The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, October 27, 1919, Page 7

The Steel Strike Gary 8 Boast as Friend of Labor Exploded in Senate Inquiry Washington Bureau, 3 Nonpartisan Leader. AR to the death against organ- ized labor! No compromise! No concessions by industrial autocracy! That was the chal- lenge thrown down: by Elbert H. Gary, former federal judge and for many years past the dictator of the United States Steel corporation, in -his testi- mony before the senate committee on labor. . If there were a small business man, a profession- al man, or a man who considers.himself an “inde- pendent” farmer, in this nation, who could listen to * Gary’s testimony and still believe that democracy in_America is not threatened by the overlords-of big business, that man must in his own mind con- fuse the divine right of kings with democracy. John' Fitzpatrick of Chicago, chairman of the National Committee to Organize the Iron and Steel Workers, had testified that Gary’s corporation had in 1901 established a special fund for the crushing out of the attempts of steel workers to organize for their own mutual protection. He had submitted proofs of the merciless campaign of the Pennsyl- vania state constabulary—the “Cossacks”—who have been riding down the steel workers: who at- tempted to hold meetings on _city lots rented for the pur- pose. He had shown photo- graphs of the dead body of a ~ woman. organizer, who was shot down by a mine guard in Brackenridge, a steel .mill town, while shielding” two small children who had run into the line of fire of the mine ~ guards against coal strikers. He had sketched the whole picture of despair in the lives of the self-respecting steel workers, whose hopes have once more been raised by the present strike. And he asked only that congress help the steel workers to secure confer- ences with' Autocrat Gary on the conditions of their employ- ment -in the steel mills. Gary came before the committee with a squad of company officials and law- yers, and. made long speeches on his own highly moral character as an em- ployer. He claimed, until cornered by evidence quot- ed from old congressional - -investigations, - that the Steel corporation had “always led the country in all movements for shorter hours and higher . wages and better conditions of employment.” He brazenly asserted that the labor movement had not been the chief factor in securing child- labor legislation, eight-hour laws for women, and workmen’s compensation laws. The Steel corporation, accordmg to Gary, had been.the one great leader in all industrial reforms——far in advance of the labor unions! -~ 'As soon as he was pinned down on any ‘one point, he receded from his falsehood ‘but only to spring another. Workers on the Mesaba range in Minnesota will read with mixed feelings the news that Gary has . always- been their best friend, and that he has al- . ways been perfectly willing that they should belong " to labor unions! ~'Senator Walsh of Massachusetts, a Democratv : with trade-union constituents, finally called his bluff- with the. demand: “Will youn, or will you not, since you do not object to your employes belongmg .%o labor unions, consent to meet with trade union * representatives here, today or tomorrow, and try - to reach some settlement of this strike?” ' “T will not!” was the answer of Gary. He insist- : ed-on explaining that the first step toward dealing ' in any-way with any labor representatxve would be ~a fatal step toward the union shop.: ‘Gary was also anxious lest the wsxt of thq senate > mmittee to the steel s trouble” by giving undue encouragement to the strikers. He said that “certain vicious elements” were being given too much support, and that it was his duty as head of the Steel corporation to stand firmly against all dealings with Samuel Gompers or any one else in this dispute. “Were it not for the courage and strength of the officers of the law in vindicating the dignity and majesty of the law in this case,” he said, “we would ‘have had conditions in this country that would have been most deplorable.” He was referring, presumably, to the mounted - constabulary. Fitzpatrick testified that one of these Cossacks rode into.a Steel worker’s hovel, his horse knocking down the cook stove, with the re- sult that a mother, catching up her child from the floor, was badly scalded. Perhaps Judge Gary was unduly alarmed over the senate committee. Senator Sterling of. South Dakota indicated the utmost sympathy with Gary’s position. Walsh of Massachusetts declared that ‘Gary had done wrong in refusing to meet Gompers and tell him that the Steel corporation refused to deal with spokesmen of a small.minority of its em- ployes. Even Senator Kenyon of Iowa went out of ‘his way to assure Gary that “I agree with you that the open shop is to be preferred to the closed shop.” Phipps of Colorado, former treasurer of the Carne- gie Steel company, acted as a sort of attorney for Gary, while Jones of New Mexico and McKellar of Tennessee steered a safe middle course. Not one ‘senator took a trade union attitude. “What is your solution ?” Kenyon finally asked. : —Copynght by Harris & Ewing. Millions of dollars’ worth of automobiles pm'chased by the government since the armistice was signed, are standing in open storage in a field near Washington. They are slowly being destroyed by exposure to the elements. “Let the law be enforced; and let the situation settle itself,” was Gary’s answer. He was sure that the strike would be broken, if the operations of the Cossacks were not interfered with. Did the big ne\wspapers of the country print the story of Gary’s cruel “solution” for the strike? Did they picture his utter indifference to the suf- fering of hundreds of thousands of families among the steel workers? Did they tell of the murder of Fannie Sellms, the organizer who was shot dead ‘by a gunman in Brackenridge ? One New York newspaper man sent hlS paper the -Sellins story, and was promptly ordered to “qmt it, although hundreds of ltems of trade union news had recently appeared in that publication. The correspondent of a big western paper after Gary had finished his harangue said: “This is the last stand of the feudal barons, but my paper won’t say so! They will suppress most of it, as the other papers are doing. I don’t believe they are killing this story by any mere coincidence, either.” Gary is going to fight the combined forces of the organized farmers and of orgamzed labor in Min- His hardest . - fight will be in' Minnesota. He is annoyed that his . nesota and South Dakota next year. “loyal and peaceful” mill slaves should have risen in revolt, and he will appreciate the support of all ~the enemies of majority rule in the United States m. quellmg_ that revolt before his battle lines in. Isewhere are made untenabl -been sold to European governments.. The People’s Money Millions of Dollars’ Worth of Automobiles Rustlng Near Washmgton & Washmgton Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader. HEN we kick at the high'cost of living, we are told that the war is to blame. When we kick at the high cost of the war, we‘are informed that that can’t be helped, because we had to get the stuff quickly, at any price, and anyhow the war is over. Thousands of Cadillac and Dodge automobiles are still in their crates, awaiting setting up. This lot is lying out under an insuf- ficient roof at Camp Holabird, near Baltimore. It is a sample of the $1385,180,000 worth of automo- biles that have been shipped to the war department since the signing of the armistice. Rust and de- composition will soon destroy the whole vast col- lection of machines. s Thousand more machines, passenger cars and motor trucks are standing in “open storage” at Camp Holabird. Notice that the war department has enough fear of outraged public opinion so that it sets a row of covered cars around the outside of the storage ground—giving the impression to a casual passerby that the cars are being pro- tected in some measure against the storms, _ But inside this cordon the . cars are by no means so carefully protected. A few months of such neglect, and they will be ready for the junkman. Congress sent a committee to look into the scandal at Camp Holabird. It also heard testimony from Brigadier Gen- eral C. B. Drake, chief of the motor transport service in the war department. Drake claim- ed that he had sent 470 mes- sages to the department of sales in the war department regarding surplus motor trucks and passenger cars, but-had got no solution of the problem. On the other hand, he charg- ed that Secretary Baker had violated the law by transfer- ring $13,000,000 worth of ma- chines to other departments, without receiving funds in re- turn from those departments. Prices for all kinds of auto- - mobiles are going up, while the war department -hangs onto nearly $135,000,000 worth of machines and lets them go to ruin. Thousands of pas- senger cars at Camp Holabird today are rusted, their upholsterings rotted, their condition an indict- ‘ment of military officers who.have failed to meet _ the situation with common sense. Congress, after investigating, has done nothing, except to authorize a certain number of motor trucks to be distributed to the states for public road construction work. Congress has done noth- ing to stop the enormous loss on the machines at Camp Holabird. The war department could have sold the $135- 000,000 worth of machines delivered to it since the war ended, at a profit, without doubt. It could-have turned them back to the makers, or it could haw sold them to the trade throughout the country. O if that were not satisfactory, it could have stored: them in various places where they would not be - rusted and rotted, until sales could be completed. Some months after the armistice, when evacua- .= “tion of German and French territory was under way, stories began to come overseas that airplanes: - ‘and motor trucks were being burned by army au-. thorities at times when the ‘machines could have. Hot denials. by federal officials were largely offset by reports’ of soldiers who had assisted in the destruction. Th word of the soldiers is strengthened by the was‘te" going on at home., 2 18 not war itself sufficiently destructlve thh havmg the_ war department ' indulge in offici