The Great Steel Strike and its LessonsFoster, William Z.
History
The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons
Foster, William Z.
Steel Strike, U.S., 1919-1920; United States Steel Corporation
[5] As a side light on organizing methods, it may be noted that the
temporary receipts were red, white and blue cards. The patriotic
foreigners were proud to carry these emblematic cards pending the time
they got their regular cards. More than one man joined merely on that
account.
[6] In its war against unionism the Cambria Steel Company held nothing
sacred, not even the church. During the campaign the Reverend George
Dono Brooks, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Johnstown, took an
active part, speaking at many meetings and generally lending
encouragement to the workers. For this crime the company punished him by
disrupting his congregation and eventually driving him from the city,
penniless.
V
BREAKING INTO PITTSBURGH
THE FLYING SQUADRON--MONESSEN--DONORA--McKEESPORT--RANKIN
--BRADDOCK--CLAIRTON--HOMESTEAD--DUQUESNE--THE RESULTS
The time was now ripe for a great drive on Pittsburgh, a district which
had been the despair of unionism for a generation. The new strategy of
the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers was
succeeding. Pittsburgh had been surrounded by organized posts,
established during the winter. The Chicago district had also been held.
The committee's finances were improving. The crew of organizers was
larger and more enthusiastic than ever. The mills were operating
stronger and stronger. And spring was here. The movement was now ready
for a tremendous effort to capture Pittsburgh, and thus overcome, as far
as might be, the original mistake of not starting the campaign soon
enough and everywhere at the same time. This done, it would put the work
squarely upon the essential national basis. So the assault was ordered
on the stronghold of the Steel Trust.
First free speech and free assembly had to be established; for the towns
about Pittsburgh were still closed tight against the unions. During the
winter incessant attempts had been made to break the embargo by
political methods, but without avail. In vain a special convention of
all the unions in Western Pennsylvania had appealed to the Governor for
assistance. For a moment the federal Department of Labor displayed a
languid interest and sent a dozen men to investigate conditions. But
until this day their report has never appeared. In answer to inquiries,
the Secretary of Labor is reported to have said that "its publication at
this time would be inadvisable." That may be one reason, and another may
be that the Department, in its eager cooperation with Attorney General
Palmer, in deporting hundreds of workingmen without trials, is so busy
that it hasn't time to attend to such trifles as the wholesale
suppression of constitutional rights in Pennsylvania.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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