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.