another "just as good." The next movement
will have to win by its own strength, rather than by the vagaries of a
newspaper-created public opinion.
But a far more pressing problem even than any of those touched upon in
the foregoing paragraphs is the one involved in the attitude of the
Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers toward the steel
campaign. This organization withdrew from the National Committee
immediately after the strike was called off, and it has apparently
abandoned trying, at least for the time being, to organize the big steel
mills. Thus the whole campaign is brought to the brink of ruin, because
the Amalgamated Association has jurisdiction over about 50 per cent. of
the workers in the mills, including all the strategic steel-making
trades, without whose support the remainder cannot possibly win. Unless
it can be brought back to the fold, the joint movement of the trades in
the steel industry will almost certainly be broken up, to the great glee
of Mr. Gary and his associates.
This action was in logical sequence to the position taken through the
campaign by several of the Amalgamated Association's general officers.
From the beginning, they considered the movement with pessimism, often
with hostility. It received scant co-operation from them. As related in
Chapter VI, they tried to get a settlement with the U. S. Steel
Corporation right in the teeth of the general movement; and their
financial support was meager, to say the least.[34] For a few weeks
during the strike movement, when victory seemed near, they displayed
some slight enthusiasm; but this soon wore off and they adopted a policy
of "saving what they could." They were exceedingly anxious to call off
the strike many weeks before its close, and went about the country
discouraging the men and advising them to return to work. And even
worse, they attempted to make separate settlements with the steel
companies. The following proposed agreement, presented to (and refused
by) the Bethlehem Steel Corporation at Sparrows' Point when the strike
was not yet two months old, tells its own story:
November 19th, 1919.
Agreement entered into between the Bethlehem Steel Company
of Sparrows' Point, Maryland, and its employees, governing
wages and conditions in the Sheet and Tin mills, and Tin
House Department.
1. It is agreed that the wages and conditions agreed upon
between the Western Sheet and Tin Plate Manufacturers'
Association and the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel
and Tin Workers, as agreed upon in the Atlantic City
Conference, June, 1919, will be the prices and conditions
paid to the employees in the above-mentioned departments.
2. That the company will also agree to the re-instatement of
all their former employees, such as seek employment without
any discrimination.
3. The above Agreement to expire June 30th, 1920.
During the strike the general officers of the Amalgamated Association
never tired of telling how sacred they considered their contracts with
the employers, and did not hesitate to jeopardize the strike by living
up to them most strictly. But when it came to their obligations to the
other trades it was a different story. They well knew, when they tried
to make separate settlements with the U. S. Steel and Bethlehem
Companies, that they were violating solemn agreements which they had
entered into with the other trades in the industry, not to speak of
fundamental principles of labor solidarity.
The national officials in question looked with undisguised jealousy upon
the growth to importance of other unions in the industry where their own
organization had operated alone so long. They lost no love on the
National Committee. In fact more than one of their number seemed to take
particular delight in placing obstructions in its way. If they wanted
to see the steel industry organized they certainly showed it in a
peculiar manner. A goodly share of my time--not to speak of that of
others--was spent plugging the holes which they punched through the
dike. And apparently they always had the hearty support of their fellow
officers. It is only fair to say, however, that the lesser officials and
the rank and file of the Amalgamated Association strongly favored the
National Committee movement and gave it their loyal cooperation.
As a justification for the Amalgamated Association officials' action in
quitting the joint campaign, word is being sent through the steel
industry that henceforth that organization will insist upon its broad
jurisdictional claims and become an industrial union in fact, taking
into its ranks and protecting workers of all classes in the steel
industry. But no one familiar with the Amalgamated Association will take
this seriously. It is a dyed-in-the-wool skilled workers' union, and has
been such ever since its foundation forty-five years ago. Its specialty
is the "tonnage men," or skilled iron and steel making and rolling
trades proper. All its customs, policies and instincts are inspired by
the interests of this industrial group. It has never looked after the
welfare of the mechanical trades and the common laborers, even though
for the past few years it has claimed jurisdiction over them. In its
union mills it is the regular thing to find only the tonnage men covered
by the agreements, no efforts whatever being made to take care of the
other workers. It is true that during the recent campaign, due to the
stimulus of the National Committee, laborers were taken in; but of the
way they were handled, probably the less said the better. The incidents
related in Chapter X are typical.
That the men now at the head of the Amalgamated Association will upset
these craft practices and revolutionize their organization into a bona
fide, vigorous industrial union is incredible to those who have seen
them in action. But even if the miracle happened, even if they got rid
of their mid-nineteenth century ideas and methods, adopted modern
principles and systems, and put on the sweeping campaign necessary to
organize the industry, it would not solve the problem. The other unions
in the steel industry are not prepared to yield their trade claims to
the Amalgamated Association, and any serious attempt by that
organization to infringe upon them would result in a jurisdictional
quarrel, so destructive as to wreck all hope of organizing the industry
for an indefinite period. The unions would be so busy fighting among
themselves that they would have no time, energy or ambition to fight the
Steel Trust.
Progress and organization in the steel industry are to be achieved not
by splitting the ranks and dividing the forces, but by consolidating and
extending them. The only rational hope in the situation lies in a firm
federation of all the trades in the industry, allied with the miners and
railroad men in such fashion that they will extend help in case of
trouble. The steel workers are fast recovering from their defeat. The
educational campaign is getting results, and the work should be made a
permanent institution until the industry is organized. For the
Amalgamated Association to desert the field now is suicidal. It is
worse; it is a crime against the labor movement. It will break up the
campaign and throw the steel workers, helpless, upon the mercy of Gary
and his fellow exploiters. Organized Labor should not permit it. The
time is past when a few short-sighted union officials can block the
organization of a great industry.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Quoted from _The Coopers' Journal_ for February, 1920.
[30] For important details, see article entitled "The Broken Pledge," by
Samuel Gompers, in the _American Federationist_, January, 1920.
[31] Pittsburgh _Post_, April 15, 1920.
[32] Pittsburgh _Chronicle-Telegraph_, April 15, 1920.
[33] In connection with this matter I promptly called Mr. Palmer a liar,
a statement which was widely carried by the press. Our would-be tyrant
swallowed it. In the situation two courses were open to him: If his
accusations against me were true, under his own interpretation of the
Lever law he was duty-bound to arrest me; and if they were not true,
common justice demanded that he admit the incorrectness of the
statements he had sent flying through the press, attacking me. But he
has done neither. And in the meantime I have been subjected to a storm
of journalistic abuse. For example, says the Donora, Pa. _Herald_ of
April 16: "Wm. Z. Foster seems determined to have that little revolution
if he has to get out and start one himself. About the best remedy for
that bird would be one of those old-fashioned hangings."
One can readily imagine how quickly the wheels of justice would have
whirled and how speedily the editor would have been clapped into jail
were such an incitement to murder printed in a labor journal. But When
the case in point was called to the attention of the Pittsburgh
officials of the Department of Justice they could do nothing about it.
Nor could those of the Post Office Department, although the Donora
_Herald_ circulates through the mails. Similarly the county and state
officials could see no cause for action. Finally the opportunities for
relief sifted down to a libel suit. And what chance has a workingman in
such a suit against a henchman of the Steel Trust in the heart of
Pennsylvania's black steel district?
[34] In the report included at the end of Chapter VI, the Amalgamated
Association is shown to have enrolled 70,026 members during the
campaign. But, for the reasons cited, the figure is far too low.
President Tighe gave a better idea of the number when, testifying before
the Senate Committee, he said (Hearings, page 353) that the secretary
had told him "that he had already issued in the neighborhood of 150,000
dues cards," and could not get them printed fast enough. For each man of
this army of members, the national headquarters of the Amalgamated
Association received two dollars. Yet in return the officials in charge,
throughout the entire movement, gave the National Committee directly
only $11,881.81 to work with. Of this, $3,881.81 was for organizing
expenses, and $8,000.00 was to feed and furnish legal help to the great
multitudes of strikers, half of whom were members of the Amalgamated
Association. What strike help was extended in other directions was
correspondingly scanty. The balance of the funds taken in is still in
its treasury.
XIV
IN CONCLUSION
THE POINT OF VIEW--ARE THE TRADE UNIONS REVOLUTIONARY
--CAMOUFLAGE IN SOCIAL WARS--RUINOUS DUAL
UNIONISM--RADICALS SHOULD STRENGTHEN TRADE UNIONS--THE
ENGLISH RENAISSANCE--TOM MANN'S WORK
For those progressives who will look upon the steel campaign from an
evolutionary standpoint--that is by a comparison with past
experiences--it will stand out in its true light as marking a great
advance in trade-union methods and practices. It is true that the unions
in the campaign made many mistakes, quarreled seriously among
themselves, and put forth only a fraction of their real strength; but
when one considers that they substituted a group of twenty-four unions
for individual action in other campaigns; established a standard
initiation fee instead of the multitude that existed before; adopted
modern methods of organizing in place of the antiquated system
previously prevailing; organized a joint commissariat, carried on a
successful organizing campaign and waged a great strike together, one
must admit that a tremendous stride forward has been made. The
conclusion is bound to be optimistic and full of enthusiasm for the
future.
But unfortunately there are large bodies of progressives who do not
judge from the evolutionary viewpoint when it comes to trade unionism.
These range all the way from the mildest liberals and friends of Labor
to the most extreme I. W. W.'s. They form an influential group. Theirs
is the idealistic method; more or less clearly, these elements hold in
their mind's eye a smooth-running, intelligent, imaginary "one big
union." This they use as an inelastic criterion by which to judge the
trade unions. And the natural result is that, even in such cases as the
steel campaign, the unions cut a sorry figure. Their weaknesses are
unduly emphasized; their progressive innovations lose their import and
seem but make-shift imitations of the real thing. The conclusions are
necessarily pessimistic. The true significance of the epoch-making
movement is lost. This viewpoint is so general and its consequences so
far-reaching and detrimental, not only to the steel unions but to the
whole labor movement, that perhaps a discussion of it may not be amiss
at this point.
For many years radicals in this country have almost universally
maintained that the trade unions are fundamentally non-revolutionary;
that they have no real quarrel with capitalism, but are seeking merely
to modify its harshness through a policy of mild reform. They have been
pictured as lacking both the intelligence to want industrial freedom and
the courage to demand it. And so often have these ideas been repeated,
so slight has been the inquiry into their soundness, that they have come
to be accepted in a large degree by virtually the entire left wing of
the labor movement. To these ideas, more than anything else, is due the
current idealistic labor pessimism, the unsympathetic attitude toward,
and general lack of understanding of, the trade unions.
Yet their falsity is readily apparent when one takes into consideration
the real situation. It is an indisputable fact that the trade unions
always act upon the policy of taking all they can get from their
exploiters. They even overreach themselves sometimes, as a thousand lost
strikes eloquently testify. Their program is directly anti-capitalistic.
But let me quote from a booklet, written by myself several years ago,
entitled, "Trade Unionism; The Road To Freedom," page 18:
It is idle to say that the trade unions will rest content
with anything short of actual emancipation. For they are as
insatiable as the veriest so-called revolutionary unions. In
the measure that their strength increases, so do their
demands. They have sent wages up: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
dollars per day, and hours down: 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, per
day with all kinds of other concessions sandwiched in
between. And now they are more radical in their demands than
ever before in their history. Permanently satisfied trade
unions under capitalism would be the eighth wonder of the
world, outrivalling in interest the famous hanging gardens
of Babylon. They would be impossible. With its growing
power, Organized Labor will go on winning greater and
greater concessions, regardless of how profound they may be.
It is purest assumption to state that the trade unions would
balk at ending the wages system.
So far as the tendency of their demands is concerned, there can be no
question about that to anyone who will look at them squarely; the trade
unions may be depended upon always to check exploitation through the
wages system as far as their power enables them. The big question is
whether or not they will be able to develop enough power to stop this
exploitation altogether. As for me, I am confident that they will. In
every country they are constantly adding to and solidifying their ranks;
building ever more gigantic and militant combinations and throwing them
athwart the exploiter's path. It is safe to say that if they cannot
finally stop him it will be because it does not lie within the realms of
possibility for the working class to produce a sufficiently powerful
organization.
Why, then, have these strongly anti-capitalistic qualities been so long
and generally ignored and the trade unions considered merely as
palliative bodies? In my opinion it is because they, like various other
aggressive social movements, have more or less instinctively surrounded
themselves with a sort of camouflage or protective coloring, designed to
disguise the movement and thus to pacify and disarm the opposition. This
is the function of such expressions as, "A fair day's pay for a fair
day's work," "The interests of Capital and Labor are identical," etc. In
actual practice little or no attention is paid to them. They are for
foreign consumption. The fact that those who utter them may actually
believe what they say does not change the situation a particle. Most
movements are blind to their own goals anyway. The important thing is
the real trend of the movement, which is indisputably as I have stated
above, on the one hand constantly expanding organization, and on the
other constantly increasing demands. The trade unions will not _become_
anti-capitalistic through the conversion of their members to a certain
point of view or by the adoption of certain preambles; they _are_ that
by their very makeup and methods. The most that can be done is to
clarify their aims and intensify their efforts towards freedom.
If the trade unions instinctively throw dust in the eyes of their
enemies, they do it for an altogether worthy purpose, the elevation of
the standard of well-being for the mass of the people. In the case of
the capitalist class we see the same principle applied to an utterly
vicious end. The whole trend of the great employing interests is to set
up an oligarchy of wealthy parasites, neither toiling nor spinning, yet
for whom the whole body of workers would be compelled to labor in
degradation and poverty. And if unopposed, they would not only bring
about this condition, but in so doing would rob the people of every
right they have--free speech, free press, free assemblage, legislative
representation, trial by jury, and all the rest. But do they openly avow
their purpose? Most assuredly not, for they know that powerful though
they are they would be swept away by a wave of popular opposition.
Therefore, through their newspapers and innumerable other propaganda
agencies, they proceed to cover up their nefarious schemes of
exploitation and oppression with hypocritical cloaks of patriotism,
religion, benevolence, and the like. Their practice is one thing, their
preaching something entirely different. Thus we have Garys and
Rockefellers actually enslaving their workers by the most brutal
methods and at the same time seeking to convince the public that what
they are trying to do is to protect these workers from union domination,
to preserve to them their sacred right to work for whomever they please,
etc. Men such as these are knifing America and doing it in the name of
100 per cent. Americanism. They are social camouflagers par excellence.
The question may be pertinently asked, why, if camouflage is such a
potent weapon in social as well as military warfare, should the true
nature and tendency of the trade unions be pointed out, thus stripping
the movement of its philosophic protection and leaving it bare before
its enemies? The answer is that the camouflage works both ways; it
deceives friends as well as enemies. It has thus to a great extent cost
the unions the support of the whole left wing of the labor movement. Its
advantages are outweighed by its disadvantages.
In what I have called the left wing of the movement there are large and
ever-increasing numbers of workers and sympathizers who refuse to face
the prospect of a society forever based upon the wage system. They
demand an organization that is making for its abolition and the
substitution therefor of a system of industrial justice. If they were to
look sharply, they would see that the trade-union movement is traveling
faster than any other body toward the end they wish to reach. But
unfortunately, looking sharply is not their method. They habitually
attach too much importance to surface indications and not enough to real
results. They go almost entirely by preambles and manifestoes.
Consequently, taking the trade-union slogans at their face value and
finding them altogether unsatisfactory, they turn their backs upon the
trade-union movement and give support to the organizations which have
the sort they want, the I. W. W., the W. I. I. U., etc.
This belief, that the trade unions are inherently conservative bodies,
is the basis of the strong conviction that they are hopeless and that
they must be supplanted by a new organization, aiming to abolish the
wage system. The conception is found in some degree or other among
virtually all radicals. And it has done incalculable harm to the unions.
It has cost them the support of thousands of militants, of the best and
most intelligent that the working class produces. These might have done
a wonderful work; but their time and energies have been worse than
wasted in trying to build up organizations such as the I. W. W. When one
considers that the life of nearly every labor union depends upon the
activities of a very small fraction of its membership, it is clear that
this constant drain upon its best blood must have seriously hindered the
advance of the trade-union movement. Many have complained at the slow
progress it has made; but the marvel is rather that it has been able to
progress at all.
This devitalizing drain must be stopped, and the great body of
progressives and radicals won over to a whole-hearted support of the
trade unions. I consider this one of the most important tasks
confronting the labor movement. But it can be accomplished only by
driving home to these elements the patent facts that the trade unions
are making straight for the abolition of capitalism and that they are
going incomparably faster towards this goal than any of the much
advertised, so-called revolutionary unions, in spite of the latter's
glittering preambles. They must be taught that the weaknesses of the
trade unions are but the weaknesses of the working class, and that as
the latter gradually improves in education and experience, the unions
will correspondingly take on higher forms and clearer aims. You cannot
have perfect organizations with imperfect workers to build upon. In a
word, the progressives must be won over from the idealistic and utopian
to the evolutionary point of view.
Indeed, it must be granted that insistence upon the real goal and
tendency of trade unionism will provoke the capitalist class into
greater opposition against the movement. But this will be trebly offset
by the added support which the unions will get from the large numbers of
militants who now stand apart from them because of lack of
understanding. The power of even a few such men, proceeding
intelligently along practical lines, is one of the marvels of the labor
movement. It may be confidently expected, therefore, that when the many
thousands of these, now indifferent or hostile, begin to work together,
setting up their own press and systematically furthering amalgamation
and federation projects to bring the unions into closer cooperation,
initiating and prosecuting organizing campaigns, retiring to private
life such officials as now find themselves at the head of the
Amalgamated Association, etc., vast changes for the better are bound to
occur in the labor movement.
The trade unions have cost the workers untold efforts to build, and in
the main they seem loath to give them up, despite the blandishments of
utopian dual unions. Apparently, it is through the old unions that the
workers will eventually achieve their industrial freedom, save, perhaps,
in such cases as the United Garment Workers, where conditions in the
organization were so utterly hopeless that there was nothing to do but
form a new body, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. But this was an
exceptional case. Most of the unions are moving steadily onward and
upward, and they have an unshakable grip upon the workers in their
respective spheres. This being so, the logical thing to do is
systematically to set about improving and strengthening them. If this is
done, then, instead of the wild, desperate, dualistic outbreaks and
strikes, which have characterized the American labor movement for years,
and done it incalculable harm, the discontented rank and file will find
relief through an orderly and rapid progress within the folds of the
organizations they already have. The sooner these facts are recognized
the better for American Labor.
During the past few years much has been said about the wonderful
progress being made by the English trade-union movement. This, I venture
to assert, is due largely, if not altogether, to the absence among the
radicals of England of the idealistic, dualistic attitude towards the
unions which exists so widely here, and which has produced the I. W. W.
and its great body of sympathizers. The English radicals have a better
conception than ours of the trade unions; for, flesh and blood of the
labor movement, they pit their policies and energies against the
conservatives, and win. They are the ones who are writing the
highly-praised programs, and driving onward the great wage movements.
They are practical and constructive. Unlike so many of our radicals they
do not waste their time and strength in empty, pessimistic criticism of
the trade unions, and in vain, foolhardy attempts to tear the whole
labor structure to pieces and to reconstruct it according to the dream
of Daniel De Leon.
In England the turning point came ten years ago when she felt the great
wave of sentiment for revolutionary unionism then sweeping the world.
The question was whether this movement should realize its aims through
the old unions or by starting new ones. The existing unions were
notoriously conservative. Several of our leading radicals had said they
were even more hopeless than our own organizations and strongly urged
the formation of an English I. W. W. But fortunately, Tom Mann and his
colleagues, with a deeper knowledge of trade unionism, were able to
forestall this movement and to direct the strong stream of progressive
thought and energy into the old unions. The result was magical. Within
two years the great and successful strikes of the transport workers,
railroaders and miners had occurred, and the renaissance of the English
labor movement was assured. British workingmen will never realize the
invaluable service which Tom Mann rendered them in saving England from
an I. W. W. dual movement, with its tremendous waste of power and its
weakening effect upon the trade unions.
How long are American progressives going to continue deceiving
themselves with the words of high-sounding preambles? When are they
going to quit chasing rainbows and settle down to real work? These are
important considerations indeed. The hour when our militants generally
adopt English methods, and turn their whole-hearted attention to
building up and developing the trade-union movement,--that hour will be
the dawn of a new day for American Labor.
THE END
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| Transcriber's Note: |
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| Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the |
| original document have been preserved. |
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| Typographical errors corrected in the text: |
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| Page 55 Monogahela changed to Monongahela |
| Page 86 convine changed to convince |
| Page 92 acordingly changed to accordingly |
| Page 101 Joilet changed to Joliet |
| Page 103 Brackenbridge changed to Brackenridge |
| Page 107 struck changed to stuck |
| Page 125 depondent changed to deponent |
| Page 137 Brennon changed to Brennan |
| Page 146 Leechburgh changed to Leechburg |
| Page 153 childen changed to children |
| Page 205 resistent changed to resistant |
| Page 209 compaign changed to campaign |
| Page 233 affiiliated changed to affiliated |
| Page 246 in changed to it |
| Page 255 tweny changed to twenty |
| Page 260 tre changed to the |
| Page 262 advertized changed to advertised |
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