The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-09-27
BOTH SIDES FEAR
MORE VIOLENCE
hela Valley, the companies continue to
show increasing strength.

hela Valley, the companies continue to
show increasing strength.
Flock Back by "Hundreds."
At Vandergrift, on the other hand, the
company reports 'hat when It threat
ened to pay of all men who remained
away from work tomorrow they fiocked
into the mills and took up their jobs
literally by hundreds" At Bracken-
ridge the sheet floor workers of the West
Penn Steel Company voted ia to %
to go back to work. At Wheeling the
National Tube Company gave up the
fight and paid off all the employees in
its Benwood plant, even promising to
return to them Monday the money they
have paid In for Liberty bonds. The
plant will be closed.
Steel company officers continue to re-
ceive reports of the most encouraging
nature from their strongholds up the
Monongahela Valley. Two of the vitality
important Carrie blast furnaces OF the
Carnegie Steel Company were fred UP
again during the last twenty-four hours.
Furnaces at Sharon were scheduled to
resume operations tonight.
The encouraging thing about IT,"
we are not losing any OF the men that
we gain. II this keeps up we will be
perfectly satisfied. We are putting on
mill after mill with the men that come
back slowly. In one instance which I
have in mind, however, It Is strictly ac-
curate to say that the men are coming
back by the hundreds
Secretary Foster denied this. He too
insisted that the strikers are holding all
they gain.
THE strike has now reached the
stage" he said, where we cannot for
the moment expect more recruits. If
you'll show me a mill we haven't got I'll
show you where we can do something
more They'll go out of the Jones and
Laughlin plants on Monday. We've at
last got them organized there so that we
are sure of Il.
Says Three-fourths OF Men Quit,
'Tn general we have rs per cent Of
the men Of the steel industry on strike.
Chicago, Cleveland, Wheeling. Youngs-
town and Johnstown are shut down
tight It's not true that they are re-
turning to work in Chicago"
The programme of the national COM
mittee for tomorrow Is admittedly ar
ranged to counteract the atmosphere Of
lnaction now prevalent among the strik-
ers, which is likely to prove damaging
to their cause. The strike call for
Bethlehem seems certain.
The submission of the matter to the
committee Is recognized as merely one
OF Mr. Fosters pendants for form. He
is as punctilious in calling a strike as
would be a citizen of st. Michaels, Nd,
in mixing an eggnog. Nevertheless, the
threat has been made that the Bethle-
hem men will be called out II the COM
pany continues to refuse to treat
1t Is asserted by Mr.. Foster that the
Bethlehem employees are better organ
lied than any others In the steel in
dustry, largely through the intervention
of the War Labor Board Two years
ago this body, in settling the strike of
mechanics and electricians at Bethlehem
hired halls for the organization meet
ings and saw to 1t that the men got
a chance to organize.
This success. he says. was followed
by foyer of organizations in the other
plants OF the company, including tho
plants at Steelton. Sparrows Point and
Lebanon. At these places. he contends
the organization grew spontaneously.
Mr.. Foster refused to say whether
the steel strikers would approach the
railroad brotherhoods for a sympathetic
strike or for a refusal TO handle ma
terial going into or coming out OF strike
bound plants. This, he says. will be
determined by the conference commit
tee made up of Fitzpatrick. the chair
man of the committee, who will come
here from Washington in the morning +,
j. Davis of the Amalgamated Assocla
ton Of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers {:
William Hannin OF the machinists, ]. E.
McCadden of the electricians and Fos-
ter, himself.
II was said by Mr. Foster that he
had not seen the statement byS War
rem stone OF the railroad brotherhoods
that those organizations would not
countenance sympathetic strike.
The situation with regard to violence
continues to be under good control, but
with both sides fearing a blowoff.
The Sharon Farrell district continues