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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
—–
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.
—–
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.
He said that while a game was in progress Cohen came along, and seeing what was going on told the men if they did not give him a “rake-off” he would break it up, which later he did, and Shaw was thrown into the box car prison within the works and allowed to remain three hours and a half. He gave the court a minute description of that famous box car prison. He described it as a badly ventilated, filthy hole, where there were no accommodations for the men. “Men were placed in the car on the slightest pretext,” he said, “and the guards always held imprisonment in the car over the men as a threat. Men were put into it for smoking, and you daren’t talk to no one, no matter what they said to you.”
Confined in a Box Car.
Chief of Police Farrell put him in the car, he said, when he caught him gambling with pennies, following the game with the Deputy Sheriff, and after his refusal to allow Cohen a rake-off.
[He testified:]
I told Farrell that I wanted to quit work and leave the plant, but Farrell said, “Let him stay there”-meaning the box car-“and he will get it by morning.” This was at 8 o’clock at night.
Continuing, he said:
Farrell and Cohen were hand in hand, and when Farrell found that one of Cohen’s friends had been locked up in the box car through mistake, he opened the door and let him go, but kept us there.
He told an incident concerning Cohen’s methods, as follows:
A friend and I thought we would make a little money on the side while we were in the plant, and, my friend went downtown and bought some shirts and underwear which we purchased to soil to the men, seeing that they needed these things.
A messenger boy brought the goods, which amounted to $27, to the gate and Sam Cohen was there. Cohen said: “Now you know Shaw that nothing of this kind can be allowed here. You can’t sell these things.” And he paid us the $27 and took charge of the bundle. It seemed pretty white in him [casual racism noted] to pay us the money, seeing we could not to allowed to dispose of the goods, but the first thing we knew Cohen was selling that underwear and the shirts all for a dollar a throw. He must have made a lot of money out of the deal.
He testified that he was made a timekeeper at the plant, and was a sort of guardsman over the men. He said that Cohen gave him, in common with the other guards, to understand that the sick men in the plant were to be kept out of the way of any investigating committee or other men that might come through the plant.
From the facts he gave, it appeared that there was difference in the conduct of affairs in the works before and after the investigating committee made its official visit a few days ago. Before the investigation, he said, he had taken men who wanted to quit work to Chief Farrell and Sam Cohen, and that these men had told the strikebreakers that they could not quit until after they had worked out the cost of their transportation. But he testified that after the investigation on certain days the company posted notices up in conspicuous places that the men could quit work and receive their pay on those particular days.
[He said:]
On one occasion, when matters had gotten to a high pitch, I went to Sam Cohen and told him I was going to quit, and he told me if I said anything about quitting he would get a black jack after me.
Questioned as to the condition of the foreigners in the plant who could not speak English, he said their condition was deplorable, and that they were beaten and kicked about unmercifully.
Call the Food Unfit.
As was the case yesterday, all the men testified that they were brought to McKees Rocks without knowing that they were coming to break a strike.
To a man they testified that the food was bad and that they had trouble to get it, even such as it was. Shaw said that he suffered from ptomaine poisoning, and Thomas B. Snowden of Philadelphia told of being brought from Philadelphia to McKees Rocks without being given anything to eat.
[He said:]
I ate dinner In Philadelphia on Monday night, and the next meal I got was Wednesday noon, and then the food they gave me in the plant was so bad I couldn’t eat it.
Snowden said when he found himself a strikebreaker he wanted to quit at once, but he understood from the men that he would not be allowed to get out. So he went to a knothole in the stockage and spoke to a passing foreigner. And, finding a piece of paper on the ground, he wrote the following letter and threw it over the fence to the foreigner, who took it to the Strikers’ Executive Committee:
I got your letter, [meaning the one the foreigner had tossed over the fence to him.] but it is hard to get over the fence, for there are men with guns stationed 100 yards apart at the fence with guns. A man tried to get out last night and got shot in the leg. There are about 1,000 scabs in hero. I hired as a machinist, but had only worked about two hours when I tried to quit. I put an axle on the bum [meaning that he purposely spoiled an axle he was turning], to get fired. Laborers get $2 a day and machinists $3.
Last night there was a panic here; they thought the strikers had got in, and the men rushed about in an awful way. I did not know this was a strike. They told me I was to go but 60 miles out of Philadelphia, and I got stung. Everybody is sick of his job.
This witness testified that he did not know that he was a strikebreaker until the striker began to shoot at him as he was crossing the river from Bellevue Station. Asked whether or not he had tried to get out of the works he said:
I would have gotten out the first day if I could have.
Other witnesses told about the panic which had seized the men last Sunday night following the rioting outside the plant. Men arose from their cots from sleep and fell over each other getting to cover, fearing the strikers would get them.
From the evidence submitted it appeared that the investigating committee had been kept away from the men. Not a man testified to having seen either Sheriff Gumbert when he went through the works or the Austro-Hungarian Vice Consul. Many said that they would have been glad to get away under the protection of these men, who could have carried them safely out of the much-dreaded gates of the stockade.
Dan Dido of Philadelphia was an interesting witness, who stated that he would have been glad to leave the plant the day after he was brought into it, but that he was afraid to make the attempt because he was afraid he would be badly used by Sam Cohen and the guards.
Anthony Conrad of New York said that he asked Cohen if he would eat such food aa was set before the men and Cohen replied:
“You know I would not.”
Almost all the men, especially the foreigners, testified that Cohen would abuse them and hit and kick them on the slight est provocation. Conrad said that when word got abroad that the men were talking of quitting in a body guards were kept near them night and day to prevent them from talking.
The witnesses said that 250 men left the works to-day, and that 300 more, constituting the entire force, are anxious to get out, and will probably be released tomorrow.
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[Emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege, Ab Chp III
https://www.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/3
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-Aug 28, 1909
https://www.newspapers.com/image/25977785
https://www.newspapers.com/image/25977798
IMAGE
McKees Rocks Strike, Stockade, Loco Fmen Mag p715, Nov 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=D2tJAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA715
-from:
Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen’s Magazine
“Published Monthly by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen”
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-July-Dec 1909-Volume 47
https://books.google.com/books?id=D2tJAAAAYAAJ
Photo from edition of Nov 1909
-Article: “McKees Rocks Strike”
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=D2tJAAAAYAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA709&pg=GBS.PA709
See also:
Tag: McKees Rocks Pressed Steel Car Strike of 1909
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mckees-rocks-pressed-steel-car-strike-of-1909/
Tag: Scabs Held in Peonage During McKees Rocks Strike of 1909
Pearl Bergoff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Bergoff
From Blackjacks to Briefcases
A History of Commercialized Strikebreaking
and Union-busting in the United States
-by Robert Michael Smith
Ohio University Press, 2003
(search: “armies of strikebreakers for hire”)
(search: “pearl bergoff”)
(search: “leo c bergoff”)
(search: “mckees rocks”)
(search: “labor adjusters”)
Note: sometimes found spelled as “berghoff.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=s4m963NRvPgC
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Which Side Are You On – Pete Seeger
Lyrics by Florence Reese