Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1919-10-03
The Strike Reccdee

IT is undeniably true that the steel indus
try has not suffered the paralysis which
the strikers expected to produce. 1t has not
been forced to close down its plants on
every hand and the unions have failed to
hold all the men from their jobs who went
out when the call was first issued. Instead,
the mills are going in many OF the steel
districts and hundreds OF the workers are
returning to their stations. The Bethlehem
steel Company strike, while serious, was far
from successful, taken as whole. The men
at Sparrow's Point branch OF this company.
nearly 10000, all told, refused to bulge and
even enough of those at the main plant at
Bethlehem remained behind TO keep the
fires going.
1t may be too soon to predict the general
failure of the steel strike, but it is not too
soon to pronounce it the most useless waste
of time and money for which organized
labor, on large scale, has ever been respon-
sible, and once the general public realizes
the FOLLY OF such conflict as this its SYM
pathy with the strikers is withdrawn. No
strike can be a 100 per cent success. more
over II 1t fails to enlist and TO hold the
sympathetic support of the public.
1t is interesting to observe that wholesale
strikes are not making the. Roadway that
might have been looked for. The great
railway strike in England, for example, Is
not as alright as its promoters expected.
The British nation is not allowing itself TO
be starved into submission by the railway
tralnmen. 1t is showing not only the same
hshting and staying qualities which marked
the conduct OF its armies in France but it
is showing genuine resourcefulncss in meet
ing the crisis
Then too, the Boston police strike might
be recalled in this connection II will be
bered that when the issue was forced
IN that city by the police, all organized labor
showed an inclination to strike in sympathy
" DIV,
ton workers sat down calmly to work the
thing out they concluded that it would be
wiser II they remained at work and the
general Boston strike never was called.
little earlier the railway shopmen we're
militant in their demands and threatened
calamity for the country if their wage pro-
posals were rejected Thousands of them
general officers and a great delegation had
gone to Washington TO bully the President
into forcing the surrender OF the railroad
administration But Woodrow Wilson would
not be bullied. He rejected the major de-
manda OF the shopmen, gave them some
minor advances in pay and told them to
go back to work. And they went back to
work.
The strike business as business is not
exactly prospecting. Many small industries
are now tied up and vast loss is being i'm
poseu upon the country result but there
are indications that the strike club is not
as popular among working men themselye.
as 1t was and that more and more OF them
are re'oitlng against the plan OF the radical
.eaue,s 10 close down American industry un-
tii labor is given all that it dares to grab
TOT. IT the steel strike fails in this country
ana IL the railroad strike is defeated in
Ereat Britain, sanity will have triumphed
upon Two continents and new order NAV
De inaugurated in the Industrial world.