The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons

AIRTON-McKEESPORT-THE STRIKE-SHOWING BY DIS

the great steel strike. Everywhere the steel companies made gigantic preparations to crush their aspiring workers

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 P

eat 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

stitution 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 mag

d 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. Score

e, 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

ll 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 3

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nging 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 organize

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 Young

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

f 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 mill

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 i

with futile negotiations under their "collective bargaining" arrangement, they did not get out until the twenty-ninth. When they did strike the respo

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 spontaneou

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

reements 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 conc

wever. 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

ional 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 s

entials. 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 ventu

r 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

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

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omestead 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 hi