The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1910-04-08
ATTACK THE
STEEL TRUST
A. F. of L. Officials Wage
War on Great Industrial
Trust.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind, March 30
Samuel Gompers, president of the
American Federation of Labor, and 25
| other labor leaders called upon Gov
ernor Marshall today in the effort to
secure prosecutions under state laws
against the United States Steel Corpo-
ration at Gary.
Gompers made a statement in which
he said the question was whether the
state of Indiana will compel the cor
porations, which has millions invested
in Gary, Elwood and other cities in
Indiana, to obey the laws. According
to written charges filed by the national
labor organization, the steel corpora
tion is violating the laws of the state
in that it has evolved system of peo-
mage in it's operations of which the
ignorant foreign class employed to a
very great degree are the victims.
1t is charged that the foreigners are
employed at a low wage, made to work
long hours, compelled to pay high rents
by the steel corporation, required to
buy necessities in shops controlled by
the corporation and that at excessive
prices and that their children are de-
prived of the educational advantages
which would prepare them to realize
the slavery in which their fathers are
now held.
1t is further alleged that the steel
corporation has obtained possession of
lands and houses in the neighborhood
of its plants, and that by this means
it is able to control the destines of it's
laborers. Saloons, it is charged, have
been established by the steel corpora
tion and maintained by it in the neigh
borhood in which the foreigners dwell,
and that by this means much of the
money paid to the workmen in wages
finds its way back into the treasury
of the corporation.
Gompers went into a discussion of
the necessity for labor organizations
and made the impression on those
present that he is conducting fight
against the open shop which the steel
corporation has adopted. He intimated
that the corporation prevents it's en-
ployes from effecting the organization
necessary to their independence. He
says every employe in such mills is n
specialist and unless they are en-
couraged to organize they ean have
no protection.
Affidavits were submitted to the gov
ernor regarding the treatment of the
strikers at Elwood. One of these affi-
davits sets out that meeting of bus
ness men of Elwood was held with
the tin plate officials and soon after
that twenty seven special police were
sworn in, brought, according to the affi
davit, from Eastern cities, among them
q man named Coombs.
Immediately after their appointment
the special police, according to the affi-
davits, destroyed the picket houses and
assaulted the picketers. Two women, it
| is averred, were assaulted in a public
highway, and men coming to the as
sistance of the women were held at
bay by Coombs with a drawn revolver
Coombs, it is alleged, makes his head
quarters at what is known as the "Half
Way House," which, the affidavit says,
is commonly reputed to be a blind
tiger"
Governor Marshall did not indicatte
what he would do, but asked for a
brief on the law under which it was
desired that he should act. Gompers
promised to submit it and also to sub
nit more affidavits.