Armed Rebellion on the Right

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Armed Rebellion on the Right

By Paul Y. Anderson

The Nation

Washington, July 30

For several months an important section of American industry, led by the Republic Steel Corporation, has been in a state of open, armed rebellion against the authority of the United States government as expressed in the Wagner Act, and its mercenaries have inflicted heavy casualties in dead, wounded, and captured, without suffering any appreciable losses. The explanation of this astonishing military success is to be found in the fact that the government thus far has refrained from sending regular troops against the insurgents, being content to rely on the efforts of citizen volunteers armed with nothing more deadly than moral suasion. And moral suasion is a poor defense against bullets.
The object of this dispatch is to parade recent incidents of the rebellion in a connected sequence, and thereby attempt to explain why the commission of mass murder in certain localities of the United States has become bolder, safer, and more systematically organized during the last two months than at any other period since Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, the Genna brothers, and Bugs Moran made Chicago their private battleground. The two periods are alike in one respect, that the motive was profit. But whereas the police were merely corrupt and quiescent when the gangsters were killing one another, they are now doing the killing themselves; and whereas all sides in the gang wars were well armed, the police victims have all been unarmed workingmen or innocent bystanders.
On the afternoon of Memorial Day Sunday a holiday crowd of some 2,500 men, women, and children attended a mass meeting several blocks distant from the South Chicago plant of the Republic Steel Corporation, where a strike was in progress. At its conclusion most of them proceeded to a point a few blocks removed from the plant, and there a group of about 400 detached themselves from the main body and walked along a dirt road across an open field in the general direction of the plant, with the intention of marching past the gates, displaying signs appealing to the non-striking workers to come out and join them.
At the far corner of the field, before the gates were in sight, the paraders were halted by a long line of uniformed Chicago policemen, numbering 200 or more. During a parley which lasted not more than four minutes individuals at the front of the procession asked the police for permission to proceed through the line and establish peaceful picketing, as had been promised by Mayor Kelly, and were told in reply to "get the hell out of here." Then, upon a signal which consisted either of the firing of a shot in the air or the tossing of a gas grenade into the midst of the crowd, police charged into the left flank of the crowd, clubbing its members ferociously. From back in the throng a shower of small stones and sticks was thrown toward the police.
Instantly there was a terrific roar of pistol shots from all along the police line, and as the front rank of the marchers went down in a bloody tangle the bluecoats charged with smoking guns and flying nightsticks. Total dead: ten, of whom seven were shot in the back. Total suffering from gunshot wounds: approximately 50, of whom 62 per cent were shot in the back. Total injured from all causes: approximately 75, of whom at least two will be crippled for life. Three policemen were hospitalized. No policemen were shot. Cook County authorities took the position that the victims, including those shot in the back, were killed by policemen acting in self-defense. The coroner's jury sustained that position. Among the 67 persons arrested by police and fortunate—or unfortunate—enough to recover from their wounds, a large number are to be prosecuted for "conspiracy to commit an illegal act," a penitentiary offense.
On June 19 a mediation board appointed by Secretary Perkins met in Cleveland. It consisted of Charles P. Taft, chairman, son of the late President and Chief Justice; Lloyd Garrison, dean of the law school at Wisconsin University, and Assistant Secretary of Labor Edward F. McGrady. Also present were Tom Girdler, chairman of Republic Steel Eugene Grace, chairman of Bethlehem, and lower-ranking spokesmen for Inland and Youngstown Sheet and Tube. The mediators had undertaken their task under the impression—theretofore shared by virtually everyone else—that the only issue was whether the operators would sign an agreement with the union. They were promptly disillusioned.
Spouting purple profanity, Girdler took the floor to declare that John L. Lewis was a so-and-so, that the C.I.O. was a racketeering outfit, that he would never enter into any kind of an agreement, oral or written, in this connection, and that it was his determination to "make wages conform to the price of steel, if it involves changing them from hour to hour." The more delicate sensibilities of Mr. Grace appeared to shrink when exposed to the rigors of his colleague's vocabulary, but at no stage did he fail to support his position. Patiently the mediators strove to devise some formula, but each successive attempt ended when Girdler pounded the table and bellowed: "God damn it, I tell you the answer is no!" The atmosphere of tension eased somewhat when Girdler departed for Washington to stage his act before the Senate Post Office Committee, to the applause of Senator Bailey, patron saint of the North Carolina textile industry, but after a week the negotiations collapsed and the board members returned to Washington to report to Secretary Perkins.
After his appearance before the Post Office Committee Girdler presented himself at an exclusive press conference attended by six correspondents, and there he really took down his hair. His remarks about Governors Murphy and Earle, Myron Taylor, chairman of United States Steel, Secretary Perkins, McGrady, Taft, and Garrison cannot be printed here or in any other publication which is destined for the mails. They were not merely profane; they included insinuations which are not tolerated in ordinary locker-room conversation. He left a distinct impression that one of the things he needs most is to go to a competent psychiatrist and have his mind washed out with soap and water.
On June 29 President Roosevelt waived the rules of his press conference to allow himself to be quoted as follows: "Charlie Taft and I agreed that in the nation as a whole, in regard to the recent strike episodes, the majority of the people are saying just one thing—'A plague on both your houses!'"
Four days later Representative Ditter, a Pennsylvania Republican who had been tormenting Secretary Perkins for an opinion on the legality of sit-down strikes, received a reply in which she "deduced" from an opinion by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in the Apex Hosiery case "that strikers may not lawfully use the sitdown method." Two days later Secretary of Commerce Roper made a radio speech in which he said: "The right to strike must be safeguarded, but equally fundamental is the right to work. . . . Extremists on either side of the prevailing controversy should harmonize their views with the attitude of the majority."
Meantime "the prevailing controversy" had continued to prevail at Republic's struck plant in Massillon, Ohio, but something was being done to "harmonize" the situation. Just when President Roosevelt was washing his hands of the distasteful affair by calling for "a plague on both your houses," Carl Meyers, district manager for Republic in the Canton-Massillon district, was sending for Chief Switter of the Massillon police. Switter Later testified before the Labor Relations Board:
"Meyers wanted to know what the hell was going an over there—letting those hoodlums run the town. He wanted to know why we hadn't done like the Chicago police had done. They knew how to handle a situation, he said. He told me if the mills closed down Massillion would be nothing but a junction point, with no need for a mayor or a chief of police or any other city officials."
A Law and Order League, composed of Massillon's "leading" business men, was urging Switter to commission extra policemen for strike duty and offering to pay and equip them. General Marlin, who with a fine Sense of impartiality had quartered two companies of the Ohio National Guard in the Republic plant, urged Switter to accept the offer. Harry Curley, a retired army officer, now in the contracting business, offered his services in organizing a larger police force. Finally two officials of Republic presented a list of "loyal" company employees and suggested that the proposed new policemen be selected from it!
Switter resisted valiantly for a few days. He emphasized that there had been no loss of life and no serious disorder. Local manufacturers held a luncheon and demanded action. The Law and Order League "climbed all over the mayor." General Marlin wanted to know why Switter wasn't "showing some signs of life," and when the chief of police explained that he was trying to select "neutral" men for the proposed new commissions the gallant general retorted: "This is no time to be neutral!"
On July 7 the city government and the chief of police capitulated, and thirty or forty Republic employees were sworn in as special policemen. Curley picked them from the proffered list. Republic indemnified their bonds. They were given badges and guns. On the evening of July 11 Chief Switter drove out of town on a picnic. Almost immediately, it appears from testimony, Curley took command of the department. He had no official standing. During the afternoon John Veto, a striker, passing a group of the new special policemen, heard Bill Henderson, a Republic foreman, remark: "We're going to clean them out tonight."
About eleven that night some fifteen or twenty of the "specials" arrived in front of strike headquarters and deployed in a line on the opposite side of the street. Two or three hundred strikers were loafing on the sidewalk in front of their building. An automobile occupied by a striker drew up, and the headlights shone on the police.
"Turn off those lights or we'll shoot them out," ordered a policeman. The motorist turned them out; then, becoming frightened and wishing to drive away, he turned them on again. From among the police came a shout: "All right, they asked for it—let 'em have it!"
The order was obeyed. Wild screams and shouts filled the air as the hail of police bullets crashed into the dense crowd before the strikers' building and tear-gas grenades whizzed through the windows. A dozen men fell to the sidewalk and others staggered about in the street moaning with pain. Total dead: two—one of them shot in the back of the head. Total wounded: 15. Total police injured: none.
In the hours following the killing, squads of police and special deputies raided rooming-houses in the vicinity, breaking down doors, dragging men from their beds, and questioning them as to whether they belonged to the union. Those who said they did—along with some who denied it—were loaded into National Guard trucks and carted off to the Massillon jail and the Canton workhouse. They were held two days, after which most of them were freed—but not before they had signed waivers releasing the city from any liability arising from property damage or false arrest. In that respect they fared better than their comrades at Chicago who will be tried.
Early this week a picket was killed before the gates of a Republic plant in Cleveland when he was run down by a truck operated by a "loyal worker." The latter has been arrested and may be tried for manslaughter. It would serve him right: he should know by now that under the rules of this game you are not permitted to kill a striker until you have been provided with a badge, and then you are expected to shoot him in the back—not run over him with a truck.
A few days ago the writer inquired of an authorized spokesman for the C.I.O. whether there had been a "break" with the Administration, and if not, whether one was anticipated. This was the reply:
"We don't want to 'break' with the Administration. God knows we worked and sacrificed to keep it in office. But we don't understand its attitude in the steel strike, and we are resentful to find that suddenly we are no longer politically respectable in the eyes of the Administration. Labor's money and labor's votes were welcome enough last fall, when the Girdlers and the Graces and the reactionary press were damning Roosevelt from hell to breakfast. But now, when Girdler and Grace have their claws in labor's throat, all we hear from the White House is—'A plague on both your houses!'
"We could quote Shakespeare—and the Bible, too— in this situation. President Roosevelt is not the first magistrate to wash his hands when faced with an issue of innocence and guilt. Neutrality ceases to be a virtue when authority is confronted with wanton, cold-blooded, deliberately planned murder. Nor does our case rest on moral grounds alone. The Department of Justice is prosecuting nobody for violating the Wagner Act. It is prosecuting nobody for violating the National Firearms Act. It is prosecuting nobody for violating the act prohibiting the interstate transportation of strikebreakers.
"Yet, with Tom Girdler and Eugene Grace defying the law and spitting in the eye of Secretary Perkins's mediation board, Attorney-General Cummings rushes to indict eight men on charges of obstructing the mails, brought by Tom Girdler's lawyer, although the Post Office Department had informed the Senate that no violation has been reported.
"We expected the Administration to be subjected to the drumfire of criticism, now being hurled at it by the Tory press and the vested interests who fought Roosevelt for reelection. Knowing him as we did and do, we expected him to yield a little. But there is a difference between giving ground for strategic reasons and beating a full retreat. There is a stage at which one degenerates into the other. Has that stage been reached? We shall wait a little longer to see."