The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons. William Z. Foster
from counter-attacking, that they had to take all the blows heaped upon them and hold their ground at all costs.
And right nobly they did it. In spite of the bitterest hardships they built up and developed their organizations. In this they were unwittingly but powerfully aided by the company union. Several weeks before the big strike the officials took the hated general committee to Atlantic City, wined them and dined them and flattered them, as usual, and then had them adopt a set of resolutions condemning the national movement of the steel workers and endorsing long hours, low wages and heavier production as the remedy for prevailing bad conditions. This betrayal was the last straw. It provoked intense resentment among the men. Whole battalions of them, the most skilled and difficult in the plant to organize, walked down and joined the unions in protest. Almost 3000 enrolled the week after the resolutions were adopted. But it was always thus. Every move that the Cambria made the unions turned to their advantage. They outgeneraled the Company at every turn.
It was almost pitiful to watch the later antics of the haughty and hitherto unchallenged Cambria Company, humbled in its own town by its own workers. A few weeks before Labor day the unions, innocently presuming the mills would be closed as usual on that day, decided to have a parade. Then the strategical experts of the Company became active. A warning was issued that every man marching in the parade would be summarily discharged. The unions would not brook this unwarranted and cold-blooded attack. They promptly sent word to the Company that if a single man was discharged the whole plant would be stopped the next day. It was a clear-cut issue, and Johnstown held its breath. When Labor day came the city saw the biggest demonstration in its history. Fifteen thousand organized workers defied their would-be masters and marched. The Company swiftly backed water. And the next day not a man was discharged. It was a victory well worth the heroic efforts and suffering of the previous eight months.
When the great strike broke on September 22 the Johnstown workers went into the fight almost one hundred per cent. organized, and with about the same percentage of grievances. So few men were left in the plant that the Company had to ask the unions to give them help to shut down their furnaces, and to keep the fire protection in operation. All the power of the great corporation, which had made $30,000,000 the year before, could not forestall the unions. It had no arrow in its quiver that could strike fear to the hearts of its workers; no trick in its brain pan that could be substituted for industrial democracy.
And Johnstown was only one point in the long battle line. Its experiences were but typical. Each steel town had its own bitter story of obstacles encountered and overcome. Youngstown, Chicago, Bethlehem, Cleveland, Wheeling, Pueblo, Buffalo and many other districts, each put up a hard fight. But one by one, despite all barriers, steel towns all over the country were captured for unionism.
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