Omaha daily bee., 1919-10-21
Members of Senate Labor
Committee Aghast When At
torney for |. W. W. Outlines
Purposes of Some Unions.
GIVES EVIDENCE IN
STEEL STRIKE PROBE
Unions Organized in Principal
Pennsylvania and Ohio Steel
Districts by Three Notorious
Radical Groups.

Washington, Oct. 20.-While
members of the senate labor COM
mittee investigating the steel strike
sat fairly dazed and dumfounded,
Jacob Margolis of Pittsburgh, I. w.
w. attorney and admitted advocate
of social revolution today, told them
story of ultra-radical activities
which he said underlay and were as
sociated with the nationwide strike
of steel workers.
Even more remarkable to his
hearers was the Pittsburgh attor-
ney's delineation of a partially sue
cessful attempt covering the past
two years to fuse at Pittsburgh, for
an unstated but vaguely hinted rev.
olutionary purpose, the combined
forces Of the |. w. W., bolsheviki
and Russian industrial workers,
whose imagination, he acknowl-
edged, had been caught by the sue
cesses of Lenine and Trotzky in
Russia. All were working, he told
the committee calmly, ito create a
new society within the she'll of the
old" ........
Throughout Margolis' story ran
the name of William Z. Foster, sec
retary of the steel strike committee,
to whom Chairman Kenyon of the
labor committee forced a frequent
recurrence by a cross-examination
in which dictagraph records OF tele-
phone conversations, photographed
copies of Margolis' correspondence,
and similar matters played large
part.
Anarchist Syndicalist.
Margolis coolly classified himself
as an anarchist syndicalist,' in
which capacity he had worked with
and for the l. w. w. organization
and "Tolstoian anarchist" Gov
ernments, he said, will be of no use
when proper industrial conditions
are established" he put it and these
industrial conditions, he predicted,
will be established when workers,
organized along |. w. w. lines, got
ready to take over and operate IN
dustrv for themselves, more eth.
ciently than private ownership can.
Secretary Foster came into the
testimony not so much as radical
agitator himself, but as seeker tor
help in conducting the industrial
fight in the steel industry. Margolis
told of union of Russian work
men" existing in and around Pitts
burgh, revolutionary in its objects
and said at Fosters request or with
his cognizance he secured the en-
dorsement of that organization for
the steel strike.
The Russians had a tri-state
meeting at Youngstown in August"
Margolis explained. 1T was dele
gate assembly. ] went there and
made speech asking them to en-
dorse the steel strike and give its
support. This they agreed to do
Phone Conversation Rcord.
| In a letter to President Wilson,
! written in connection with the call
| ing of the steel strike, the strike
committee had referred slightingly
| to the /. w. w. and Chairman Ken
yon had a telephone conversation re-
cord on this.
Tell the boys not to get sore
about Pat" Foster at one end of a
wire had told Margolis. Il didn't
have anything to do with that let
ter. You know | have to go with
the committee most of the time"
This language Margolis recog-
nized and admitted having conveyed
the message to his associates.
"You see officially the strike COM
/ mittee doesn't recognize me at all, !"
| Continued on Page Two. Column Three.)