The Connecticut labor press., 1919-10-25
STEEL STRIKE STORY
By MARY HEATON VORsE.

The other day a man came into
 Fosters office. He had been on strike three weeks, and now he had about % cents left. He had some chickens, he had good neighbors, that had given him
 vegetables and things from their gar dens The man was a foreigner, a young married man, and what he had come for was not to ask strike benefits. He wanted advice and the moral SUD- port of encouragement.
 He wanted to know how he was go- ing to get along. He came rather de- precatingly, smiling in an embarrassed sort of fashion over his difficulties. Then he went away, still with his smile, his only assets his friends, his 90 cents and his indomitable will to stick out.
 The strike is based on people like this; people full of faith; people full of endurance; people full of sacrifice thousands and thousands of them
 Thousands of them looking upward and forward to a better life for them selves and their children-for these people are striking for a right to be con- sidered as men, They are striking for the right of a little leisure. They want an end put to this de-humanizing double shift. I
 The other day in Braddock mill superintendent stopped an old timer on the street. sAren't you working" he asked.
 No, am not working. I'm on strike; Pm taking holiday. am pay ing myself back those twenty Christ niases I worked for the company, said the man.
 That has been the situation with the mill workers. No Sundays, no Christ mas. Work that took it out of a man
 Il. ,1d n4 A0. WNrLg that left him so tired at the end of the day that he wasn't a human being any more, and now these people are willing to sac rifce to change this sort of thing, tor themselves for their children, and tor the workers of all time.
 So when the history of this strike IS written it is going to be history or lie faith and courage and endurance oi men and women living 1n wretcned sI,,ms their windows looking on hlthy ro,,rf vards-living in desolate mill towns in sheds around the great mills living in bleak houses on steep niilsides where the roads turn to roaring tor- rents during each rain.
 Afleoheny county is fair sweet place. There are large, fat farms; oM bubbles underneath the earth ana all around are beautiful towns full ot com fortabie American homes. At eacn turn of the road the ravines and DTunI hills make you new picture. Smoke sI1,lfs ont all of this when you get to the towns where the mill workers live. Their landscape is the rows and rows of great chimneys and the smoke pour ing out of them Their music IS the dln rf the shop and the roar of the whistle
 Thev have no life and now because thev have asked for few hours m which to live, every form of suppres- sion and terror is sbeing used against them,
 Why has the strike not already been srnothered out of existence? Only because of the dogged endurance and inc dogged faith of the men. Ihis 1 strike is not kept together by the or dinarv discipline 1t goes on by its own momentum through the faith and cour- age of the rank and file. l
 There is no one who reads this who does not know how the morale of strike is kept up. There IS no one | who has seen strikes where there were | not meetings, entertainments, process l sions, the coming together of men work ing for common purpose-there IS nothing like this in the steel towns. It | isn't allowed If more than half a dog | er strikers stop on the street to talk | over their affairs, they are arrested for | tb1oclSing traffic" melting to riot etc.
 No strike poster can be stuck up in a steel town--no leaf1et passed on the street to tell the news. No meeting can | be held without permit of police. Many towns do not allow any meet ings at all Tn other towns where meet inps are grudgingly allowed, the halls are so little that they can hold only a : very smal1 fraction of the men on strike.
 So smothering silence shuts down over the men, Every day they get up to read lying reports in the papers. Every day they meet on the street mill ern- plOyeeS who try to bribe them to go h back. know a young fellow who was discharged because he was getting men to join the union, and he was one of many in his town-I have list of their names though Mir. Gary states that men are never discharged for union activ- ities. This man recently met foreman of his shop who offered him back his old job at an increased wage, He didn't go, for they are not going back be- cause they have settled down to a long grim fight in spite of every force of the community against them including ur- certainty and suspense; in spite of all tlle rtirnors of strike breakers and that their jobs are gone forever, in spite of the terror of the "Cossacks", the beat ings, and the continual menace of arrest.
 We must remember that in tl.e steel towns people have been arrested whole sale because they have committed the crime of striking. There are charges such as obstructing traffic, unlawful assembly, etc, which make 1t imposs1- ble to run striker in without his hav- svgrv fa1 as1u real 0fTauSR | Suppression and oppression have been the Father and Mother of this strike and terror its godfather But, when