Combined with The Revolutionary Age The Communist All Power To The Workers!
Five Cents Vol. I, No. CHICAGO, ILL. OCTOBER 4, 1919 The Steel Strike HE strike of the steel workers is a and among workers the most oppressed been mobilized against the strike, and behind it all lurks the army.
revolt against intolerable conditions, in the country?
But the strikers are not frightened.
The steel strike comes as the climax of a revolt the explosive forces of They are firm, inspired by the struggle a series of aggressive strikes that have which have been accummulating for 27 convulsed the country since the armistice. and by the spirit of solidarity. Their deyears.
Every strike has contributed to the gentermination is magnificent, and their numSince the ruthless, bloody crushing of bers daily grow larger.
eral unrest and developed a new spirit of the Homestead strike in 1892, and particu proletarian aggression. The steel strike Officially, it is an of strike, and larly since the organization of the Steel is the mightiest and most potential of them that is a real danger. The temper of the Trust in 1902, the workers in the steel inall it is not alone a challenge to the most men and women is uncompromising, they dustry have been the most abject of slaves. powerful industrial empire in the United are determined on a struggle to the end.
All efforts of the steel workers to organ States, it is equally a challenge to the govBut at any moment the of officials ize unions in the past have been baffled by ernment. Victory in this strike means may become cowed by the state, may begin espionage and discharges. All the most to seek compromise, may break the spirit modern methods of fleecing the workers, of the strike and disorganize its forces.
such as the task and bonus system, have NO MUNITIONS TO RUSSIA!
They may try to avoid struggle and seek been adopted in the steel industry. Wages compromise. Gompers is not very enthuhave been frightfully low, and the workThe Seattle longshoremen, backed by the siastic about the strike; at least one InterLabor Council in their determination to ers have been robbed by various company share no responsibility for shipping muninational Union of the of has schemes bordering on actual peonage. tions to kill our Russian brothers, have threatened to expel any local union that Steel mill towns are a sort of baronial es refused to unload twenty one cars, approxi joins the strike; while John Fitzpatrick, tate, where church and government are in mately 65, 000 rifles and machine guns, chairman of the Strike Committee, deaboard ship Waterhouse. Stevedoring comthe pay of the steel barons. Protest was pany turned materials back to government clares that the strike will end if an Arbicrushed by the triple power of the com and will not handle.
tration Commission meets to decide the ispany secret service, the church and the This action is interpreted by the Seattle sues.
local governments.
Union Record. The workers in other industries must Cases believed to contain ammunition, Much capital is being made concerning rifles and machine guns consigned to Russia realize that this steel strike is their strike, increases in the steel workers wages dur are sitting unmoved on Pier 5, the Frank that its issues affect them all. Affiliated ing the war. The figures used are shame Waterhouse Co. dock, Thursday as the trades must join the strike, particularly lessly garbled. But even these figures tell Yesult of a car gang of twelve men walking the railroad workers; the steel strike must off the job following their demands to know a terrible story. They try to prove that become a general strike, forcing Capitalwhat the cases contained.
the steel workers wages during the past This action follows the passage of a resoism to its knees. Already some railway five years have increased 20 per cent more lution by the Central Labor Council indors unions in the Middle West have refused to than the cost of living. These figures are ing the action of waterfront workers in transport ore, while three marine unions, not accurate; but let us accept them. In their planned refusal to ship munitions to 80 per cent of the ships on the lakes transkill Russian workers.
five years the workers conditions have im According to the men, they reported for porting ore, have decided for a sympaproved 20 per cent but these workers work Thursday morning as usual and began thetic strike, also presenting their own defive years ago were, according to bourgeois loading the cases when the question was mands.
investigators such as John Fitch, living asked as to their contents. After some further questioning a customs officer was called But the of will discourage makin sub human conditions. Splendid imand opened some of the cases, one of the ing the steel strike general. Warren provement, indeed!
workers declared, displaying their war like Stone, grand chief of the Brotherhood of The final answer to all these garbled contents. The men immediately got to Locomotive Engineers, speaking on behalf statements of improvements is the workgether and refused to continue the loading. Longshoremen on the waterfront have of the Railway Brotherhoods who are faers revolt itself. The workers are deterbeen warned to keep a careful watch for voring the Plumb Plan (which certain halfmined to conquer real improvements; and rifies concealed in innocent appearing packbaked radicals hail as revolutionary. as they struggle for this lesser objective declares that the railway unions will under they will develop the consciousness of the no circumstances engage in a sympathetic larger objective the conquest of Capitalstrike. That is to say, union railway workism.
weakening the prestige of Capitalism and ers will transport ore and steel for the For the steel strike is much more than the state, and correspondingly increasing scabs, thereby directly contributing to an ordinary strike. It is, in the first the aggressive spirit of the workers. break the strike.
place, a strike in the basic industry of the Capitalism and the state realize the vast The steel workers must watch out for nation; and, in the second place, it is a issues involved; and they are acting. They of betrayals. Other workers must strike of the unskilled, who have not been are acting according to the good old realize their duty to the steel strikers.
corrupted by craft unionism and petty plan the use of armed force.
There must be a general strike, solidarity bourgeois aspirations, as have the domin From the first armed force was used of action.
ating elements of the railway unions. This against the steel workers during the or This strike is of the utmost importance.
strike thrusts directly at the heart of Capi ganization period. Thousands were disWhat may happen is still in the future, talism; and Capitalism realizes the mencharged; dozens of union men and organbut big things may come. This challenge ace.
izers were killed. The strike started peace to Capitalism must not end in defeat a The general sentiment in the capitalist fully, but the Trust and its government defeat for the whole working class. This press, among the employers and govern agents immediately resorted to armed gigantic struggle may become the turnment officials is: It has come to a test.
We must crush this strike, in order to asforce. The armed force mobilized against ing point of the American working class sure the submission of the workers in the strike is enormous; each company has movement; the forces of Capitalism may its own guards, consisting of thugs; then convert the strike into the 1905 of the other industries. The strike, according scabs are being sworn in as deputy sher American proletarian revolution.
Who to Senator Thomas, is a national men iffs; in McKeesport and other cities thou knows?
sands of citizens are being formed into The strike is a national menace a menBut this we know, the American workguards, much as the bourgeois White ace to the Capitalism of our nation. There ers are preparing to act are acting. Our are more than 300, 000 men on strike, in Hungary. That is not all. These are simGuards in Russia, Finland, Germany and task is to participate in this action, to make volving about 20 states the scope of this the strike general, to make it conscious of strike is unprecedented. In 1912, a strike armed forces consist of the Coal and Iron political strike that will break the power ply extra legal armed forces; the legal its larger purposes, to develop the general of 25, 000 workers in Lawrence made Capi Police, the Municipal Police and the State of Capitalism and initiate the dictatorship talism tremble; what might not come of Constabulary. It is no exaggeration to this strike of 300, 000, in a basic industry say that about 50, 000 armed persons have ers!
of the proletariat all power to the workages.
ace.