New-York tribune., 1919-02-26
The Truth About Seattle
Did Mayor Hanson Use the Revozuto 10 Break the Strike?
By Kenneth Macgowan
ARTICLE |
BY Kenneth Macgowan

FHNHERE are certain things about Seattle
that might make you believe its re-
cent labor troubles were deliberately
planned by the city fathers to add to the
towns distinctions. As record, Amer
ica's first general strike adds considerably
to the statistical glories of those lambent
and smokeess skies under which mingle
the lowest electricity rates in the United
States and the otherwise extinct chimney
sweep, the smallest death rate in the world
and the shaveneck haircut, the most high
ly organized labor in America and the help
yourself grocertera.
1t was the first attempt in all North
America to tie up city's whole industry
to stop mills, factories, stores and street
cars, protest against the laboring con-
ditions offered a portion of organized labor.
Seattle, which held $4,000 people in 1900.
and in 1915 $4,000, now counts some 41O.-
600 inhabitants. Figuring one worker in
every three, "The Seattle TiInes's" estimate
that 10000 were idle stamps the strike as
the next thing to a complete tie-up. Of
these 10000 1t is the astonishing fact that
no less than $4,000 hold union cards Such
percentage Of rganization-agains the
16 per cent claimed by the whole American
Federation of Labor in the United States
is the more extraordinary in the face of
the phenomenal growth of the city's popu-
lation
The general strike lasted five days, from
Thursday, February 6, to Tuesday, Febru-
ary IL. 1t was fully effective for only two
days For the next three-under the cries
OF the press, city officials and the business
interests that it a Bolshevik revolu-
ton IN petc, and with streetcar men and
teamsters returning to work-the labor
leaders devoted themselves to the problem.
Which they now admit should have been
solved before the strike began, the prob
lem of setting a time for the end of the
strike.
The strike involved practically every line
of industry except the following: Electric
lighting, city water, gas, telephones. tele
graph, garbage and burial Against the
theory of the general strike, these were de-
liberately exempted by the strike com
mittee.
The general strike was called by ITO
unions so variegated and unusual in char
acter as the Junk Drivers and Solicitors.
the Soft Drink Dispensers, the Lady Bar
bers, the Fishermen, the Letter Car
rers, the Janitors, Watchmen and Ele
vator Operators and the Hotel Maids. The
$4,000 members of these 110 unions struck
IN sympathy with the $4,000 shpyard work
efs VINO had been out since January 21
IN protest against the Macy award. 1t
was therefore strike which attempted to
reach through local action very deter
mined man over in Washington, D. c..
Charles Piez, OF the Emergency Fleet Cor
poratlon, the controlling factor in the Seat
tie shipyards When the general strike
ended the shipyards strike was left inst
where it had stood before, with the added
disadvantage that the publicity which the
leaders of the general strike were snra
would be concentrated upon the shipvards
took the form instead of countrv-wide
belief in the revolutionary. 7. w. w and
Bolshevist character of the movement
This outstanding fact-the revolutionary
aura that now surrounds Seattle and it's
soflke-must be laid to number of causes.
one is the essential reality behind the
theory of the general strike: if labor by
1olding Its arms can dictate to society, OBJ
Vlously 1T goes so far outside the recog-
nlzed forms of representative government
that the Constitution becomes scrap of
paper.
Another cause for the cry of revolution
lay IN the fact that to accomplish the GEN
erai strike the local unions had to make
scraps of paper out of a number of other
documents. Many of the local unions broke
agreements with their employers and vo
lated the orders of their international ex
ecutives, and all of them ploughed clean
through the charter from the A. f. of l.
under which the body initiating the strike.
the Central Labor Council of Seattle ox.
lists.
But more potent than either OF these
causes, was the character Of number ,s
radical leaders Of the strike. and tho bacA;s