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.