months before the strike, when a traitor labor paper in Pittsburgh (one
of the stripe which lives by knifing strikes and active unionists for
the employers) published articles containing quotations from the "red
book," and the other stuff later bruited about in the daily press. To
hear this sheet tell it, the revolution was at hand. Immediately after
the articles appeared I sent copies to the presidents of all the
twenty-four co-operating unions, with the result that almost all of
these officials wrote me, advising that I pay no attention to these
attacks, but continue with my work. They seemed to consider it something
of a compliment to be so bitterly assailed from such a quarter. Again,
at the very moment when President Gompers was dictating his letter to
Judge Gary asking for a conference (long after the above-mentioned
attacks) I stated that possibly too much prominence for me in the
movement might attract needless opposition to it and I offered to resign
from the conference committee which handled all negotiations concerning
the steel strike. But my objections were over-ruled and I was continued
on the committee. Moreover, at any time in the campaign a word from the
executive officers of the A. F. of L. would have brought about my
resignation. This they were aware of for months before the strike. All
of which indicates that the men responsible for the organizations in the
movement were satisfied that it was being carried on according to
trade-union principles, and also that in consideration of the Steel
Trust's murderous tactics in the past it was a certainty that if the
opposition had not taken the specific form it did, it would have
manifested itself in some other way as bad or worse. It was to be
depended upon that some means would have been found to thoroughly
discredit the movement.
This conviction was intensified by the unexampled fury with which each
important move of Labor during the past year has been opposed, not only
by employers but by governmental officials as well. All through the war
the moneyed interests watched with undisguised alarm and hatred the
rapid advance of the unions; but they were powerless to stop it. Now,
however, they are getting their revenge. The usual method of defeating
such movements during this period of white terrorism is to attach some
stigma to them; to question the legitimacy of their aims, and then, when
the highly organized and corrupted press has turned public sentiment
against them, to crush them by the most unscrupulous means. It makes no
difference how mild or ordinary the movement is, some issue is always
found to poison public opinion against it.
The first important body of workers to feel the weight of this
opposition was the railroad shopmen. The Railroad Administration having
dilly-dallied along with their demands for several months, these
under-paid workers, goaded on by the mounting cost of living, finally
broke into an unauthorized strike in the early summer of 1919. This
almost destroyed the organizations. Officials who ought to know declared
that at one time over 200,000 men were out. Naturally the press roundly
denounced them as Bolsheviki. Upon a promise of fair treatment they
returned to work. When the matter finally came to President Wilson for
settlement, he declared that to raise wages would be contrary to the
Government's policy of reducing the cost of living, and requested that
the demands be held in abeyance. This statement was a Godsend to all the
reactionary elements, who used it to break up wage movements everywhere.
Thus came to grief the effort of the shopmen. Up to May, 1920, they have
secured no relief whatsoever.
Next came the affair of the Boston police in September, 1919. This
developed from an effort of typically conservative policemen to
organize. The strike was deliberately forced by the action of State
politicians, inspired by big business, in cold-bloodedly discharging a
number of the officers of the new union and stubbornly refusing to
re-instate them. When the inevitable strike occurred they labelled it
not merely an attempted revolution, but a blow at the very foundations
of civilization. The press did the rest. The strike was buried beneath a
deluge of abuse, misrepresentation and vilification.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF ORGANIZERS
Standing, left to right: W. Searl, F. Wilson, A. V. Craig, M.
Mestrovich, E. Martin, J. M. Peters, R. W. Beattie, J. Moskus, S.
Coates, J. Manley, _Striker_, T. A. Harris, E. O. Gunther, B. J. Damich,
_Striker_, C. Foley, M. Bellam, T. A. Daley, _Striker_, W. Z. Foster.
Seated, left to right: J. Lenahan, F. J. Sweek, J. Klinsky, F.
Wiernicki, I. Liberti, A. DeVerneuil, C. Claherty, J. N. Aten, J. W.
Hendricks, S. Rokosz, R. W. Reilly, J. A. Norrington, F. Kurowsky, J. G.
Brown, G. W. Troutman, J. E. McCadden, W. Murphy, S. T. Hammersmark.]
Then came the coal miners in November, 1919. During the war this body
of men sent fully 60,000 members to the front in France. They bought
untold amounts of liberty bonds and worked faithfully to keep the
industries in operation. But no sooner did they make demand for some of
the freedom which they thought they had won in the war than they found
themselves crowded into a strike, and their conservative, old-line,
trade-union leaders harshly assailed as revolutionists. For instance,
said Senator Pomerene:[29]
Years ago the American spirit was startled because a
Vanderbilt had said, "The public be damned." But Vanderbilt
seems to have no patent on the phrase, or if he had it is
being infringed today by men who have as little regard for
the public welfare as he himself had. There is no difference
in kind between him and a Foster, who, aided by the extreme
Socialist and I. W. W. classes of the country, aims to
enlist under his leadership all the iron and steel workers
of a nation and to paralyze industry, or a Lewis (President
of the United Mine Workers of America), who, to further his
own ambitions, aided as he was by the same elements, calls
400,000 men out of the mines and says to the public, "Freeze
or starve."
The Government condemned the strike as "unjustifiable and unlawful" and
invoked against it the so-called Lever law. This law, a war measure
against food and fuel profiteers, was, when up for adoption, distinctly
stated by its author, Representative Lever, and by Attorney General
Gregory, as not applying to workers striking for better conditions.[30]
Moreover, since the armistice it had fallen into disuse,--as far as
employers were concerned; but upon the strength of it the miners' strike
was outlawed, Federal Judge Anderson issuing an injunction which
commanded the union officials to rescind the strike order and to refuse
all moral and financial assistance to the strikers. Rarely has a labor
union found itself in so difficult a situation. The only thing that
saved the miners from a crushing defeat was their splendid organization
and strategic position in industry. On November 11, after the union
officials had agreed to rescind the strike order, the Philadelphia
_Public Ledger_ expressed an opinion widely held when it said:
The truth of the matter is that we all "got it wrong" on
this coal situation. This is the time to say in entire
frankness that _the Government handled the situation with
the tact, timeliness and conciliatory spirit of a German war
governor jack-booting a Belgium town into docility_.
And now we have the unauthorized strike of the Railroad yard and road
men; this is clearly an outbreak of workers exasperated on the one hand
by a constantly increasing cost of living, and on the other by dilatory
methods of affording relief. The orthodox tactics are being employed to
break it. The Lever law, disinterred from the legislative graveyard to
beat the miners, has been galvanized into life again and is being used
to jail the strike leaders. This is not all, however. Probably there
never was a big strike in this country more spontaneous and unplanned
than the one in question. But that does not worry our Department of
Justice; it has just announced to a credulous world that the whole
affair is a highly organized plot to overthrow the Government. Within
the hour I write this (on April 15) I read in the papers that I have
been singled out by Attorney-General Palmer as one of the strike
leaders. Eight-column headlines flare out the charge, "PALMER BLAMES
FOSTER FOR RAIL STRIKE," etc.[31]
To Mr. Palmer's "penny dreadful" plot, the local newspapers add lying
details of their own. The Pittsburgh _Leader_, for instance, recites _in
extenso_ how I returned from the West in disguise to Pittsburgh several
days ago--presumably after a trip plotting with Mr. Palmer's wonderful
revolutionaries, who not only can bring whole industries to a standstill
by a wave of the hand, but can do it in such a manner that although many
thousands of workers are "in the know" the Department of Justice never
gets to hear about it until the strikes have occurred.
Now the fact is that I have been so busy writing this book that I have
hardly stirred from the house for weeks. Since the steel strike ended I
have not been beyond the environs of Pittsburgh. Moreover, I do not know
a solitary one of the men advertised as strike leaders, nor has there
been any communication whatsoever between us. I have not attended any
strike meetings, nor have I even seen a man whom I knew to be a striker.
But of course such details are irrelevant to the Department of Justice
and the newspapers. The latter boldly announce that it is officially
hoped that Mr. Palmer's charges will stampede the men back to work.[32]
In fact that is their aim. These charges are a strike-breaking measure,
pure and simple, and have no necessary relation to truth.[33]
Similar instances might be multiplied to illustrate the extreme
virulence of the attacks on Labor in late struggles--how the press
manufactured the general strikes in Seattle and Winnipeg into young
revolutions; and how even when Mr. Gompers announced some time back that
the American Federation of Labor would continue its customary political
policy of "rewarding its friends and punishing its enemies," the scheme
was denounced in influential quarters as an attempt to capture the
Government and set up a dictatorship of the proletariat. But enough. The
steel strike was a drive straight at the heart of industrial autocracy
in America; it could expect to meet with nothing less than the most
desperate and unscrupulous resistance. If the issue used against the
strike had not been the charge of radical leadership, we may rest
assured there would have been another "just as good." The next movement
will have to win by its own strength, rather than by the vagaries of a
newspaper-created public opinion.
But a far more pressing problem even than any of those touched upon in
the foregoing paragraphs is the one involved in the attitude of the
Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers toward the steel
campaign. This organization withdrew from the National Committee
immediately after the strike was called off, and it has apparently
abandoned trying, at least for the time being, to organize the big steel
mills. Thus the whole campaign is brought to the brink of ruin, because
the Amalgamated Association has jurisdiction over about 50 per cent. of
the workers in the mills, including all the strategic steel-making
trades, without whose support the remainder cannot possibly win. Unless
it can be brought back to the fold, the joint movement of the trades in
the steel industry will almost certainly be broken up, to the great glee
of Mr. Gary and his associates.
This action was in logical sequence to the position taken through the
campaign by several of the Amalgamated Association's general officers.
From the beginning, they considered the movement with pessimism, often
with hostility. It received scant co-operation from them. As related in
Chapter VI, they tried to get a settlement with the U. S. Steel
Corporation right in the teeth of the general movement; and their
financial support was meager, to say the least.[34] For a few weeks
during the strike movement, when victory seemed near, they displayed
some slight enthusiasm; but this soon wore off and they adopted a policy
of "saving what they could." They were exceedingly anxious to call off
the strike many weeks before its close, and went about the country
discouraging the men and advising them to return to work. And even
worse, they attempted to make separate settlements with the steel
companies. The following proposed agreement, presented to (and refused
by) the Bethlehem Steel Corporation at Sparrows' Point when the strike
was not yet two months old, tells its own story:
November 19th, 1919.
Agreement entered into between the Bethlehem Steel Company
of Sparrows' Point, Maryland, and its employees, governing
wages and conditions in the Sheet and Tin mills, and Tin
House Department.
1. It is agreed that the wages and conditions agreed upon
between the Western Sheet and Tin Plate Manufacturers'
Association and the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel
and Tin Workers, as agreed upon in the Atlantic City
Conference, June, 1919, will be the prices and conditions
paid to the employees in the above-mentioned departments.
2. That the company will also agree to the re-instatement of
all their former employees, such as seek employment without
any discrimination.
3. The above Agreement to expire June 30th, 1920.
During the strike the general officers of the Amalgamated Association
never tired of telling how sacred they considered their contracts with
the employers, and did not hesitate to jeopardize the strike by living
up to them most strictly. But when it came to their obligations to the
other trades it was a different story. They well knew, when they tried
to make separate settlements with the U. S. Steel and Bethlehem
Companies, that they were violating solemn agreements which they had
entered into with the other trades in the industry, not to speak of
fundamental principles of labor solidarity.
The national officials in question looked with undisguised jealousy upon
the growth to importance of other unions in the industry where their own
organization had operated alone so long. They lost no love on the
National Committee. In fact more than one of their number seemed to take
particular delight in placing obstructions in its way. If they wanted
to see the steel industry organized they certainly showed it in a
peculiar manner. A goodly share of my time--not to speak of that of
others--was spent plugging the holes which they punched through the
dike. And apparently they always had the hearty support of their fellow
officers. It is only fair to say, however, that the lesser officials and
the rank and file of the Amalgamated Association strongly favored the
National Committee movement and gave it their loyal cooperation.
As a justification for the Amalgamated Association officials' action in
quitting the joint campaign, word is being sent through the steel
industry that henceforth that organization will insist upon its broad
jurisdictional claims and become an industrial union in fact, taking
into its ranks and protecting workers of all classes in the steel
industry. But no one familiar with the Amalgamated Association will take
this seriously. It is a dyed-in-the-wool skilled workers' union, and has
been such ever since its foundation forty-five years ago. Its specialty
is the "tonnage men," or skilled iron and steel making and rolling
trades proper. All its customs, policies and instincts are inspired by
the interests of this industrial group. It has never looked after the
welfare of the mechanical trades and the common laborers, even though
for the past few years it has claimed jurisdiction over them. In its
union mills it is the regular thing to find only the tonnage men covered
by the agreements, no efforts whatever being made to take care of the
other workers. It is true that during the recent campaign, due to the
stimulus of the National Committee, laborers were taken in; but of the
way they were handled, probably the less said the better. The incidents
related in Chapter X are typical.
That the men now at the head of the Amalgamated Association will upset
these craft practices and revolutionize their organization into a bona
fide, vigorous industrial union is incredible to those who have seen
them in action. But even if the miracle happened, even if they got rid
of their mid-nineteenth century ideas and methods, adopted modern
principles and systems, and put on the sweeping campaign necessary to
organize the industry, it would not solve the problem. The other unions
in the steel industry are not prepared to yield their trade claims to
the Amalgamated Association, and any serious attempt by that
organization to infringe upon them would result in a jurisdictional
quarrel, so destructive as to wreck all hope of organizing the industry
for an indefinite period. The unions would be so busy fighting among
themselves that they would have no time, energy or ambition to fight the
Steel Trust.
Progress and organization in the steel industry are to be achieved not
by splitting the ranks and dividing the forces, but by consolidating and
extending them. The only rational hope in the situation lies in a firm
federation of all the trades in the industry, allied with the miners and
railroad men in such fashion that they will extend help in case of
trouble. The steel workers are fast recovering from their defeat. The
educational campaign is getting results, and the work should be made a
permanent institution until the industry is organized. For the
Amalgamated Association to desert the field now is suicidal. It is
worse; it is a crime against the labor movement. It will break up the
campaign and throw the steel workers, helpless, upon the mercy of Gary
and his fellow exploiters. Organized Labor should not permit it. The
time is past when a few short-sighted union officials can block the
organization of a great industry.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Quoted from _The Coopers' Journal_ for February, 1920.
[30] For important details, see article entitled "The Broken Pledge," by
Samuel Gompers, in the _American Federationist_, January, 1920.
[31] Pittsburgh _Post_, April 15, 1920.
[32] Pittsburgh _Chronicle-Telegraph_, April 15, 1920.
[33] In connection with this matter I promptly called Mr. Palmer a liar,
a statement which was widely carried by the press. Our would-be tyrant
swallowed it. In the situation two courses were open to him: If his
accusations against me were true, under his own interpretation of the
Lever law he was duty-bound to arrest me; and if they were not true,
common justice demanded that he admit the incorrectness of the
statements he had sent flying through the press, attacking me. But he
has done neither. And in the meantime I have been subjected to a storm
of journalistic abuse. For example, says the Donora, Pa. _Herald_ of
April 16: "Wm. Z. Foster seems determined to have that little revolution
if he has to get out and start one himself. About the best remedy for
that bird would be one of those old-fashioned hangings."
One can readily imagine how quickly the wheels of justice would have
whirled and how speedily the editor would have been clapped into jail
were such an incitement to murder printed in a labor journal. But When
the case in point was called to the attention of the Pittsburgh
officials of the Department of Justice they could do nothing about it.
Nor could those of the Post Office Department, although the Donora
_Herald_ circulates through the mails. Similarly the county and state
officials could see no cause for action. Finally the opportunities for
relief sifted down to a libel suit. And what chance has a workingman in
such a suit against a henchman of the Steel Trust in the heart of
Pennsylvania's black steel district?
[34] In the report included at the end of Chapter VI, the Amalgamated
Association is shown to have enrolled 70,026 members during the
campaign. But, for the reasons cited, the figure is far too low.
President Tighe gave a better idea of the number when, testifying before
the Senate Committee, he said (Hearings, page 353) that the secretary
had told him "that he had already issued in the neighborhood of 150,000
dues cards," and could not get them printed fast enough. For each man of
this army of members, the national headquarters of the Amalgamated
Association received two dollars. Yet in return the officials in charge,
throughout the entire movement, gave the National Committee directly
only $11,881.81 to work with. Of this, $3,881.81 was for organizing
expenses, and $8,000.00 was to feed and furnish legal help to the great
multitudes of strikers, half of whom were members of the Amalgamated
Association. What strike help was extended in other directions was
correspondingly scanty. The balance of the funds taken in is still in
its treasury.
XIV
IN CONCLUSION
THE POINT OF VIEW--ARE THE TRADE UNIONS REVOLUTIONARY
--CAMOUFLAGE IN SOCIAL WARS--RUINOUS DUAL
UNIONISM--RADICALS SHOULD STRENGTHEN TRADE UNIONS--THE
ENGLISH RENAISSANCE--TOM MANN'S WORK
For those progressives who will look upon the steel campaign from an
evolutionary standpoint--that is by a comparison with past
experiences--it will stand out in its true light as marking a great
advance in trade-union methods and practices. It is true that the unions
in the campaign made many mistakes, quarreled seriously among
themselves, and put forth only a fraction of their real strength; but
when one considers that they substituted a group of twenty-four unions
for individual action in other campaigns; established a standard
initiation fee instead of the multitude that existed before; adopted
modern methods of organizing in place of the antiquated system
previously prevailing; organized a joint commissariat, carried on a
successful organizing campaign and waged a great strike together, one
must admit that a tremendous stride forward has been made. The
conclusion is bound to be optimistic and full of enthusiasm for the
future.
But unfortunately there are large bodies of progressives who do not
judge from the evolutionary viewpoint when it comes to trade unionism.
These range all the way from the mildest liberals and friends of Labor
to the most extreme I. W. W.'s. They form an influential group. Theirs
is the idealistic method; more or less clearly, these elements hold in
their mind's eye a smooth-running, intelligent, imaginary "one big
union." This they use as an inelastic criterion by which to judge the
trade unions. And the natural result is that, even in such cases as the
steel campaign, the unions cut a sorry figure. Their weaknesses are
unduly emphasized; their progressive innovations lose their import and
seem but make-shift imitations of the real thing. The conclusions are
necessarily pessimistic. The true significance of the epoch-making
movement is lost. This viewpoint is so general and its consequences so
far-reaching and detrimental, not only to the steel unions but to the
whole labor movement, that perhaps a discussion of it may not be amiss
at this point.
For many years radicals in this country have almost universally
maintained that the trade unions are fundamentally non-revolutionary;
that they have no real quarrel with capitalism, but are seeking merely
to modify its harshness through a policy of mild reform. They have been
pictured as lacking both the intelligence to want industrial freedom and
the courage to demand it. And so often have these ideas been repeated,
so slight has been the inquiry into their soundness, that they have come
to be accepted in a large degree by virtually the entire left wing of
the labor movement. To these ideas, more than anything else, is due the
current idealistic labor pessimism, the unsympathetic attitude toward,
and general lack of understanding of, the trade unions.