The Last Great Strike, page 46
173. S2 report by 1st Lieut. Robert E. Boyd, 166 Inf., June 25–26, 1937, in “Reports of National Guardsmen to Their Commanding Officer[s],” YSSR, Box 1, Folder 9, Series 167, OHS.
174. “Use ‘Flying Wedge,’ Pierce Picket Line,” New York Times, June 29, 1937, p. 4; “18,556 Resume Jobs at Youngstown,” New York Times, June 27, 1937, p. 1; “Mills in Youngstown Open Quietly Despite C.I.O., ‘Massacre’ Fears,” Washington Post, June 26, 1937, p. 1; “Mills Here Back in Production as Bethlehem Plant Re-opens,” Youngstown Vindicator, June 26, 1937, p. 1; “Sheet & Tube and Republic Re-open at 7 A.M. Tuesday,” Youngstown Vindicator, June 21, 1937, p. 1; “Steel Strike Broken,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 17, 1937, p. 14; “Little of CIO Domination Left at Steel Plant Gates,” Youngstown Vindicator, June 26, 1937, p. 1.
CHAPTER 10: LET’S BUST THEM UP
1. “Plant to Reopen; Defies CIO,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 12, 1937, p. 1; “Indiana Harbor Plant Expected to Open Monday,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 10, 1937, p. 4; “3,000 More Return to Steel Mill Jobs,” New York Times, July 7, 1937, p. 7. Sheet & Tube’s nearby South Chicago mill reopened on July 3. “South Chicago Plant Reopened by Youngstown,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 4, 1937, p. 4.
2. U.S. Senate, Hearings before the Committee on Education and Labor: Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor, 6th Cong., 1st–3rd Sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1937) (hereafter LCH), 16432 (exhibit 7230), 16438 (exhibit 7233).
3. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB 219, 241–45 (1938).
4. “Republic Plants to Stay Closed,” Massillon Evening Independent, June 2, 1937, p. 1; “Republic Will Not Work If Plants Are Picketed Here,” Massillon Evening Independent, May 18, 1937, p. 1. The supplies in the plants were used to board maintenance workers. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 250.
5. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 251.
6. U.S. Senate, Committee on Education and Labor, Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor: Labor Policies of Employers’ Associations; Part IV, The “Little Steel” Companies, Report No. 151, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1941) (hereafter Little Steel Companies), 231–32 (quotations p. 232); LCH, 13434–35; Stanley W. Switter, “Former Police Chief, Dies at 68,” Massillon Evening Independent, May 12, 1971, p. 1.
7. Little Steel Companies, 232–33; LCH, 16195 (exhibit 7083), 16199; Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 253 (quotation).
8. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 259–60.
9. Little Steel Companies, 233–34; Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 260–61.
10. “Police Replace Guardsmen Here,” Massillon Evening Independent, July 9, 1937, p. 1; “Units Resume Operations on 8 Hour Shifts,” Canton Repository, July 7, 1937, p. 1; “Boost Operations at Local Mills,” Massillon Evening Independent, July 6, 1937, p. 1; “Quiet Prevails in Strike Area,” Canton Repository, July 4, 1937, p. 1; “Massillon Units of Republic Reopen as Troops Arrive,” Canton Repository, July 2, 1937, p. 1; “Troops on Duty as Republic and Union Drawn Resume Operations,” Massillon Evening Independent, July 2, 1937, p. 1.
11. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 262–63; “7,800 at Work in Two Cities, Republic Says,” Canton Repository, July 8, 1937, p. 1.
12. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 266, 270–72, 327; LCH, 13622 (exhibit 5188).
13. Little Steel Companies, 235 (quotation); LCH, 13440–41 (quotation also p. 13440); Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 263–66.
14. Transcript of record, respondent’s witness Harry O. Curley, pp. 3379–95, Republic Steel Co. v. NLRB, 311 U.S. 7 (1940) (docket no. 14).
15. Little Steel Companies, 235–36; LCH, 16274, 16283 (exhibit 7104); Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 264, 266–72.
16. Little Steel Companies, 230; LCH, 16195, 16198 (exhibit 7083); “Picketed Zones Continue Quiet,” Canton Repository, July 10, 1937, p. 1; “Steel Strike Front Continues Peaceful in Canton, Massillon,” Canton Repository, July 5, 1937, p. 1; “Quiet Prevails in Strike Area,” Canton Repository, July 4, 1937, p. 1.
17. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 275–78.
18. Little Steel Companies, 250; LCH, 16258–69 (exhibits 7095–102).
19. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 277–80, 312; transcript of record, respondent’s witness Wilbert Coleman, pp. 3565–76, Republic Steel Co., 311 U.S. 7. See also transcript of record, board’s witness Martin J. Beckner, pp. 1410–11, Republic Steel Co., 311 U.S. 7.
20. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 275 (quotation); transcript of record, board’s witness Ora Ikes, pp. 3314–39, Republic Steel Co., 311 U.S. 7.
21. LCH, 16269–84 (exhibits 7103–4) (quotation p. 16271).
22. Little Steel Companies, 241–42; Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 280–82.
23. See Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 282–87, 288–94 (quotations pp. 282, 283, 287, 288, 291, 294).
24. “2 Dead, 7 Wounded, 136 Arrested after Massillon Battle,” Canton Repository, July 12, 1937, p. 1.
25. Little Steel Companies, 242–49, 333–40; Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 282–310; “2 Dead, 7 Wounded, 136 Arrested after Massillon Battle,” Canton Repository, July 12, 1937, p. 1.
26. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 313.
27. Ibid. at 294 (quotations), 313. See also Little Steel Companies, 250–52. Most of those arrested were taken on charges of violating the county sheriff’s proclamation. LCH, 13606–7 (exhibit 5185A).
28. Little Steel Companies, 251–53; LCH, 13601–9 (exhibits 5182A–D, 5186); Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 313–14; “More Are Freed after Quizzing,” Massillon Evening Independent, July 14, 1937, p. 1; “Massillon Continues Probe of Strike Riot,” Canton Repository, July 13, 1937, p. 1; “2 Dead, 7 Wounded, 136 Arrested after Massillon Battle,” Canton Repository, July 12, 1937, p. 1.
29. LCH, 13596–601 (exhibits 5179–81).
30. See Little Steel Companies, 237. For the coroner’s report on Drosz’s death, see LCH, 16254–55 (exhibit 7093). For the NLRB’s finding that three men were killed, see Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 305; and transcript of record, testimony of Frank Hardesty, vol. 2, p. 1387, Republic Steel Co., 311 U.S. 7.
31. LCH, 16258–84 (exhibits 7095–7104).
32. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 310.
33. Little Steel Companies, 252; Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 315–17.
34. “‘Gangway’ Shout Policemen and Guards to Curious Crowds as They March Prisoners to Jail in Strike Fight Mop Up,” Massillon Evening Independent, July 12, 1937, p. 1; “140 Strikers and Sympathizers Are Jailed in Police and Guard Lockup,” Massillon Evening Independent, July 12, 1937, p. 1; “Mayor Krier Bans Public Meetings,” Massillon Evening Independent, July 12, 1937, p. 1.
35. “Massillon C.I.O. Leaders to Be Arraigned Monday,” Canton Repository, July 18, 1937, p. 10; “NLRB to Probe Local Strike Clash,” Massillon Evening Independent, July 16, 1937, p. 1.
36. “NLRB to Probe Local Strike Clash,” Massillon Evening Independent, July 16, 1937, p. 1; “Thomas Demands Senate Inquiry in Local Clash,” Massillon Evening Independent, July 14, 1937, p. 1; “Thomas Visits Local Strikers; Survey Group Inspects Plants,” Canton Repository, July 14, 1937, p. 1; “Mayor Krier Bans Public Meetings,” Massillon Evening Independent, July 12, 1937, p. 1.
37. “Shot-Riddled CIO Headquarters after Clash,” Massillon Evening Independent, July 12, 1937, p. 1.
38. Little Steel Companies, 252.
39. Earlier there had been a few relatively serious cases of violence in Cleveland, including a small riot June 15 at Republic’s Upson Nut plant. See “Six Guilty in Riot at Upson,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 24, 1937, p. 1.
40. “Republic Stand by Strike Policy,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 15, 1937, p. 3; “First Troops Will Leave City Today,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 13, 1937, p. 3; “24-Hour Crew Kept on Duty at Corrigan,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 7, 1937, p. 1; “Troops Arrive to Take Over ‘Danger Zones’; 3 Mills Open Today,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 6, 1937, p. 1; “Ohio National Guard Rushed to Cleveland for Strikebreaking,” Daily Worker, July 6, 1937, p. 1.
41. “Strike Is Effective in Cleveland,” Steel Labor, July 7, 1937, p. 3. See also E.C. Greenfield, “Steel Picket Lines Tighten in Cleveland,” Daily Worker, July 19, 1937, p. 5.
42. “61% of Strikers Back, Police Say,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 17, 1937, p. 1; E.C. Greenfield, “Negroes Rally Support for Steel Strike,” Daily Worker, July 3, 1937, p. 4.
43. See, for example, “Strike Areas Still in Grip of Vandalism,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 21, 1937, p. 1; “Vandal Hurls Brick, Perils Aged Woman,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 19, 1937, p. 1; and “Labor Vandalism Hits Seven Homes,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 15, 1937, p. 2.
44. “Dynamiters Bomb New Suburb Home,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 23, 1937, p. 1.
45. E.C. Greenfield, “Steel Striker Killed by Scab in Cleveland,” Daily Worker, July 27, 1937, p. 1.
46. “60 Hurt in Night Steel Strike Clash,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 27, 1937, p. 1; “40 Hurt in New Strike Riot,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 27, 1937, p. 1; “Night Clashes Follow Killing in Steel Strike,” Washington Post, July 27, 1937, p. 1; Greenfield, “Steel Striker Killed by Scab in Cleveland”; E.C. Greenfield, “Picketing Resumed in Cleveland; Ban Lifted,” Daily Worker, July 21, 1937, p. 1.
47. Tom Girdler, with Boyden Sparkes, Boot Straps: The Autobiography of Tom Girdler (New York: Scribner’s, 1943), 365–66.
48. U.S. Senate, Committee on Education and Labor, Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor: Private Police Systems, Report No. 6, pt. 2, 76th Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1939), 192–95, 232–35, appendix B (quotation p. 193).
49. “Night Clashes Follow Killing in Steel Strike,” Washington Post, July 27, 1937, p. 1.
50. “Police Bring Peace to Steel Area,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 28, 1937, p. 1; “Steel Co. Asks Court Order to Prevent Rioting,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 28, 1937, p. 7. For a copy of Ness’s proclamation and a judge’s order a few days later lifting it, see LCH, 15481–83 (exhibits 6249–50).
51. “Rain Routs C.I.O. Throng at Square,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 30, 1937, p. 1.
52. “Republic Rejects C.I.O. Peace Offer,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 30, 1937, p. 2 (quotation); “Officials Fail to Win Truce in Republic Strike,” Canton Repository, July 30, 1937, p. 16; “Burton Rallies Steel City Chiefs,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 29, 1937, p. 1.
53. “Violence in Cleveland,” New York Times, August 7, 1937, p. 2; “3 Hurt, 3 Held in Strike Clashes,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 7, 1937, p. 1; “Hoodlums in Strike Area Stone Autos,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 28, 1937, p. 1.
54. “Indiana Governor Seeks New Parlay in Strike Situation,” Canton Repository, June 13, 1937, p. 1.
55. Telegram from Clinton Golden to James Mark, July 7, 1937, Howard Curtiss Collection, Box 5, File 36, PSU-HCLA; “Steel Truce; Inland Reopens,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 1, 1937, p. 1; “East Chicago Inland Plants Open Tomorrow,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 30, 1937, p. 3; “Blocks Indiana Steel Work,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 28, 1937, p. 1.
56. Edwin A. Lahey, “Inland Mills Start Work,” Chicago Daily News, July 1, 1937, p. 1; “Steel Truce; Inland Reopens,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 1, 1937, p. 1; “Here Is the Text of the Inland Steel Pact,” Buffalo Evening News, July 1, 1937, p. 8.
57. “Inland Victory Spurs CIO Drive,” Daily Worker, July 4, 1937, p. 1; Hays Jones, “Strikers Hail Inland Steel Pact,” Daily Worker, July 2, 1937, p. 1; “Workers Cheer ‘Armistice’ in Steel Strike,” Washington Post, July 2, 1937, p. 1; “Steel Truce in Indiana, Mills Will Reopen Today;” New York Times, July 1, 1937, p. 1; “Celebrate All Night as Truce Reopens Inland Mill,” Chicago Daily News, July 1, 1937, p. 36.
58. Letter from J.E. Dailey to Clifford Townsend, July 3, 1937, Youngstown Sheet & Tube 1937 Strike Records, Small Manuscript Collection, Folder 3, SMC 5143, YHCIL; letter from J.E. Dailey to Clifford Townsend, July 2, 1937, ibid.; “Decisive Moves by Youngstown Defy C.I.O. Truce,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 2, 1937, p. 3.
59. “South Chicago Plant Reopened by Youngstown,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 4, 1937, p. 4; “Youngstown Move to Reopen with Troops’ Aid,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 3, 1937, p. 3.
60. “Demand Troops to Avert Indiana Steel Violence,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 5, 1937, p. 5.
61. “Indiana Harbor Plant Expected to Open Monday,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 10, 1937, p. 4; “Workers Told Youngstown Is to Reopen Soon,” Chicago Daily News, July 9, 1937, p. 4; “Steel Mill Here to Reopen; Says Independent Union Head,” Chicago Daily News, July 8, 1937, p. 8; “Governor Asks Steel Men to Delay Return Two Days,” Chicago Daily News, July 6, 1937, p. 3.
62. “Sheet & Tube to Open in Indiana,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 11, 1937, p. 1; “Republic Reopens Last Struck Unit,” New York Times, July 8, 1937, p. 2.
63. “Sheet & Tube Opens Strike-Bound Mill at East Chicago, Ind.,” Iron Age, July 15, 1937, p. 91; “Jubilant Crews Return to Jobs in E. Chicago Plant,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 14, 1937, p. 7; “Sheet & Tube to Open in Indiana,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 11, 1937, p. 1; “Republic Reopens Last Struck Unit,” New York Times, July 8, 1937, p. 2.
64. “2,500 Return to Work as Youngstown Plant Reopens,” Chicago Daily News, July 13, 1937, p. 28 (quotation); “Steel Strikers Back on Jobs,” Chicago Daily News, July 13, 1937, p. 1.
65. “To the Officers and Members of Lodges . . . ,” appended to Steel Labor, April 28, 1939; report of regional director, Great Lakes and Western Region, SWOC, “Reports of Officers to the Wage and Policy Convention in Pittsburgh,” 1937, pp. 33, 34–36, Harold Ruttenberg Papers, Box 5, Folder 17, PSU-HCLA.
66. Meyer Bernstein, report to Mr. Philip Murray on the settlement of the Republic Steel Corporation Labor Board cases, pp. 4–5, United Steelworkers of America, Legal Department Records, Box 1, Republic Steel Corporation, PSU-HCLA; Robert R.R. Brooks, As Steel Goes . . . Unionism in a Basic Industry (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1940), 148–49.
67. “New Violence in Strike at Niles,” Western Reserve Democrat (Warren, OH), September 30, 1937, p. 1. See also “Trouble Breaks Out Anew at Massillon,” Canton Repository, August 8, 1937, p. 6; and “5 Machines Stoned in Strike Vicinity,” Canton Repository, August 4, 1937, p. 1.
68. On the persistence of the strike at Republic, see “Republic Box Score,” Steel Labor, May 26, 1939, p. 8; “Thousands Continue Republic Strike,” Steel Labor, March 18, 1938, p. 6; “Strikers Wage Unceasing Fight for Rights at Republic Plants,” Steel Labor, November 11, 1937, p. 2; and “Strikebreakers, Cheated by Republic Steel, Quit Plants and Return to Homes in the South,” Steel Labor, October 15, 1937, p. 1.
CHAPTER 11: A STEEL STRIKE IS NOT A PICNIC
1. In the New Deal era, only persistent violence in coalfields around Harlan County, Kentucky, which claimed around two dozen lives between 1932 and 1937, and the multifaceted maritime strikes of 1936 and 1937, which also left about two dozen people dead, rival the Little Steel Strike. Otherwise, one has to go back to the early 1920s and a period of unrest in coal mining in and around Mingo County, West Virginia, to find a greater number of victims. Bruce Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 21.
2. U.S. Senate, Hearings before the Committee on Education and Labor: Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor, 76th Cong., 1st–3rd Sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1937) (hereafter LCH), 7027–32 (exhibits 3612–19).
3. The death toll has long been uncertain. Union sources have tended to claim seventeen dead, but without specifying whether that number excludes Drosz, Lopez, or Mike. See, for example, “Convention Honors Martyrs of Union,” Steel Labor, December 31, 1937, p. 3; and “Republic Gave Guns to Massillon Cops,” Steel Labor, August 6, 1937, p. 5. In condemning Roosevelt for betraying the CIO, John L. Lewis put the death toll at eighteen. “Text of John L. Lewis’s Radio Talk on C.I.O.,” New York Times, September, 4, 1937, p. 6. Although its case files are ambiguous, the NLRB’s published decision in the case against Republic clearly includes Drosz among the victims of the Massillon riot. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB 219, 273 (1938). The La Follette Committee’s report on the strike in Massillon appears to count Drosz as a victim, but its committee records seem not to. U.S. Senate, Committee on Education and Labor, Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor: Labor Policies of Employers’ Associations; Part IV, The “Little Steel” Companies, Report No. 151, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1941) (hereafter Little Steel Companies), 237; LCH, 13968–69 (exhibit 5290). Scholarly accounts of the strike also usually set the number of victims at seventeen or eighteen, but without clarifying how this tally was reached. See, for example, Robert Zieger, The CIO, 1935–1955 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 62; Donald G. Sofchalk, “The Little Steel Strike of 1937” (PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, 1961), 18; and Art Preis, Labor’s Giant Step (New York: Pathfinder, 1964), 68. One scholar cites a toll of twenty, although it is unclear how this count was reached. See Nelson Lichtenstein, Labor’s War at Home: The CIO in World War II (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 21–22.
4. “Steelworker Is Murdered in Barroom,” Massillon Evening Independent, December 4, 1947, p. 1.
5. LCH, 13968–69 (exhibit 5250).
6. Ibid., 16055–57 (exhibit 6903).
7. U.S. Senate, Hearings before the Committee on Education and Labor: National Labor Relations Act and Proposed Amendments, 77th Cong., 3rd Sess. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1939) (hereafter Senate Labor Committee Hearings), 4200.
8. Republic Steel, 9 NLRB at 269–70; LCH, 8627 (exhibit 3936), 12841–49 (exhibits 4922–24), 12923–24 (exhibit 4985), 13565 (exhibit 5155), 15486–87 (exhibit 6253); “200 Indicted in Ohio Riots as Plants Reopen,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 7, 1937, p. 6; “Jury Indicts 200 in Steel Riot: Ex-CIO Leader Charged with Inciting Men,” Youngstown Vindicator, July 6, 1937, p. 1.
