The New York herald., 1921-10-03
STEEL SPIES DOGGED
MYERCHURCA AIDS
Efforts to Hamper Inquiry
in Strike Of 1919 Are
Barred in Report.
RANSACKED A CHURCH
Posing as Workers, These
Anti Union Agents
Stir Racial Hate.
UNRELIABLE, WORTHLESS
U. S. Said to Be Only Country
Which Tolerates Such a Sys-
TEN Of Espionage.
RANSACKED A CHURCH
UNRELIABLE, WORTHLESS


men" or spies in the steel strike of
1919 are given in a supplementary
report on the strike made public to-
day by the Commission Of Inquiry Of
the Interchurch World Movement. The
report was written by Robert Littell
and. the commission says, presents
the data on which the commission. in
its original report, made last year,
recommended that the Government in
vestigate the so-called labor detective
agencies, with view to their regu-
lation or abolition.
Widespread systems of espionage
are an integral part of the anti-union
policy of great Industrial corpora
tions," according to the new report.
industrial espionage ia con-
fined to America. What espionage
there is in Europe is government
monopoly; no other civilized country
tolerates large scale, privately owned
labor spying"
Modern labor detective agencies are
represented as realizing that up-to-
date war relies heavily on propaganda; /;
therefore their Operatives" offered for
hire. are trained propagandists.
"The modern spy" the report says,
works like workmen, talks like work.
men. whispers depressing rumors, stirs
up racial spite and argues failure to
strikers; even in his daily mailed spy
reports he advises, not SO much slug
gers as influence by municipal authors
ties to close up meeting places.
'"The final records of the Inter
church's steel investigation show spy
ransacking church offices in New York /;
other spy reports used to jeopardize the
whole purpose of the vast cooperative
Christian enterprise; spying cloaked un-
der the wing of public body, the Ma
tional Civic Federation. and report
sent by the Civic Federation's chairman
to the offices of the steel corporation
there to be weighed with others on the
desk Of Mr.. Gary"
Pursued investigator.
The charge is made that an unnamed
''under cover man" pursued the commits
sion's investigators and inspected the
commissions offices in New York, and
that his report, calling the investigators
members of the I. w. w. and Reds
was sent to the offices of the United
States Steel Corporation. dated two days
after the commissions first interview
with Judge Gary. This report Is given
in full
Another Spy report" described as
Document b, is alleged to have been
mailed by Ralph M. Easley of the Ma
tional Civic Federation to the offices OF
the United States Steel Corporation on
March 20, 1920. with a letter requesting
that the clergymen reported in 1t be
'lxicked out Of their positions"
A third document, circulated In the
spring Of 1920, the commission says, had
been described by business men as "the
thing responsible for the failure Of the
1nterchurch financial drive in Pitts
burgh."
The commission analyses 500 daily re-
norts made by "under cover men" in
Monessen, Pa, at the time of the strike.
These men were hired by a steel COM
pany from two labor detective agencies,
one of which was the Corporations
Auxiliary Company. The spies mixed
with the strikers or held jobs inside the
plants.
'The Corporations Auxiliary Com
pany.'' says the commission, "professed
TO have 500 such 'operatives at work in
the steel strike, and the concerns Pitts
burgh manager told the investigator
that many of these were inside the
unions. frequently as officers. The 'un-
der men were mostly foreigners like
the workmen they mix with. Their re-
ports were very generally sent to the de-
tective agency's headquarters to be
edited or rewritten. then mailed to the
employing steel company. Their duties
were TO break the morale of tho
strikers"
Reports Held WarthIcss.