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 mediaeval 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.