The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1909-09-24
Harvest in the Pittsburg District.

take no other.
Harvest in the Pittsburg District
Ridgy hills, range behind range, see
through an atmosphere thick and yelloV
to the eye and irritating to the throat
steep slopes denuded of grass and trees
and deeply gashed by food, great heap
of coal dust and rock the size of noun
tains, but mole-hills, nevertheless, the
work of burrowers in the ground; smok
ing chimneys, flaming furnaces, long.
low buildings of stone and steel, then
windows illumined from within by
steady blaze or fitful glare; miles of steel
rails, legions of putting locomotives,
cars by thousands, towns mere stabling
places for human beings, houses bare,
boxes, streets muddy and unbeautiful,
language Babel, no beauty, no rest,
no hint of any sof the merciful or
gracious or tender aspects of earth,
heaven or organized society such is the
Pittsburg district, the Earthly Paradise
of the steel industry of America.
They are having strike there, and on
Sunday, at McKees Rocks, thousands of
men from the cities of the Pale in
Russia, from the level alluvial fields of
Hungary, from the fastness of the
Carpathians, from the Croatian hills
above the Canale della Montagna,
charged the streets cars that came from
Pittsburg with murder in their hearts.
They gave blows and received them;
they shot down men and were shot down
in turn.
The three parties most to blame for !
this awful affair appear to be:
First, the State. Fifty determined |
men, with official authority, could have
held that mob in check. This strike |
has been in progress for five weeks. A
pitched battle was fought at McKees
Rocks on July 10. 1t is no affair of a
day The failure to keep order is a blot
on our civilization. And it may be re-
marked here that to use ununiformed
Deputy Sheriffs against these ignorant
foreigners-as was done last months
a folly so colossal as almost to be GRIM
inal. These men cannot speak English
and they are from country where even
the porter at the country railway station
wears a uniform. A Deputy Sheriff is
only a civilian to them and they do not
recognize him as an official; they fight
him as a matter Of course. Policemen
or soldiers should be employed.
Second, the barons Of the steel in
dustry This industry has been forced"
in its growth to a degree that puts all
other dollhouse records to shame. We ]
are, in consequence, beating the world ,
on steel, but we are producing Schwabs,
Coreys and Thaws at one end of the !
social scale and frenzed mobs at the !
1ther The changes in the industry
nave been achieved more rapidly than
t was possible to compass the correla-
lively necessary changes in the habits, :
deals and capacities of men. 7
Third, the nation at large. These a
gnorant, unnaturalized foreigners, who
annot speak our language, are the a
Yards of the United States. As mat S
er of fact, we have not cared where and e
low they lived or what they thought of t
IS and our institutions. We knew that
american wages we're SO much better Z
han the pay of their home lands that
hey came to us by the thousands; we
eioiced in this and cared for nothing f
lse. We have been content to have
lem ignorant, unclean in person and in +
ONES. lonely and homesick and I'M Il
to the strange civilization in u
hieh they found themselves. Il
Some form or helpful, practical medi- .
ltion between these ignorant children u
{ Russia and Austria on the one hand
nd American life and ideals and oppor- d
mites on the other must be found. Z,
orce will put out the fire, but we con- :
nue. to heap up the combustlbles. 1t Z
only within the last month that the u
ressed Steel Car Company has done O
way with the padrone system by in C.
alling a bureau of interpreters, so that :,
lie dissatisfied man may 60 to his en- y ,.
oyer direct. 1t is but reaping what it u
'wed.-St. Louis Republic.