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
An auto truck, in waiting, was hurried to the scene and the
body of the old miner thrown in; then Mrs. Sellins was
dragged by the heels to the back of the car. Before she was
placed in the truck, a deputy took a cudgel and crushed in
her skull before the eyes of the throng of men, women and
children, who stood in powerless silence before the armed
men. Deputy ---- picked up the woman's hat, placed it on his
head, danced a step, and said to the crowd: "I'm Mrs.
Sellins now."
Thus perished noble Fannie Sellins: shot in the back by so-called peace
officers. And she 49 years old, a grandmother, and mother of a boy
killed in France, fighting to make the world safe for democracy.
Many people witnessed this horrible murder. The guilty men were named
openly in the newspapers and from a hundred platforms. Yet no one was
ever punished for the crime. Witnesses were spirited away or
intimidated, and the whole matter hushed up in true Steel Trust fashion.
A couple of deputies were arrested; but they were speedily released on
smaller bonds than those often set for strikers arrested for picketing.
Eventually they were freed altogether.
The killing of Mrs. Sellins, right in the teeth of the strike as it was,
lent much bitterness to the general situation. Rightly or wrongly, the
steel workers, almost to a man, felt that this devoted woman was a
martyr to their cause.
[Illustration: MRS. FANNIE SELLINS, TRADE UNION ORGANIZER
Killed by Steel Trust gunmen, West Natrona, Pa., Aug. 26, 1919.]
Upon November 8, the Senate Committee, having completed its hearings,
made public its report. This document is a strange mixture of
progressive and reactionary principles. In some respects, especially
where it grants, however confusedly, the right of collective bargaining
and the eight hour day, it is just and meets the situation; but in other
respects it is so unfair to the workers' cause as to be grotesque. For
one thing it shoulders upon the unions the entire responsibility for the
failure to postpone the strike, choosing to disregard completely the
clearly established fact that the steel companies were discharging men
so fast that for the unions it was a case of strike or perish. In fact,
the report ignores altogether the bitter grievance of men being
discharged for union membership. Mr. Gary had said that this practice
was not engaged in, and that apparently settled it so far as the
Committee was concerned,--the testimony of dozens of victimized workers
(with thousands more available) to the contrary notwithstanding. Other
sins of the Steel Trust, the suppression of free speech and free
assembly, etc., were passed over lightly; but the alleged virtues of its
housing and welfare plans were very highly lauded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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