The age-herald., 1899-06-27
ALFRED HENRY LEWIS
 ON MARK HANNA
From the Verdict.

Hanna, that Cobra of politics, has sailed for Europe, and that continent is to have the doubtful honor of his presence for a brace of months to come. Prior to his get ting out, Hanna bewailed a worlds injus- tice, like the perfervid hypocrte he is. Particularly, in his Brooklyn Eagle inter- view, he called all folk liars who charged that he was other than the "friend of or ganized labor" According to Hanna, he was fairly speaking, the godfather of la- Dor and labor unionsm. This is falsehood, open a seine. It will bring smiles to the faces of both friend and foe. What an ass this creature Hanna. must believe the public to bel And with the success he had in placing his puppet president in the white house. one may hardly blame him. Hanna declares himself beloved by labor-never had any strikes or trouble with labor, he says. But Hannas record lies open like book. The path of Hanna's william past is so plain and clear that the political way farer, though a fool, may not err therein. Why man! The first time Hanna set eyes on our president-now, while Hanna holds his $11S,OOO worth of notes, so docile to the Hanna thumb-McKinley was one of the three attorneys of the striking miners of one of Hanna's mines. The sooty folk of lamp and fuse and pick and poverty were, as usual, beaten. The strike ended to the profit and pleasure of Hanna. Following that strike, the small Mckinley crept under the wealthy wing of Hanna, where he has cuddled comfortably ever since. Hanna forced strike of all tho mines a huddle Of years ago as method of putting up the price of coal. Hanna, by working double f,,r, la fl1l1 mil Of tons of coal ahead of the market. This fuel was stored on bargeS in the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Then Hanna slashed wages, cut them to the quick. Every miner crawled out of his coal hole. The strike was on There were sympathy strikes" as Hanna meant there should be. Every miner was out from the Alleghany Mountains to the Mis- souri river Coal production came to standstill. There were killings and ar sons, and maimings and starvings. Men went, some to the grave, some to the gal lows, some to prison cell. Coal went up.' Which last was what Hanna was planning Coal went up full $2 per ton in two months. and Hanna and the conspiracy he headed cleared their barges of coal and pouched a dishonest profit of four millions. Every dollar was wet with the blood and tears of Hannas lying machinations. That never bothered Hanna. He was used to mud on his money. Hanna has been at the bottom of score of mine strikes. He has im- ported Huns and Slavs to take the place of his miners who walked out. It was Hanna who first went about the bringing of negro labor into the Illinois coal fields. Hanna fought and wiped out the Seamen's Union on the Great Lakes. He began his war on the sailors in 'S1. Then Lake wages were $GO per month Hanna beat them down to $25. Hanna inspired and set afoot the lumber showers riots several years ago in Chicago, as part of his campaign against the seamen's Union. There was endless blood and murder in those wars or labor on the Lakes. Hanna has had strikes at his shipyards in Cleveland, and today-as he ever has-pays wages lower by b per cent. than any other slsipyard of Cleve- land On one winters day he called to- gether the men and told them work was scarce and contracts hard to get. They might quit" he said; or he would let them complete vessel then on the stocks, paying them half wages in cash and the other half when the boat was finished and sold. The men worked on and took half their wages in money and the Hanna word for the rest. The boat was finished and finally said. The men never got splin- ter beyond the money-half wages-drst paid The books of the Amalgamated Iron association tell this story, and the local Federation of Cleveland will vouch for it. Hanna denies these truths and hides behind { "his brother" The latter is only Hannas agent; harmless, fangiess, venomless enough on his own feeble demerits. Hanna dismissed the few and casual carpenters and other artisans at work on his Glen Ville-a suburb of Cleveland-dwelling house. simply for that they were members of labor unions. Also he ordered the dis missal of all labor union men on his street railways. Worse, Hanna every winter re- fused to comply with the Ohio law pro- viding for weather defences on street cars for the safety and comfort and health of his gripmen and motormen. Hundreds of these, crossing the icy, weather-beaten viaduct in Cleveland, d hundred feet high, in the wintry, zero air, have been frost bitten and 'laid off for weeks at their own loss and suffering; and all for the hoggish greed of Hanna and his equally hoggish indifference to plain law. And this same Hanna says that he has been the friend of labor and never figured in a strike! He has ever kept upon his staff a clique of labor traitors of the Powdery stamp to endorse his Tabor record" at a pinch. Never had strkei The hardy, indurated character of that lie as it slip ped so trippingly from the Hanna mouth a mere fraud-foundry, that moutht--Sains illumination when one reflects that a strike is raging on Hannas street railways as this is written, with all the usual red set tings of disorder, riot and blood Hanna's labor record! It is written in the rags and misery and wan, starved faces of his min CTS and sailors and their families. One may read it from the blotters of our pris- ons for twenty years, spell 1t out on the poor head-stones of a thousand graves.