Although, ostensibly, the strike was directed against the Steel Corporation and no attempt had been made to negotiate with the heads of other concerns, all steel companies west of the Alleghanies were affected by the walk-out as much as or more than was the Corporation. So far as the big company was concerned the greatest number of men out when the strike was at its worst, or within a few days of its inception, was 28 per cent. of its total of employees or 40 per cent. of its manufacturing force. These were the figures given by Judge Gary in his testimony at Washington in October, and undoubtedly they are as nearly accurate as possible. And of the men out there is no question that many were kept from work not by persuasion but by intimidation, the strikers having used threats freely to keep the loyal workers from the mills. Such tactics are not at all a new thing in similar conditions. Steel workers who sought to report for duty were sent letters threatening them with injury or death to themselves or families. In some cases the threats were sent to the men’s wives or other dependents where their effect was perhaps greater. The strike had not been in progress two days before its genesis became patent. The American public soon realized that probably 98 per cent. of the strikers were alien-born and that the native worker, with few exceptions, and large numbers of naturalized foreigners, were sticking to the steel companies. This, together with the inflammatory utterances of the strikers themselves, convinced the public that the strike was not what it claimed to be, an effort to get fair wages and improved living conditions for the workers--the American workers who remained at their posts insisted that they already had these and the evidence adduced by the steel companies verified the statement--but an attempt to deliver the steel mills and factories into the hands of the radical foreign element among our industrial workers. It was, in a word, but the first step toward the seizure of the means of production by labor. And the public, with the example of Russia before it, could not and did not sympathize with the strikers. With some notable exceptions the strike was a bloodless one. This was due principally to the prompt action taken by the local public authorities at the various points affected to prevent trouble and to the refusal of the steel companies generally to attempt to bring in strike breakers. Because of this passive attitude on the part of the employers the strikers were robbed of the opportunity to make sufficient trouble to force intervention by the Government.