Evening star., 1901-08-09
ALL ARE IN THE DARK
No One Can Foretell Effect of Shat
fer's Strike Order.
men THEMSELVES UNDECIDED
Strong Effort Being Made to Get
Them to Go Out.
MEETINGS EVERY NIGHT

Special From STAFF Correspondent.
PITTSBURG, Pa, August 9.-No one
really knows whether President Shaffer's S
general strike order will be obeyed in full
Saturday night, or can even approximate
the extent. The strike managers are in
the dark, the steel trust people are more
uncertain. the men themselves do not know
A wave of obstinacy may sweep through
the mills Saturday and keep the men at
work. On the other hand, the strike fever,
which is sudden and Irresistible when it is
fairly started, as was shown in the coal
mine strikes last fall, may seize the men
and result in one great sympathetic move
together by union and non-union workers.
The statement that the men themselves
are uncertain Is true. Yesterday 1 spent
six hours in the contested district, talking
with the workers, with the StorekeeperS,
with townsmen generally, touching elbows
as closely as possible with the situation as
it exists in this smoke-begrimed, noisy,
busy, manufacturing region. The result of
six hours questioning, interviewing and
observation left me as wise when I came
out as when / went in. No concensus of
opinion could be obtained upon the inten-
tions of the workers. 1t will take the crucial
moment of Saturday night, when the last
shift goes off and the next shift is to come
on, to show the extent of the organization
of the Amalgamated Association and the
sympathy of the non-organized workers.
Employers in the Dark, Too.
In Pittsburg 1 have talked, not only with
the steel trust representatives, but have
seen men from other sections, men whose
works are dependent upon these mills for
supplying material and who are here to
estimate the chances of a general shut
down. They were no more enlightened as
result of their Inquiries than any one
else.
The contested district is mainly in the
immediate vicinity of Pittsburg Lying
along both banks Of the Monongahela
river for ten or fifteen miles from Pitts
burg Is the busiest and richest industrial
community in the United States. Mill after
mill, employing thousands of skilled and
unskilled workers. occupy the narrow strip
of land between the foothills and the river,
filing the air with the roar of their ma
chinery and beginning the sky with the
smoke of their countless furnaces. Back
OF them in the spaces begrudgingly left
by the railroads cluster the tenements of
the poorer laborers and clinging to the
sides and tops of the precipitous hills are
the residences of the skilled men.
On the river there is continuous naval
parade of towboats and fleets of coal barges
1T Is one great tumble, animated picture
OF teeming human life and strenuous In
dustry. In these hives and swarms of
humanity rest the fate of the present
movement of the Amalgamated Associa-
tion- If one portion of these communities
strikes and the other does not there will
a ha
militia comes in, with the usual result II
the strike order is accepted by the men
who are not bound to obey, but who do so
because they believe the statement of the
Amalgamated orders that this is a struggle
for life between the trusts and labor, this
great industrial heart will stop and count
less arteries of trade will cease their flow
All Pittsburg is Nervous.
No wonder, then. that all Pittsburg waits
with apprehension for Saturdays sun to
set and wonders whether Sundays dawn
will break upon troublous scenes. In the
meantime the Amalgamated leaders are
working with might and main to strength
en- their lines and make Saturdays blow a
telling stroke against the steel trust.
Gompers and Shaffer, as this dispatch is
written, have resumed their conference of
yesterday. Gompers is uncertain how far
the Federation of Labor can or should be
drawn into the fight He offers money
but that Is practically immaterial at this
stage What the Amalgamated men need
now, and need it badly, is sympathy from
allied trades to make the shutdown com
plete.
In Gompers' association are thousands OF
organized ore miners, ore handlers, long
shoremen, furnacemen, workers in struc-
tural iron and laborers generally in iron
and steel making. Shaffer begs him to
get these men out on Saturday night to
help uphold the hands of the Amalgamatad.
Open-air meetings of workmen are being
held day and night in the industrial dis
tricts when the shifts come off duty. These
are addressed by the organizers Of the
Amalgamated, who earnestly appeal to the
wavering. hesitatinS workmen to Join the
movement. Shaffer himself talks to a
great gathering each night and with fiery
inyective against the trust, warns his hear
ers that this is labors last stand against
the encroachments of capital. Fierce yitu-
peration sometimes marks these outdoor
addresses. Here Is an extract from Shaf-
ier $ remarks made TO great crowd last
night gathered in the murk and smoke of
the mill region. the grave, earnest faces of
the workmen lighted by the glare of a
Some of Sha6er's Remarks
Il went into the mill when seventeen
years old a rugged boy, and yet bear
the marks of the effort / made to make
Andrew Carnegie and others rich. and they
say TO me We organize but you can
not. Isn't it a preposterous proposition? I
say to you men l sweated in the mills for
years TO make the owners rich. 1 am proud
tonight to sweat in addressing you and in
trying and l hope successfully, to press
upon you the position you should take in
this grand fight. What is their money used
fer? Purchasing and sailing yachts on the
Atlantic; buying automobiles to run down
pedestrians; palaces in fashionable and
luxurious parts of the larger cities, and
broad and expensive country places"
The women are as earnest the men.
Yesterday crowd of strikers wives, whose
husbands had gone to work in other towns
sWooped down upon a mill that was being
started with non-union labor, and in one
hour of argument and appeal induced the
men to quit. Before nightfall the nom
union fellows had returned to their homes
no oil fttry bad haa