The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1909-07-28
SLAVES:
CKUCHED By PITlLESS WEALTH
Wage Pooling" System Announced
BY Steel Trust Plant i'm Pcnnsylva-
mia is Explosion Spark. and Bullets.
Fircbrands. Misery and Loss of Life
Follow Hard in Wake.

PITTSBURG, Pa. July 24.-The
lowed the strike of the 5000 men of
the Pressed Steel Car company, at
McKees Rocks is not that herd"
of ignorant foreigners went out to
do violence simply because they were
looking for trouble.
The truth is that the steel COM
pany has so imposed upon these pa
tient laborers that they We're goaded
to desperation. Being men of mus
Gle, they know only the one way of
redressing their wrongs. and they
met the polite, intelligent and pro-
longed violence of their employers
with the vulgar, unthinking violence
of men who know only the power of
their hands.
Conditions at the Pressed Steel
Car company's works are described
AS amounting to slavery. The Pitts
burg newspapers refer to them as
the Shame of the city,
The lowest wages, the worst work
ing conditions. the most brutal treat
human impulse and instinct, graft,
robbery, the swapping of human
souls for profits. have for years mark
ed the Pressed Steel Car works as
the most outrageous industrial insti-
tuition in the United States. The
great, gloomy mills are called among
the men 1.-The slaughter house." and
of man who goes to work in them
it is said that he has taken 1.-The last
chance"
Human Life Nothing.
In these mills human life is worth
less than a rivet. Rivets cost money.
Human life costs nothing.
The majority of the workers are
Hungarans or Slavish, who are slow
to absorb the English language and
American customs. So they have
been imposed upon as brutal men i'm
pose on dumb beasts.
These workmen have been as pa
tient at their work as horses. Every
slaughtered. These very deaths are
unknown save to the workmen who
see their bodies hacked and butchered
in the pitiless machinery and the
death traps filling the big works. The
steel company never reports deaths
or accidents, and the public is thus
kept ignorant of the company's 'vio-
lence." Even the local coroner keeps
no record of men killed.
When an ambulance enters the
yards, no matter how grewsome its
errand, the gates close on the fact,
for every employee is warned against
making any statement to the public.
When some poor "hunky," as the
foreigners are called, is manned at
his work, the foreman or other petty
boss pushes the bleeding body aside
to make room for another living
man, and the wheels do not stop for
an instant.
Until the present uprising these
strangely patient people have even
spoken of themselves as the com
'panys men," Long oppression and
constant bullying at the hands of the
bosses have made them even con-
slider themselves as slaves. They live
in dingy two-story frame houses,
jammed close together, looking like
long black dows of rough boxes.
These houses have four stalls each
described as rooms" They rent for
$12 monthly. 1t has been charged
that, while the workmen are not
forced to live in these company houses
they do not long remain at their jobs
if they rent elsewhere. 1t is the same
way with the companys store.
Company is King.
No one is forced to buy there, but
as the company owns all the prop
erty around the mills. and merchants
who have tried to establish business
to run in opposition to the companys
stores have never been able to get
sites for stores, the men are practical
ly forced to buy of the company.
Many of these men earn less than 50
a day. some less than 81. Out of
these wages they pay their rent back