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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 1, 1909
Sensational Testimony Given Concerning McKees Rocks Steel Car Company
From The New York Times of August 28, 1909:
STEEL CAR PLANT CALLED A PRISON
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Strikebreakers Testify They Were Held
in Stockade Against Their Will.
—–FOOD, UNFIT AND SCARCE
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Threats of Violence and Confinement
In Box Car Kept Men in State of
Terror, Witnesses Say.From a Staff Correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES.
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PITTSBURG, Aug. 27.-The testimony presented before the Government investigation to-day in continuance of the conditions existing at the Pressed Steel Car Company’s works at McKees Rocks was the most sensational that has ever been heard so far.
Nathaniel Shaw, a strikebreaker from New York, was the star witness. He testified that he wanted to leave the plant the day after he arrived, but was intimidated and prevented from doing so.
His accusations were brought chiefly against Sam Cohen, the man who is immediately under Leo C. Bergoff, in charge of the strikebreakers. He said that Sam Cohen has surrounded himself with about thirty-five men, whom he has installed in the positions of company guardsmen, and that these men back Cohen in all his acts of tyrannical control. He told about gambling within the work and of winning $50 from a Deputy Sheriff.
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The strike of the workers at the Pressed Steel Car plant, and at McKees Rocks, New Castle and Butler, Pa., near Pittsburg, is being fought by the employers and their troops with all the brutally and outrage which remind one of Homestead and the other slaughter pens of America. In addition to numerous outrages on the part of the employers’ troops, on August 22, 10 strikers were killed buy the militia, who opened a volley fire on the crowd of men, women and children. Four of the bloodthirsty soldiers were killed in the fight. They, at least, will never kill any more strikers. The account of the affair, while distressing, is a reminder that the fighting spirit of the workers is not dead, and that the working people are realizing that they have no rights to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, unless they have the power themselves to enforce those rights. It is not for the parlor, kidglove revolutionist to preach meekness and “peaceful methods” to these brave workers who are fighting for their lives and to protect the honor of their families, nor for other working people to lay down hard and fast rules for those who are goaded and stung by tyranny and oppression……
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