5. Abolition of twenty-four-hour shifts. 6. Increase in wages sufficient to guarantee American standard of living. 7. Standard scales of wages in all trades and classifications of workers. 8. Double rate of pay for all overtime, holiday, and Sunday work. 9. Check-off system of collecting union dues and assessments. 10. Principles of seniority to apply in maintenance, reduction, and increase of working force. 11. Abolition of company unions. 12. Abolition of physical examination of applicants for employment. Some of these demands were merely camouflage, inserted to give the public an idea of imaginary wrongs against the steel worker. The steel companies generally have been trying for years to institute a real eight-hour day and have made the eight-hour day the basis of wage payments. Practically all steel workers work only six days a week. The twenty-four-hour shift is borne by a very small percentage of the workers and by these only on widely separated occasions. The Corporation and its competitors as well, following its lead, have repeatedly advanced wages without solicitation from the men, and the claim that the wage they pay is insufficient to permit American standards of living has not borne investigation. But the acceptance of such demands as the recognition of the right of collective bargaining, coupled with the check-off system of collecting union dues and assessments, would have handed over the companies, bound hand and foot, to the unions. The application of the seniority principle in maintaining, reducing, and increasing working forces would have obviously made for inefficiency and destroyed the incentive to effort and good work on the part of the men. Finally, physical examination of applicants for employment in an industry where sound health, active muscles, and keen eye-sight are necessary not only for the safety of the worker himself, but for that of his associates, was a precaution which the companies could not dispense with in fairness either to themselves or to their employees. It is hardly necessary to discuss these demands in further detail. All the circumstances indicated that they were merely a gauge of battle, hardly intended for discussion. These demands were announced by E. J. Evans, who in an interview with press representatives was quoted as declaring that either they would be accepted in toto by the Corporation or the steel workers would strike within a week, shutting down the entire industry. This was about the middle of August, 1919.