CONDITIONS IN STEEL DISTRICTS
ARE CONDUCIVE TO BOLSHEVISM
The following article bearing on con
ditions in the steel industry, from the
pen of Basil M. Manly, joint chairman
of the National War Labor Board, was
published in May of this year, and will
be of particular interest at this time.
It will account in part for the seeming
anomaly of the arrival of United
States troops being welcomed by the
strikers in the Gary district, as re
lated in the Associated Press dis
patches in the Daily Times a few days
ago:
“If we have a revolution in the Unit
ed States it will be produced, not by
the Bolsheviks, but by the Boneheads.
“There are many different varieties
of boneheads now at work in different
parts of the United States doing their
utmost to bring about revolution, but
just at the present moment the most
perniciously active boneheads are
those who are dictating the labor poli
cies of the steel companies in West
ern Pennsylvania.
“Ably assisting the stefel companies
in the preparations for a revolution
are a score or more of corporation-con
trolled mayors and burgesses of the
so-called steel towns and a host of
private detectives and “strong-arm”
men whose jobs are dependent on the
existence of visible industrial unrest.
In the steel towns free speech, free
assemblage and other fundamental
American rights are being crushed and
trodden under foot as ruthlessly and
far more 'efficiently than in the days 1
of darkest czarism.
“As a background, it is necessary to
understand that more than a quarter
of a century ago the Carnegie Steel j
Company, at the end of a hard-fought
labor war. culminating in the Home
stead tragpdy, succeeded in breaking
the Amalgamated Association of Iron j
and Steel Workers, then the strongest I
if not the largest labor union in the
United States.
r or IWtJHlJ'-niA .ycaio, mcxtiuit-,
steel companies have been in the sad
dle. Superintendents, clerks and other
officials of thte steel companies were
put into power, through the far-reach
ing influence of the corporations, as
burgesses and mayors of *he steel
towns, and a system of espionage was
auilt up so complete that no stranger
could be in the towns for twenty-four
hours without his business being
knowui or his purposes directly ques- j
tioned. Trade union organisers and j
other so-tailed agitators hav3 been |
suppressed or deported, sometimes
under cloak of farcical legal proceed
ings engineered by the corporation- j
controlled officials of the steel towns,
and sometimes without even color of
legal sanction, by the armed guards j
and private detectives of the steel com
panies.
“In 1902 an attempt was made to
rebuild the American Association of
Iron and Steel Workers, but through
the vacillating policy of the leaders
and the ruthless power of the steel
corporations the strike was crushed
and the last vestige of organization in
the mills of the United States Steel
Corporation and the leading indepen
dent steel companies W’as eliminated.
“Since then furtive attempts to or
ganize the steel workers have been
made, but entirely without success, un
til a little more than a year ago
twenty-four international unions of the
American Federation of Labor joined
in the creation of the national com
mittee for organizing iron and steel
workers.
“In order that there might be no pos
sible charge of disloyalty or pro-Ger
manism, Samuel Gompers himself be
came chairman of the committee, a*d
William Z. Foster, w'ho had displayed
remarkable zeal and efficiency in the
oragnization of the packing house em
ployes, was made secretary-treasurer.
Foster has been in active charge of
the organization work in the field.
"The committee started in South
Chicago, and found the steel workers
so anxious for the benefits of organ
ization, as a means of protecting them
selves against the autocratic power of
the greatest corporation in the world,
that the meeting places were packed
and thousands of members were signed
up every day. No active opposition
from the steel companies was encoun
tered—probably because of the close
proximity to Chicago, where the pack
ing house employes had just been suc
cessfully organized and had pledged
themselves to support their brothers
in the steel mills.
Pretexts for Prohibiting Meetings
"When the committee entered the
Pittsburgh district, however, an en
tirely different situation was encoun
tered. Burgesses and mayors of steel
towns refused to permit meetings to
be held under the auspices of the
American Federation of - Labor, and
when, in som*e of the larger towns,
buildings were rented for organization
meetings, financial pressure was
brought to bear upon the proprietors
to cancel the leases. Health authori
ties suddenly discovered that the halls
were unsanitary, although other meet
ings were permitted in the same halls
during the same week without fumi
gation or other precautions, or the
building inspectors, with surprising
conscientiousness, decreed that halls
were unsafe which were occupied on
every day in the week except that for
which the committee had announced 1
its meeting.
“When meetings were held in the
open air they were surrounded by a
swarm of detectives and company
guards, accompanied by timekeepers,
who made lists of all the men who at
tended the meetings.
“Foster and other active workers of
the -committee were kept under con
stant espionage day and night and had
to be continually on guard to detect
comnanv sides who tried to eet into
the inner circles of the committee in
order to learn their plans and counsel
unwise actions that would discredit
the organization campaign and, if pos
sible. give some ground for a cry of I
pro-Germanism. .
“These repressive tactics, \Vhile un
American and contrary to the solemn
pact signed by the representatives of
labor and capital during the war, and
embodied in the proclamation of the
President, might not have aroused the
steel workers, accustomed for more j
than a quarter of a century to the ex
cesses of autocratic industrial power,
had it not been that some diabolical
mind or set of minds in the steel com
panies, with a perversity almost be
yond belief, inaugurated a terroristic
policy of making examples of the old
est and best known employes who
showed any disposition to become in
terested in the union.
“In the Jones I.aughlin Steel Com
pany, for instance, among a number of
others, was an old roller named John
Flannagan, who had been a hard
working. faithful employe of the com
pany for thirty-four years. Everybody
knew Flannagan and nearly everybody
loved the genial old Irishman. Those
that didn’t know Flannagan knew Mrs.
Plannagan, who had been a good neigh
bor to all those who lived in the same
district of the south side slums.
“Flannagan weqt tr^one union meet
ing. He was spotted by a timekeeper
and the next morning was given his
time. He was broken-hearted, because
all the big steel companies have a
dead-line of forty-five years, beyond
which no skilled workman will be em
ployed, and thirty-five years for un
skilled workmen. This rule was some
what relaxed while the war was on
and labor was scarce, but Flannagan I
had seen men standing unemployed at
the steel company’s gates and knew
that if the rule was rigidly enforced
his chance was gone to earn a living
In the industry to which his life had
beendevoted.
“Flannagan knew, and all his friends
knew, that this had happened just be
cause on one night a spark of his old
manhood and independence had
flamed up and he had gone to a union
meeting to learn how he and his
brother-workmen might bind them
selves together and secur# some meas
ure of self-protection against the
blind, autocratic force in opposition
to which Flannagan and all the other
thousands of men, acting separately,
were powerless. Flannagan was driven
to desperation, and there arose in all
his friends a deep and intense anger
and an abiding desire for vengeance.
“Now, Flannagan was only one of
hundreds of steel workers grievously
injured by the same autocratic inva
sion of their most sacred rights. Not
all had been so long In the company’s
service. Few were as trusted and as
generally revered by their fellow-work
ers. But all had friends, and all knew
that they were the victims of cruel in
justice, arbitrarily exercised.
“At the same time Flannagan's case
does not .stand alone in any respect.
Down in Johnstown, Pa., where the
Cambria Steel Company has its plants,
there is a deaf mute, William H. Si
bert, who worked for the qompany
more than twenty years and became
one of its skilled employes. One night
he, too, attended a meeting, joined the
organization and was discharged on a
minute’s notice. Sibert’s life had been
given to steel. He knows no other
trade, and his infirmity makes it im
possible for him to get work in any
other plant.
“The steel companies apparently
hoped that by picking out the veter
ans—men with families or men who
are paying for homes—they would cre
ate fear in the hearts of the rest of
%
the men, but instead they have cre
ated only a dangerous hatred and a
surging unrest. * * *
Company Plan of “Collective Bar
gaining”
"The situation is rapidly nearing a
crisis, and if the boneheads who have
#
been dictating the labor policy of the
steel companies continue to control,
there can be no other result than an
other Homestead-, a thousand times
magnified.
“Some of the companies, it is true,
have made a feint at establishinig a
new and more enlightened policy. The
Cambria Steel Company, for example,
several months ago inaugurated what
the officials called a plan of ‘collective
bargaining,’ but which the men called
the company union.’ At the first elec
non practically ail me commu-ieemeu
elected were bosses or other ‘safe’
men. ‘Collective bargaining’ was in
high favor with the heads of the com
pany, and articles were written about
the new era of good feeling.
“A little while ago, however, a new
election was held, and a largte number
of union men elected upon the com
mittee. Suddenly collective bargain
ing fell into disfavor, and, upon the
most transparent of pretexts, the com
pany proceeded to discharge all the
union men on the committee who had
the courage to speak about the griev
ances of those whom they represented.
“Most of the steel companies, how
ever, have not even pretended enlight
enment, and have apparently proceed
ed on the theory that if they did not
drastically cut wages until the streets
were full of unemployed and wer|3
ruthless enough in the suppression of
attempts at organization, there was
no danger.
“As an undercurrent to the grpat
tide of unrest which is sweeping over
the Pittsburgh district and the sur
rounding steel towns is a rapidly grow
ing distrust of government, and of all
who speak in the name of the law.
The only government with which the
steel workers come in contact is the
corporation-controlled government of
the steel towns, which they have con
stantly seen perverted to crush their
most elemental rights. Such govern
ment they hate, and they know no"
othier.
“I commend the steel industry to
the attention of the Overman commit
tee as the most prolific breeding-place
of Bolshevism in the United States. I
make this commendation with a con
Silence born of long anil disillusioning
experience that nothing will be done
to alleviate this situation until the
shedding of human blood compels at
tention.
“Then it may be too late.”
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" PHYSICIAN and SURGEON
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