The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1916-11-09
A Fair Sample OF What ImHnli-
grafton Has Done and is
Doing for Americans.

cent years.
In every case, the Capitalists hired thugs,
gunner, ETC., to fight against the strikers,
and the number of lives taken by these i'm
ported shooters has been very considerable.
In nearly every case, the city authorities
were men whom the corporations had put in
office, and who used the courts and the police
against the strikers.
For some weeks there has been fighting be-
tween John D. Rockefeller's Oil Company
and the Immigrant workmen who were i'm
ported from Europe in order that Rookie
feller's Trust might increase his billion dol
lar estate-and that of his Bible-class son.
In the New York Tribune of last Sunday,
there is a writeup of conditions at the
Standard Oil works, showing how the "pro-
tected" industries 90 abroad and bring IN the
foreign labor, which our Tariff system is sup
posed to keep from competing with Amerl-
can labor
AS you read the facts, bear in mind that
President Wilson broke the platform promise
which pledged him to sign a bill which
would put stop to this promlscuous 1mpor-
tation of cheap foreign workers.
Bayonne N. j., with all it's varied industries,
is dominated by Standard Oil. The heavy, acr1d
smoke Of the refineries hangs over it like pail,
and to the southwark the great tanks, chimneys
and buildings of the Standard Oil plant and the
works Of half a dozen allied corporations-the
Tidewater Oil, Texas Oil, Vacuum Oil, Bergen
Point Chemical etc.-lOOm like smoking city
above the other factories of Constable Hook, and
the terrible sums where the workmen live.
The Mayor of Bayonne, Mr.. Pierre R. Garven,
is the Standard Oil attorney for Hudson County
At the outbreak Of the strike substantially the
entire police force of Bayonne was withdrawn
from the city and sent down to Constable Hook
tc guard the oil works; until even the citizens
protested at the burglaries and hold-ups which
epsued in the unpatrolled streets. And when
special policemen were in, it the
purchasing agent for the Underwater Oil Company
who ordered their uniforms in New York.
For the first time in an American industrial
dispute the police officials announced that their
object was "to break the strike" And from the
first night, when hundred officers, armed with
riot guns and repeating rifles, marched down to
the Hook to demonstrate the futihty OF striking
to the workmen the object of the Bayonne city
authorities to drive the strikers back to work
in every way the police know The Standard
Oil Company announced through Mr.. George H.
Hennessey, superintendent of the Bayonne plant
that it had absolute faith in the authorities of
the city of Bayonne;" and Henry Wilson, Bay
Onnes Director of Public Safety justified this
faith when he said, October 4th, We've got
this strike broken, and Wen keep it broken. II
the men are wise they will accept the chance L
have gained for them" The chance referred to,
be it noted, that OF going back to work under
the hideous conditions that had driven them to
strike.
There is similarity in all these Rockefeller
Strikes which springs from the similarity of
Rockefeller industrialism everywhere. In Bay
Onne as in Colorado three years ago. find that
the policy of the company had been to keep the
great mass Of laborers ignorant and dsunited
ard every mans hand against them Among the
unskilled workmen Americans and English
speaking men have been replaced by Poaks,
Slovaks, Lthuanians Russian Jews, Italians
and their racial and religious antipathies given
full play Most of them do not speak English at
all, and of course the different nationaties can
not communicate with each other
These "hunkies' despsed by the Ameri-
cans, Irish, Germans, who compose the small