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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 7, 1919
Buffalo, New York – Steel Strikers Standing Firm as Gibraltar
From Buffalo Labor Journal of October 2, 1919:
STEEL STRIKERS HOLDING FIRMLY
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Propaganda in Sunday Papers Fails in Desired Effect
-Gunmen Modest in Their Retirement
-Big Mill and the Assessors
A flood of printer’s ink and a mountain of good white paper was utterly wasted in the campaign of propaganda which the barons of the Steel Trust and their affiliations poured forth in last Sunday’s papers of this good, old America of ours.
According to the writings of the lads employed by Kaiser Gary and his entourage, the gates of the big mills would be choked on Monday morning with the men, eager to bend their backs to the crack of the driver’s whip
Their fond anticipations failed to realize and there was no response to the weasel voice of the hired scribblers. The men are standing as firm as the rock of Old Gibraltar.
None went back-divel the wan.
In all this pyrotechnical display of the propagandists we fail to catch the sonorous voice of our old friend, False Alarm Donner. In the first week of the strike Donner could be heard with his discordant bray over the thunderous voices of both master and men. That lad made a high mark for himself as the Grand Claimant of All. He spouted interviews like a Texan oil gusher.
They have put the soft pedal on Donner and the atmosphere no longer vibrates with his amazing prognostications.
So much for friend Donner; now for the big mill with its company houses, its Moses Taylor hospital, its Smokes Creek and its favored assessments. All are interwoven closely with its desire for welfare work and its Oh! Be Joyful efforts at uplifting.
When the uplifters from the big mill go forth on their errand of uplifting we are reminded of Poet Shelley’s ministerial friend, who had
“The grace of God
In every word
He said or sang.”Kind, gentle reader; did you ever hear of the big mill putting forth any gigantic efforts to uplift the assessment of its property in the city of Lackawanna?
Not on your life! Their efforts at uplifting never seem to run in that direction. ‘Tis passing strange, but gospel truth, nevertheless.
The officials of Lackawanna [about 6 miles from Buffalo] have acquired astigmatism of the optics by watching the serpent coils of smoke roll forth from the big mill. The thumbs of the masters press heavily upon the skulls of the assessors of the city on our southern border.
The tax-rate of Lackawanna is running neck-and-neck with Buffalo and its citizens are rewarded by the miasmatic effluvia which ever stream up from Smokes Creek in its meanderings.
William T. Stead well named the mill towns “Hell-holes” and Lackawanna, through a scoundrelly system of unequal assessments takes a front seat in the court of iniquity.
The hired gunmen who shot up the town, having done their evil work, have retired into a truly modest retirement.
These shooters of babes are in their dugouts awaiting further orders. The time is not yet ripe for their peculiar type of hell-raising.
Smokes Creek, Moses Taylor hospital, unequal assessment, hired thugs and gunmen! All woven round with a hypocritical pretense at uplifting.
Welfare work! what sins you cover.
The good, old darkey preacher way down in Alabam’ had it right when he said:
“Where’er you see the greates’ smoke
De smales’ fire ‘ll be,
An’ de leastes’ kin’ ob possum
Climbs de highes’ kin’ ob tree;
De brudder in de camp meet
What makes de bigges’ shout,
Is gwine to rob some henroost
Befo’ de week is out.”Gompers Says Men Will Win
“The steel workers will win because their cause is just,” said Samuel Gompers prior to departing for Washington last night after a two-day visit to New York.
“In all probability,” said he, “the steel strike will be discussed at the industrial conference which President Wilson has called for next week. Much good may flow from that.”
For Chairman Gary of the Steel Corporation, Mr. Gompers said he had high regard, but he insisted that the time had passed when a corporation may regard its employees as its ward. Mr. Gary, he said, had erred in assuming that Messrs. Fitzpatrick and Foster in seeking a conference did not represent a majority of the United States Steel Corporation’s employees. The proof of this, he said, could be seen in the number on strike in response to their order.
In his talk Mr. Gompers repeated his defense of Foster on the charge of radicalism and Fitzpatrick on the charge of being an extremist. “You have not,” said he, “heard of them making any revolutionary speeches in this fight. These men renounced such preachments many years ago.”
Insidious Tactics by “Steel” Stool Pigeons
The National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers has issued the following circular to all secretaries and organizers:
Dear Sirs and Brothers:-It is necessary for us to be on our guard against the insidious tactics now being employed by the steel corporations. They have bought up the press wholesale and are carrying on a monumental campaign of misrepresentation against the strike. Not only are they manufacturing all kinds of riots and outbreaks that never occurred and trying every other way possible to put us in bad favor with the public, but they are also lying wholesale about the extent of the strike. They are heralding it far and wide that the strike is already broken and that the men are returning to work in droves.
The fact is that the men are standing solidly everywhere. The great mills at Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, Wheeling, Steubenville, Benwood, Bellaire, Youngstown, Gary, Joliet, Indiana Harbor, South Chicago, De Kalb, Milwaukee, Pueblo, Birmingham, Canton, Newcastle, Sharon, Farrell, Struthers, Clairton, Vandergrift, Brackenridge, Leechburg, New Kensington, Mingo, Wierton, Johnstown, Coatesville, Donora, Monessen are down flat. And those at Pittsburgh, Homestead, Braddock and Duquesnes are but little better off. They are limping along with only remnants of crews. They will all be down before many days have gone by. And that is exactly the way they will remain until Judge Gary decides to grant justice to the men in the steel industry. We know that you will pay no attention to the lies of the newspapers.
One tactic the steel companies are using to break up our men in this strike is to call so-called meetings of skilled workers in the various towns for the avowed purpose of considering whether or not the strike should be continued. Watch these carefully and warn your men against them. Any business union men have to conduct they will do through their unions. They will not allow themselves to be misled by any company arranged propositions. Wherever such meetings have been attempted they have been a flat failure. In this great crisis in the steel industry the steel workers know that their only reliance is their union. Don’t be fooled by the company stool pigeons.
At the present time there are 340,000 steel workers on strike. As I write the 40,000 men employed in the Bethlehem seem about to lay down their tools and cast in their fortunes with the rest of us. Before this affair is settled there will not be a nonunion steel worker or steel mill in America.
Fraternally yours,
WILLIAM Z. FOSTER,
Secretary-Treasurer.Mother Jones to Speak.
At an open meeting which has been called for tonight at Miller’s Harmonia hall, Genesee street, Mother Jones, the angel of the miners, will give a comprehensive sketch of the Steel Trust and its methods.
She will likely remain over for the Lackawanna meeting for tomorrow evening.
Mother Jones tells her story well and all are welcome to hear her.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Strikes are not peace Clv UMWC p537, Sept 16, 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=-V5ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA537
Buffalo Labor Journal
“Official Organ of The Central Labor Council of Buffalo and Vicinity”
(Buffalo, New York)
-Oct 2, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/255005200
IMAGE
GSS William Z Foster, Binghamton Prs Ldr, p11, Oct 1, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/253323899/
See also:
Tag: Great Steel Strike of 1919
https://weneverforget.org/tag/great-steel-strike-of-1919/
Note: “False Alarm Donner” most likely refers to
-W. H. Donner, President of Donner Steel Co.
See:
Steel, Volume 65
Penton Publishing Company, 1919
(search: “W. H. Donner”)
https://books.google.com/books?id=1Os0AQAAMAAJ
William Stead
https://spartacus-educational.com/Jstead.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._T._Stead
The Great Steel Strike and Its Lessons
-by William Z. Foster
B. W. Huebsch, Incorporated, 1920
https://books.google.com/books?id=Hbt-AAAAMAAJ
re: Lackawanna
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Hbt-AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA183
re: National Industrial Conference
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Hbt-AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA140
re: Charges of Radicalism against WZF & JF
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Hbt-AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA152
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Hbt-AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA241
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The Homestead Strike Song