THE STEEL STRIKE OF 1919

A Sample of Primary Sources

Contents

(Print) Rolling Mill, circa 1900.

(Documents) Letters Between E. Gary, President of U.S. Steel and the Steel Workers Committee, A Call to Strike Leaflet

(Newspaper Facsimile) Strikes at Big Steel

(Document) Address by John Fitzpatrick, President of the Chicago Federation of Labor, to the Illinois State Federation of Labor

(Map) Newspaper map indicating location of strikes across the nation

(Documents) Report from William Z. Foster, organizer for the steelworkers, on number of men out in September and December, Testimony from young African-American man sent to break strike, Leaflet from steelworkers’ committee calling men to return to their jobs.

UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION

Office of the Chairman,
New York, August 27, 1919

Messrs. John Fitzpatrick, David J. Davis, William Hannon, Wm. Z. Foster,
Edw. J. Evans, Committee Gentlemen:

Receipt of your communication of August 26 instant is acknowledged.

We do not think you are authorized to represent the sentiment of a majority of the employees of the United States Steel Corporation and its subsidiaries. We express no opinion concerning any other members of the iron and steel industry.

As heretofore publicly stated and repeated, our Corporation and subsidiaries, although they do not combat labor unions as such, decline to discuss business with them. The Corporation and subsidiaries are opposed to the "closed shop." They stand for the "open shop,'' which permits one to engage in any line of employment whether one does or does not belong to a labor union. This best promotes the welfare of both employees and employers. In view of the well-known attitude as above expressed, the officers of the Corporation respectfully decline to discuss with you, as representatives of a labor union, any matter relating to employees. In doing so no personal discourtesy is intended.

In all decisions and acts of the Corporation and subsidiaries pertaining to employees and employment their interests arc of highest importance. In wage rates, living and working conditions, conservation of life and health, care and comfort in times of sickness or old age, and providing facilities for the general welfare and happiness of employees and their families, the Corporation and subsidiaries have endeavored to occupy a leading and advanced position among employers.

It will be the object of the Corporation and subsidiaries to give such consideration to employees as to show them their loyal and efficient service in the past is appreciated, and that they may expect in the future fair treatment.

Respectfully yours,
E. H. GARY, Chairman

In a last effort to prevail upon Mr. Gary to yield tyrannical position, the committee addressed him again:

New York City, Aug. 27, 1919.

Hon. Elbert H. Gary, Chairman

Finance Committee, United States Steel Corp, 71 Broadway, New York, N. Y.

Dear Sir:

We have received your answer to our request for a conference on behalf of the employees of your Corporation, and we understand the first paragraph of your answer to be an absolute refusal on the part of your corporation to concede to your employees the right collective bargaining.

You question the authority of our committee to represent the majority of your employees. The only way by which we can prove our authority is to put the strike vote into effect and we sincerely hope that you will not force a strike to prove this point.

We asked for a conference for the purpose of arranging a meeting where the questions of wages, hours conditions of employment, and collective bargaining might be discussed. Your answer is a flat refusal for such conference, which raises the question, if the accredited representatives of your employees and the international unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor and the Federation itself are denied a conference, what chance have the employees as such to secure any consideration of the views they entertain or the complaints they are justified in making.

We noted particularly your definition of the attitude of your Corporation on the question of the open and closed shop, and the positive declaration in refusing to meet representatives of union labor. These subjects are matters that might well be discussed in conference. There has not anything arisen between your Corporation and the employees whom we represent in which the question of “the closed shop” has been even mooted.

We read with great care your statement as to the interest the Corporation takes in the lives and welfare of the employees and their families, and if that were true even in a minor degree, we would not be pressing consideration, through a conference, of the terrible conditions that exist. The conditions of employment, the home life, the misery in the hovels of the steel workers is beyond description. You may not be aware that the standard of life of the average steel worker is below the pauper line, which means that charitable institutions furnish to the pauper a better home, more food, clothing, light and heat than many steel workers can bring into their lives upon the compensation received for putting forth their very best efforts in the steel industry. Surely this is a matter which might well be discussed in conference.

You also made reference to the attitude of your Corporation in not opposing or preventing your employees from joining labor organizations. It is a matter of common knowledge that the tactics employed by your Corporation and subsidiaries have for years most effectively prevented any attempt at organization by your employees. We feel that a conference would be valuable to your Corporation for the purpose of getting facts of which, judging from your letter, you seem to be misinformed.

Some few days are still at the disposal of our committee before the time limit will have expired when there will be no discretion left to the committee but to enforce the decree of your employees whom we have the honor to represent.

We submit that reason and fairness should obtain rather than that the alternative shall be compulsory upon us.

Surely reasonable men can find a common ground upon which we can all stand and prosper.

If you will communicate with us further upon this entire matter, please address your communication to the National Hotel, Washington, D. C., where we will be Thursday and Friday, August 28 and 29.

Very truly yours,

JOHN FITZPATRICK
D. J. DAVIS
WM. HANNON
EDW. J. EVANS
WM. Z. FOSTER
Committee

When hope of a settlement disappeared, the SWOC published a “Call to Strike” in several languages to steelworkers across the country:

STRIKE SEPTEMBER 22, 1919

The workers in the iron and steel mills and blast furnaces, not working under union agreements, are requested not to go to work on September 22, and to refuse to resume their employment until such time as the remands of the organizations have been conceded by the steel corporations.

The union committees have tried to arrange conferences with the heads of the steel companies in order that they might present our legitimate demands for the right of collective bargaining, higher wages, shorter hours and better working conditions. But the employers have steadfastly refused to meet them. It therefore becomes our duty to support the committees' claims, in accordance with the practically unanimous strike vote, by refusing to work in the mills on or after September 22, until such time as our just demands have been granted. And in our stoppage of work let there be no violence. The American Federation of Labor has won all its great progress by peaceful and legal methods.

IRON AND STEEL WORKERS! A historic decision confronts us. If we will but stand together now like men our demands will soon be granted and a golden era of prosperity will open for us in the steel industry. But if we falter and fail to act this great effort will be lost, and we will sink back into a miserable and hopeless serfdom. The welfare of our wives and children is at stake. Now is the time to insist upon our rights as human beings.

STOP WORK SEPTEMBER 22

NATIONAL COMMITTEE
FOR ORGANIZING IRON AND STEEL WORKERS

ADDRESS
of
MR. JOHN FITZPATRICK
before the
Thirty-Seventh Annual Convention.
of the
ILLINOIS STATE FEDERATION OF LABOR

OCTOBER 24. 1919
PEORIA, ILLINOIS

Mr. Chairman and friends—I am glad to have this opportunity to meet with the Illinois State Federation of Labor, and I appreciate very sincerely the reception which you gave me when I came into the hall and which you have now added to so generously. I came to the convention for the purpose of trying to present to you in a few words, if I can, the real situation in the steel strike. I know that a great deal of the time of the convention has been given to the consideration of this proposition and I know that men with accurate knowledge of the situation have addressed the convention on the subject, but the situation which confronts us- now makes it necessary that we get together and talk together and find out just exactly how we are going to pull together for the future.

I think we are facing the most critical time in the history of the labor movement, and the more knowledge and the more light and the more understanding that we can get on labor’s position and labor's responsibility and duty the better we are off, and it is for that reason that I come here to try and get this real situation of the steel strike before you.

It might be well to just go back a little while in this steel situation and show the condition which existed there—and I think it is considerable of an indictment against the trade union movement that the steel trust has remained unorganized and that the poor devils who are engaged in that industry have been left all these years at the mercy of these mercenaries that dictated the policy of that corporation. That is an indictment against labor. For twenty years the steel corporation has gone on unhampered in dealing as it saw fit with the labor engaged in that industry. I happened to be before the Senate Committee giving testimony upon this strike. A great deal of it didn't get the notice of the public, only spots here and there, and they asked me if I could give them a picture as to the steel industry. I said, "I will try, it will be very crude, but I think it will be true to the situation. They brought over a boat load of human beings from southern Europe, they dumped: them into the steel mills, they brought down a boat load of ore from the mines up in Michigan, they dumped that into the steel mills; they ground them both up together, they took out so much steel and out of that they took so much profit, and then they proceeded to do the thing over again. And that is what has been going on in the steel industry—grinding up human beings with ore and making steel and taking down profits."

And labor has stood by and watched that thing go on year in and year out. Twenty years ago the United States Steel Corporation issued its defy to the American Labor movement and they set aside the sum of twenty millions of dollars to remove the influence of the labor movement of America from the steel industry. And then they went at the proposition with a great deal of vigor and the labor organizations gradually but surely went out of the steel industry until there wasn't a vestige of organized labor left. We felt that as the steel industry - was a basic industry it would have to be organized, and a number of men got their heads together and said they would try to make a drive upon it. And it is not because there is any miracle or secret or magic touch by which this work can be done. It is just because common sense tactics are applied, and when you do that the result is organization, and that is all that was attempted or all that was done in the steel industry. In years gone by, of course, there have been spasmodic attempts made here and there to organize the steel industry, in some locality or in some mill or in some way, but they were all fruitless.

We considered the steel industry as a national problem and that it would have to be approached nationally, and that when organized labor moved, all of the organizations together under one head would have to move upon the steel trust. So at the convention of the American Federation of Labor in St. Paul a resolution was introduced asking the organizations in the steel industry to get together and organize an organization committee. That was done in the month of August, 1918. Samuel Gompers was elected Chairman of this committee and W.Z. Foster, a general organizer of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America, and a representative of that organization in the conference was selected as the Secretary, and then the committee went to work. We didn't have a great fund at our backs, we didn't have a great army of, soldiers to go into the field and campaign, either. Our resources were very meager, but we made up our minds to this extent: that to organize the steel industry would be like putting the backbone in the labor movement. That was our purpose and we went to it in that spirit and in that hope, that if we got the main industry in this country organized we would have accomplished the purpose of putting the backbone in the labor movement where it properly belonged.

We had to confine our efforts to the Chicago district, but in the short space of a few months we were able to report that we had sixty or seventy thousand men in our organization. You will also have to take this into consideration, that while we were carrying on this campaign we had the most gigantic obstacles to overcome, in the first place we had the armistice; in the second place we had the "flu" epidemic which closed the halls all over the country to us, and then we had the long drag of the winter months between 1918 and 1919. In October of 1918 the Steel Trust undertook to play their last card, and they had always held that card up their sleeve, and that was the granting of the eight hour day in the steel industry. In October of 1918 we had accomplished the organization of what we called the, Calumet district, the steel trust came out and made answer by the granting of the eight hour day to the entire industry. They thought they had pulled the feet out from under us and that they had us ditched. In answer to their program we took our headquarters from Chicago and put it in Pittsburgh, the very heart of the steel industry. That was our answer. And then we went to work diligently with the same vim and effort that we used in the Chicago district, and we began to make ourselves felt in the Pittsburgh district.

I am not going to take up your time relating the experiences that we went through, but for a group of organizers to undertake a campaign in Pennsylvania is not a thing which the minds of individuals who are not on the ground will be able to understand. I have read and heard of things being done here and elsewhere, but I never saw things being done in the same way as they were done in Western Pennsylvania. They don't stop at murder, they don't stop at anything, they: have their gunmen and thugs and they create a reign of terror and they try to frighten everybody off the job. It was under circumstances of that kind that we had to try to operate, and then when they did not succeed in driving us out they raised all the obstacles they could in the way of closing halls, preventing meetings, denying free speech and assemblage and all those other things.

However, when the Atlantic City convention of the Federation of Labor come about we were able to come before the convention and report that we had organized 150,000 men in the steel industry in the various centers throughout the country. Now then of course when we had this 150,000, meeting with the opposition that we were meeting with—men discharged in large numbers, the tactics of intimidation—you can't describe the lengths that they go to in order to terrorize, not alone the men, but the women and the children in the situation. We had to meet that kind of opposition. We undertook then to get a conference to see if we would not be able to negotiate the grievances which the employee in the steel industry had.

The Amalgamated Association of Iron Steel and Tin Workers met in Louisville, Kentucky, in May of this year. They addressed a letter to Judge Gary and he wrote back absolutely denying, that organization a hearing on any question relating to the employee of the corporation and stated positively that they would not deal with a labor union. We didn't stop there. When the convention of the American Federation of Labor met we asked the Federation to address a letter to Judge Gary. A letter was written by President Gompers and couched in respectful language, asking that a conference might be arranged so that the situation would be discussed. Now mind you, we had not asked any more than a conference then or up until now. There has not been a single question of any nature or character injected into this situation only the question of the right of the employee, through their representatives, to present the grievances which they had and which they wanted to present. Other questions have been lugged in by Judge Gary to becloud and befuddle the issue, but there is only one issue between labor and the corporation and that is the question of a conference.

Now when they ignored President Gomper's letter we asked the organized steel workers to take a strike vote and authorized their committee to secure the conference or else they would engage in a strike in order to enforce it. The strike vote was taken between July 20th and August 20th and it resulted in a ninety-eight per cent vote. The committee authorized by that vote went to New York. We went into Judge Gary's office, he was in the inner office and we presented our cards. The Judge told us he would not meet us, but if we would submit our matter in writing he would make answer. We submitted, the matter in writing and we got an answer in the same language in which he answered the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, and that was that he would not deal with the representatives of union labor and that he would not discuss any of these questions with anybody. Well, we had ten days in order to secure this answer. That was between August 20th and August 30th. We didn't stop there. When we got the answer from Judge Gary we went to the executive council meeting of the American Federation of Labor in Washington and we presented the entire situation to them. The executive council authorized the president of the American Federation of Labor to take this question to the President of the United States. The committee accompanied President Gompers, we met the President of the United States, and he said, "I feel you are entirely justified in the position that you take. You are entitled to a conference. Inasmuch as you have failed to get it I will do the very best I can to secure that conference for you." He said further: "But your ten days' instructions are pretty nearly exhausted." I answered by saying: "Mr. President, we can withhold action in this situation sufficiently long to exhaust every avenue of approach to the office of Judge Gary, and if it takes you one day or two months or more to get an answer from Judge Gary, this strike will be held in abeyance until you get your answer." He said: "All right, I will go at it diligently in order to get the answer at the earliest possible moment."

Some weeks elapsed and the President of the United States notified us by wire that he had failed to secure a conference for our committee with the representatives of the steel corporation. He had failed to be able to do anything, and then of course we had to go ahead with our program. The strike then was set for September 22nd, or twenty-two days later than the time given your committee in which to call the strike, so that no one will be in doubt that the committee in charge of this matter did not go at the thing hastily, but that they went through every channel and exhausted every means in order to get consideration of the proposition without resorting to a strike.

Of course we became involved in the strike. What was the result? Judge Gary said before the Senate Committee it never occurred to him that there would be a strike. He was going on the advice and information of the superintendents, foremen, strawbosses and others, and they had canvassed the men and they felt sure that they would be able to deliver the goods. But on September 22nd, when the strike date was set, 279 000 steel workers responded to the call of their fellows and shut down the steel mills until they would get consideration at the hands of this corporation. In the next few days other mills went down and the number went over 300,000, arid on up to over 350,000 involved in the strike.

Effort has been made in different ways to bring about an adjustment. The Senate Committee had their fling at it. Of course we didn't expect much from the Senate Committee, we didn't expect much consideration at the hands of any governmental agency for this reason: That the United States Steel Corporation has set itself up as bigger than the United States government, and this United States government has been dominated over and dictated to by the United States Steel Corporation. And the rebuke which the United States Steel Corporation gave to the President of the United States was sufficient to arouse every man, woman and child in America to the autocracy, the tyranny and the despotism which is going to be exercised by that corporation in doing business either with the people of America or with America itself. They are going to rule with an iron hand, the same as they have ruled the slaves in their slave pens all of the years in which they have had such absolute control.

Well, we can say this: The hold of the United States Steel Corporation on the lives of the men employed there is broken. Out of this strike is going to come a consciousness on the part of the workers that they are a real force and factor in this industry. Before they looked upon the situation as being a gigantic thing, bigger than the United States government, and they in their unorganized, individual capacity were mere atoms in the situation. This strike has brought it into the minds and hearts of these men that even if the United States Steel Corporation can set itself up as bigger than the United States Government, there is still a greater power here, and that power rests with the workers themselves. And when they made up their minds to shut down the steel industry I want to say to you that the steel industry went down, and it is down, and it is going to stay down until we get justice. Now the men know that they know where the power lies. It doesn't rest with Wall street, it doesn't rest in this combination of financiers and captains of industry and commercial magnates, not at all. The power is with the workers, and now the workers are beginning to realize it in that industry as we have in our own industries for a long, long while.

So much for the general situation. I know you realize that with over 300,000 men engaged in the strike the men who have the responsibility and duty of handling that situation have got to give the very best that is in them. We are trying to do that as best we can. In the first place we were an organizing committee, and we suddenly found ourselves with a gigantic strike on our hands and we had to reorganize ourselves to handle a strike situation of the proportions we have on hand. Some job! Then we found this situation in Western Pennsylvania, where there is not a vestige of citizenship rights. Talk about free assemblage and free speech! It doesn't exist there. Three men in any town up and down the river for fifty miles constitute a riot and must be immensely disbanded. That is the situation. For two months—for five weeks. I want to make this statement accurately—it is two months, it is more than two months—for five weeks as this strike has gone on we haven't had -a meeting with the strikers in Western Pennsylvania. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine the thousands and thousands of men there with their wives and children engaged in this great fight and still no communication, no open assemblage, no talking or speechmaking or anything of that kind? And still these men stand there as a solid wall, even with the reign of terror which the company has created in all these towns, not to say anything of the higher detectives and gunmen, the sheriffs, and then last, but not least, the Cossacks! Oh, what a horrible word in America, and to say that we as American citizens have got to sit in the hall this afternoon and not one man or woman arise to challenge the statement that Cossacks exist in our own land, the land that is dedicated to the cause of human liberty and freedom isn't that a sad indictment? But there they are. The Cossacks of Western Pennsylvania—you don't know what they are unless you have been there. We have had them in Homestead, in Braddock, in McKeesport, and they don't hesitate at all to ride into the barber shops, ride into the poolrooms and other places where men congregate and drive them out like rats and trample them under their horses' hoofs. They have even rode into the kitchens of the members of our organization in the city of Homestead. That is not a statement, and it is not one instance, but in many instances they have ridden into the kitchens of the homes of the workers in order to terrify the women and children. And this is in America!

We tried to hold a meeting on the public commons at Clareton, Pennsylvania. The men and women went out on Sunday afternoon and they took their babies with them. And an old man, actuated by the spirit of America, as all working men and women are, when that meeting was about to assemble, nailed a piece of wood up alongside the platform where the speakers were going to be and then he nailed an American flag to that stick. Seven of these Cossacks rode into that meeting and through these women and children and scattered them in all directions and the man in charge of them rode up to the flagstaff and pulled down the American flag and threw it under the feet of the horse which he was riding. Women and children were trampled there. One woman of some proportions did not want to get into the jam and she thought if she would get over by the fence she might find a way of escape, and one of these Cossacks saw her and he immediately plunged his horse leaping upon her and the horse hit her and she hit the fence, broke the fence down and tumbled down in the roadway. You won't believe it! You don't think it could happen in America, but those are the tactics of the opposition we have.

So much for that. We had to organize a legal department. We thought of course that the way to approach this situation was legally, that if we would get men with national reputations they would go in there under the dignity of the law and that the law would be impartial and just to everyone. Our attorney, Mr. Ruben who has been an attorney for the Iron Moulders' International Union for a number of years, a man with a national reputation, addressed a letter to the sheriff of Allegheny County, and the sheriff answered him and said: "We know your purpose in Western Pennsylvania. You are here for the purpose of getting the dollars of the workers, and when you get $500,000 yourself and Fitzpatrick and Foster will leave for other places. There is an emergency in Western Pennsylvania. The emergency consists of yourself, Fitzpatrick and Foster. The sheriff is going to use all of his authority to see that this menace does not interfere with the interests of Western Pennsylvania. The emergency will continue until you remove yourself, and when you do the emergency will cease." That is the language of the sheriff of the county in which the heart of the industry is located, addressed to a man of national reputation, a member of the bar.

After we had gone into our legal end of it we found it was necessary to organize a publicity end of it. You have talked publicity here this afternoon, and as I sat back there listening to the discussion and the debate and the whys and wherefores, I only wished that we could take the trade unionists of Illinois down into Western Pennsylvania for about two hours. You wouldn't need any more. A dose of about one hour, and then if you ever got back to Illinois again you would not be monkeying with a weekly paper or a circular letter or some other kind of information, you would go in and put a daily paper on the street corner. You would carry the message of labor to every man, woman and child throughout the width and breadth of this land if you had the actual experience as it exists down there. But we had to resort to a publicity bureau, and just as they do in Russia, just as they do in other places where the heavy hand of the oppressor is on the back of those who toil, they have always been able to devise ways and means to get their information through. Our publicity carries our information out and we get the message to those we cannot communicate with otherwise. It was some job, but we are there with it and getting the information across to those who need it.

Now I am coming to the principal purpose of my being here this afternoon, and that is to tell you that as we go into this situation we realize the great responsibility and duties upon us, and unless we serve to the very best of our ability we will have fallen far short of doing our part. We know what is ahead of us and we are prepared to meet it, and that is that this is a test between employer and the employee, and if it takes one month, if it takes six months, if it takes one year or ten years, I say to you that the duty of labor now is to fight this battle to a finish, come what will.

The men in the steel industry of course can't handle this thing like our old established organization who had business methods and other ways of transacting their business. We are dealing with 340,000 recently organized men, men who have been in slavery for the past twenty years. They just came out of slavery on the 22nd day of September of this year, and it is a situation that has to be handled and we are going to try to do the best we can. I say 340,000 because we had some 355,000 or more on strike. You are going to ask where the other 15,000 are. Did they go back into the mills? No, they haven't gone back into the mills, they have gone out of the industry, they are not back in the mills and we still have 340,000 on strike. More of them are going out of the industry too, and they are not going back that is, not under unorganized conditions.

Some people think that this is just an ordinary situation. Let me say to you that we realize what we have to contend with and one of the things we have to contend with is a publicity bureau operated by the United States Steel Corporation. You can't begin to imagine what that is. They not only have subsidized the daily newspapers, both in their news and editorial columns—I challenge any editor of any of the daily newspapers to get up and say that his paper has not been purchased outright for the purposes of the steel strike. They allow sufficient news to get in to make the thing colored, but when it comes to control, the control- of the publicity bureau over the editorial and news columns, it is absolute. Not only that, we understand that we have the financial, industrial and commercial interests of the country to reckon with, in this situation, and then we also understand and know that the pulpit, to a very large degree, has been subsidized to serve the purposes of the unholy United States Steel Corporation as against the holy cause of the men, women and children of toil. It is a difficult thing to understand, but that is the power and influence of money.

We are reckoning with these things and we are going into this campaign now because it has got to be fought out, and we are not able to pay strike benefits. That is out of the question. The only thing we can do and the only pledge we made was that no woman or child would go hungry as a result of this strike. Now get that clear. Personally, I don't give a hang what is going to become of any man involved in this situation. If a man hasn't got the red blood to safeguard, protect and advance his own interests, then he will have to go by the board, but women and children in this situation are indefensible, and our pledge to them is that they shall not go hungry or cold, nor shall they be shelterless.

In order to do that we are going to establish commissary stores. Mind you, we have a number of places, we have Cleveland, Youngstown, - Johnstown, - fifty miles up and down the river, all these mills scattered over the country, and then this Calumet district reaching from Milwaukee to Gary, going into three states. These places will all have to be covered and each one will have to have a station. I am happy to report that we have secured the assistance of Robert McKetcham, the president of the Central States Wholesale Co-Operative Society, to organize and help put this thing on its feet. We took him to Pittsburgh, and in consultation with our national committee he said he wanted to do the best he could. He went into it willingly, and we are going to establish these stations and see that the distribution goes to the very spot where we intend it to go. It is a gigantic task, but we cannot shirk the responsibility. We expect that by the end of this week in the very worst spots we will already have our relief stations operating.

I don't know whether you all get the proposition what the relief station means. We are. not going to sell to the home, we are going to give, we are going to give out substantial food, we are going to see that the necessary amount goes into each family, so that that family will be able to exist in the way a family should exist, whether they experienced that while for toiling for the United States Steel Corporation or not. These principles we will have to recognize, and we will do that job.

We also know we have a difficult situation in the milk supply and the coal supply, with the coal strike coming on. All of these things make the proposition that much more difficult, but we are going into it. The American Federation of Labor has countenanced all of these activities, has given sanction through action of the Executive Council of the federation and will communicate with all of the international unions and all of the local unions directly urging this appeal for financial assistance for the striking steel workers. Not only that, the field men of the international unions and the local unions will be utilized in visiting locals, urging this very necessary action on the part of the local. The secretary of the American Federation of Labor will be custodian of the funds, and I am going to ask you now not to wait any longer. The action is official, it is going to come direct from the American Federation of Labor to your local, but the need of the hour is on us and I am going to ask the delegates here to take this question up at the earliest possible moment. If you can do it by wire or by correspondence or if you have to wait until you get home, do it at the earliest possible moment and urge upon your locals to contribute as liberally as they possibly can. Don't go at this proposition in a petty larceny way. Don't think you are playing penny ante. Make yourself believe you are sitting into a real game, that you are going to stake all you have on the outcome of the proposition and if you go at it in this way I say to you that old Mr. United States Steel Corporation will learn a lesson that the United States government has been unable to teach him.

Just a word in closing as to the situation itself. You see all this newspaper stuff about the bloody revolutionaries, about the hotbeds of anarchy, about the breeding places of the Bolsheviki, and all of these other horrible stories injected into the press daily. Let me say to you, friends, that it is ninety-nine per cent bunk absolutely. No such conditions exist. It is the control of the publicity bureau of the United States Steel Corporation over the newspapers of America to influence public opinion. Think of the war, when they had their intelligence bureau, their secret service, their department of justice and all of those other war activities to find the enemies of the government. Can you imagine with that information that there is a man or woman in America that they haven't got tabulator, marked and placed away where they can reach him any time they want to? Now you see the fallacy of the stories being published broadcast. I think the best illustration of the truth of the situation is this, that down there in Gary, Indiana, which is supposed to be the hotbed, they found a real bloody revolutionary book. This thing was all splattered over with blood inside and outside, that is to listen to the newspaper reports. It was so awfully un-American that they took it and had it translated, and after it was translated it proved to be Mark Twin’s "Tom Sawyer" published in Russian. That is the kind of stuff they are finding. But this publicity bureau actually publishes and places a lot of revolutionary stuff, and then they send out their hounds to find it, and of course discoveries can be made very readily when they know how they did the job themselves.

At Gary, at South Chicago, at Joliet at Indiana Harbor, all those other places they talk about the men flocking back into the mills. Well, if they began to flock back in the way the papers said, each one of those mills would have over a million employees at the present moment. I know the situation and I say to you that they can't even by assembling their superintendents, their foremen, their strawbosses and others, take a small department of the mill and operate that department ten per cent of normal. Mind you, they say they are operating normally. I know they are not able to operate any department ten per cent normal even if they concentrate all the ability they have in the way of superintendents and others.

I have been up and down the river in Pennsylvania. I came through there last Wednesday night. The week before that I walked across the bridge at night between Pittsburgh proper and what is known as the south side, and up and down the river it looked like midnight, and there is no man or woman who has ever seen Pittsburgh illuminated at night by the operation of those mills that would ever be able to imagine that darkness would come upon Pittsburgh in that situation. I walked that bridge and I saw the darkness up and down the river as far as the eye could reach. Last Wednesday night I was coming over from Washington and went back to the end of the train when we reached McKeesport. That is the further plant down. Then I watched both sides of the river as we came on up to Pittsburgh, and I say to you that in all of that district there were only two furnaces running. One was in McKeesport, the other was in Braddock, and in these places we never did have an opportunity of the right of free speech or free assemblage. And even with that the plants of the industry are shut down to the extent of only those two furnaces running.

I think that is a clear illustration as to the condition of the steel industry in this country and as to the result of this strike. I can say to you men and women that we went into this strike stronger the fifth week than in any previous week, and we are going to go into the sixth week stronger, we are going to go into the seventh week stronger, yes, we are going to stay on this job if it takes all winter until we establish the right of the workers in the steel industry to present their grievances and to have consideration of the wrongs that have been perpetrated upon them. That fight we are going to carry to the last ditch.

I know the response that we are going to meet with on the part of the Illinois men and women. I am not here urging you to do this. I know the response will be full, the thing that I came here for principally was to let you know the actual conditions and to say to you from this platform that the men in the steel industries, working under obstacles such as were never confronted by an organized group in such large numbers before, are standing solidly together determined that right and justice is on their side and that right and justice will prevail. With your support we are going to come through this victoriously, and let us all make up our minds to one thing, regardless of what our conditions have been in the past. The day of labor is here. Labor has got to go into this contest and we have got to close up the gap, we have got to overcome the prejudices and suspicion, we have got to sink our personal ambitions, we have got to make up our minds that this is a common cause and that each one of us is only an atom in the situation, that we are going to close up our ranks and stand together and demonstrate to capital and the labor-baiting employers of the country that the workers have some rights and these rights we will never surrender.

As the months wore on, with government, media, and big business against the strikers, the steel workers’ campaign showed signs of weakening:

Estimated production of steel, 50 to 60 per cent. of normal capacity.

Owing to the chaotic conditions in many steel districts, it was exceedingly difficult at all times to get accurate statistics upon the actual state of affairs. Those above represented the very best that the National Committee's whole organizing force could assemble. The officials of the Amalgamated Association strongly favored calling off the strike, but agreed that the figures cited on the number of men still out were conservative and within the mark. The opinion prevailed that the strike was still effective and that it should be vigorously continued. (Foster, The Great Steel Strike)

The Great Steel Strike and Its Lessons

by William Z. Foster

(Organizer of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee)
pg. 207-208

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 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 Monesson 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 we were told that we were going to be 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 Imade 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
(pg. 192-193)

The Steel Corporations, with the active assistance of the press, the courts, the federal troops, state police, and many public officials, have denied steel workers their rights of free speech, free assembly and the right to organize, and by this arbitrary and ruthless misuse of power have brought about a condition which has compelled the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers to vote today that the active strike phase of the steel campaign is now at end. A vigorous campaign of education and re-organization will be immediately begun and will not cease until industrial justice has been achieved in the steel industry. All steel strikers are now at liberty to return to work pending preparations for the next big organization movement.

John Fitzpatrick
D. J. Davis
Edw. J. Evans
Wm. Hannon
Wm. Z. Foster