Part 20

From the beginning the touchstone of the Conference, the measure by which all its activities were gauged, was the steel strike. It was clear that its attitude towards this great issue would settle its general policy. This was felt by all parties to the Conference, even though some hated the thought. The labor delegation, headed by Samuel Gompers, precipitated matters by introducing, by previous arrangement with the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers, the following resolution:

WHEREAS, The Nation-wide strike now in progress in the steel industry of America affects not only the men and women directly concerned, but tends to disturb the relations between employers and workers throughout our industrial life; and

WHEREAS, This conference is called for the purpose of stabilizing industries and bringing into being a better relation between employers and employees; and

WHEREAS, Organized Labor wishes to manifest its sincere and fair desire to prove helpful in immediately adjusting this pending grave industrial conflict; therefore, be it,

RESOLVED, That each group comprising this conference select two of its number and these six so selected to constitute a committee to which shall be referred existing differences between the workers and employers in the steel industry for adjudication and settlement. Pending the findings of this committee, this conference requests the workers involved to return to work and the employers to re-instate them in their former positions.

This resolution provoked a storm of opposition from the reactionary employers, who, headed by Mr. Gary (ironically seated with John D. Rockefeller, Jr., as a representative of the Public) insisted that the Conference ignore the steel strike situation altogether, its purpose being, according to them, not the settlement of existing disputes, but the formulation of principles and plans which would provide for the prevention of such disputes in the future. Finally, seeing that if they insisted upon their resolution it would wreck the Conference, the workers held it in abeyance temporarily and submitted the following:

The right of wage earners to organize without discrimination, to bargain collectively, to be represented by representatives of their own choosing in negotiations and adjustments with employers in respect to wages, hours of labor and relations and conditions of employment, is recognized.

Such a mild proposition as this would hardly meet with serious opposition in a similar conference in any other important country than ours. All over Europe it would be far too conservative to fit the situation. In England, for example, the British Industrial Conference recently adopted the following:

The basis of negotiation between employers and work people should, as is presently the case in the chief industries of the country, be the full, frank acceptance of the employers' organizations on the one hand, and trade unions on the other as the recognized organizations to speak and act on behalf of their members.

And just across our border, in Canada, this advanced conception was formulated but a few months before:

On the whole we believe the day has passed when any employer should deny his employees the right to organize. Employers claim that right for themselves and it is not denied by the workers. There seems to be no reason why the employer should deny like rights to those who are employed by him. Not only should employees be accorded the right of organizing, but the prudent employer will recognize such organization and will deal with the duly accredited representatives thereof in all matters relating to the interests of the employees when it is fairly established to be representative of them all.

But Mr. Gary and his associates care nothing about the reputation of America as a progressive, liberty-loving country. They have their prerogatives, and they intend to exercise them, cost what it may. They organize as they see fit and pick out such representatives as they will; but by virtue of their economic strength they deny to their workers these same rights. So they voted down Labor's collective bargaining resolution, and at the same time the one providing for a settlement of the steel strike. The employers insisted upon absolute rule by themselves.

This action discredited the Conference, and sentenced it to dissolution. By its refusal to meet the great steel strike issue the Conference showed that it had neither the will nor the power to settle industrial disputes. Labor, openly denied the fundamental right of organization, could no longer sit with it. The workers' representatives, therefore, took the only honorable course left to them; they withdrew, allowing the whole worthless structure to collapse. Said Mr. Gompers in his final speech:

Gentlemen, I have sung my swan song in this conference. You have, by your action--the action of the employers' group--legislated us out of this conference. We have nothing further to submit; and with a feeling of regret we have not been enabled with a clear conscience to remain here longer. We have responsibilities to employees and workers and those dependent upon them. We must fulfill these obligations.

Thus ingloriously ended the Conference upon which the steel workers had been asked to hang all their hopes. Even with powerful organizations intact and with their industry almost entirely at a standstill, the latter could get no consideration from it. What, then, would have been their fate if they had postponed the strike? With their forces shattered, half of their men being on strike and the rest at work thoroughly disgusted, they would have been helpless and unable to strike in any event. They would have been absolutely at the mercy of the employers. And any one who may imagine that the latter would have done anything short of giving the steel workers their coup de grace at the Conference is an optimist indeed. The steel strike was a clean fight and an honorable defeat for Labor. Its bad effects will soon wear off. But it would have been a ruinous calamity, with ineradicable harm, had the strike been postponed for the sake of the ill-fated Industrial Conference.

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Pursuant to a resolution adopted by the Senate on September 23, in the white heat of the strike excitement, the Committee on Education and Labor was instructed to investigate the steel strike and to report back to the Senate as soon as possible. Accordingly this Committee held sittings in Washington and Pittsburgh, hearing about one hundred witnesses all told. Its active members were Senators Kenyon (Chairman), McKellar, Walsh (Mass.), Sterling and Phipps.

For the workers Samuel Gompers, John Fitzpatrick, M. F. Tighe and many organizers and strikers testified, setting forth in detail the grievances and demands of the men. For the steel companies came the usual crop of strike-breakers and company officials, pliable city authorities and business men from the steel towns. The star witness was Judge Gary, who presented practically the entire case for the whole steel industry. It is noteworthy that with the exception of one minor hothead, the so-called "independents" made no defense before the committee. They left it all to their master, the United States Steel Corporation.

Mr. Gary was a good witness. Not for him were the antiquated blusterings of a "divine-right" Baer or a "public-be-damned" Vanderbilt. He used the modern method,--a mass of silky hypocrisies and misrepresentations for the public, to cover up the mailed fist he has for his workers. He was suave, oily, humble, obliging, persuasive, patriotic. He pictured the steel industry as a sort of industrial heaven and the U. S. Steel Corporation as a beneficent institution, leading even the trade-union movement in reform work.

Inasmuch as Mr. Gary's peculiar notions of the "open shop," minority rule by the unions, etc., set forth afresh by him at the strike hearings, are discussed quite generally throughout this book, there is no need to review them again here. We will note his testimony no more than to give the facts of the death of Mrs. Fannie Sellins, of whose murder he was so anxious to clear the Steel Trust.

Mrs. Fannie Sellins was an organizer for the United Mine Workers of America, stationed in the notorious, anti-union Black Valley district along the Allegheny river. An able speaker, and possessed of boundless courage, energy, enthusiasm and idealism, she was a most effective worker. Due largely to her efforts many thousands of miners and miscellaneous workers in this hard district were organized. She was the very heart of the local labor movement, which ranked second to none in Pennsylvania for spirit and progress. When the steel campaign began, Mrs. Sellins threw herself whole-heartedly into it. She worked indefatigably. More than any other individual she was responsible for the unionization of the big United States Steel Corporation mills at Vandergrift, Leechburg and New Kensington, as well as those of the so-called independent Allegheny and West Penn Steel Companies at Brackenridge. The results secured by her will compare favorably with those of any other organizer in the whole campaign.

By her splendid work in behalf of the toilers Mrs. Sellins gained the undying hatred of the untamed employers in the benighted Black Valley district. Open threats were made to "get" her. The opportunity came on August 26, 1919, when she was deliberately murdered under the most brutal circumstances.

The miners of the Allegheny Coal and Coke Company were on strike at West Natrona. The mine is situated in the mill yard of the Allegheny Steel Company and furnishes fuel for that concern. All was going peacefully when a dozen drunken deputy sheriffs on strike duty, led by a mine official, suddenly rushed the pickets, shooting as they came. Joseph Strzelecki fell, mortally wounded. Mrs. Sellins, standing close by, rushed first to get some children out of danger. Then she came back to plead with the deputies, who were still clubbing the prostrate Strzelecki, not to kill him. What happened then is told in the New Majority (Chicago) of September 20:

---- ----, the mine official, snatched a club and felled the woman to the ground.

This was not on company ground, but just outside the fence of a friend of Mrs. Sellins.

She rose and tried to drag herself toward the gate.

---- shouted: "Kill that -- -- -- -- -- --!"

Three shots were fired, each taking effect.