The Connecticut labor news., 1921-10-14
CHURCHMEN TELL OF STEEL STRIKE
 WORK OF SPIES
Allege in Report That Companies Used "Uncover Men" in
 1919 Trouble

New York, Oct. 14-The Commission | ot Inquiry of the Interchurch World l Movement, tonight made public a sup | plemcntry report on the steel strike of l 1919. describing the alleged use of under
 cover men, or spies by the steel corpor- ations and detailing its dealings and eff | forts toward mediation with the United Sites Steel Corporation
 Hundreds of original documents are | quoted in the report on under cover men ] in the steel strike" which declares that
 Widespread systems of esponage are an | integral part of the anti-union policy of great industrial corporations" industrial esponage Is confined to l America says the report. "What es- 1 pionage there is in Europe Is a Govern | mcnt monopoly: no other civilized coun- try toerates large scale, privately owned , labor spying"
 The spy hired by the steel companies, says the commission, worked like work man, tlked like a workman, whispered 1 depressing ru1nOrs, stirred up radial spite, and argued failure to the strikers, and "even in his daily-mailed spy-reports he 1 advises not so much 'sluggers' as in l f1uence' by municipal authorities to close | up public meeting places"
 | TRACES ESPIONAGE The report also traces the alleged prac- l tice of industrial espionage against the 1 commission and the Interchurch Move ment from November, 1919, to the sum- 1 mer of 1920. The report of an unnamed
 "under-cover man" who pursued the com
 missions investigators in Pittsburgh and ] inspected the interchurch offices in New 1 York, designated as document A, is given , in full. It was sent to the offices of the l United States Steel Corporation, 1t is 1 stated, and was dated two days after ! the commissions first interview with E. i H.. Gray, chairman of the corporation ] The "anonymous" report called the in- veStigators members of the l. w. w. nd Reds'
 Two other spy reports" against the interchurch were detailed, one of which have eben mailed by Ralph M. Easley of the National Civic Federation, to the offices of the United States Steel Cor poration on March %, 1920 with a let ter requesting that the clergyman re- ported ip it be kicked out of their po- ! sitions"
 Mir. Easley's letter gave as his req son tor sending the report on men i'll the "Interchurch World Movement, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ and the Y. M C. A. the fact that at th1s time they are proposing to raise
 hundreds of millions of dollars for this work. The commission said that none of the men spied on by his agent had anything to do with the interchurch steel report"
 A third document, circulated in the spring of 1920, the commission says, had been described by business men who had shown 1t to them as the thing responsi- ble for the failure of the Interchurch financial drive in Pittsburgh" It com prised typewriter pages and included much of the spy material in Documents A and B, 1t was stated.
 Six hundred lleged daily reports made by ''under-cover men, or spies in the town of Monessen, Pa, during the steel stated ere fuwrnished to the commission along with blacklists, etc., by the steel company, which hired the spies from labor detective agencies and elsewhere The spies, it is asserted, mixed with the strikers or held jobs inside the plant dressed as workers.
 500 OPERATIVES USED
 The Corporations Auxiliary Com pany," says the commissions summary of its report, 'professed to have $50 such operatives at work Ill the steel strike and the concerns Pittsburgh manager told the investigator that many of these were inside the unions, frequently as officers Their duties were to break the morale of the strikers"
 The commission charged that the ''under-cover men, circulated strike breaking rumors and quoted at length ex- tracts from their reports purporting to show the general unreliability and worthlessness" of their records.
 The investigation of the spy system, says the commission, twas extended to other towns in the Pittsburgh region and then to the Chicago-Gary district; rami- fcations leading to Ohio, Washington, New York were followed and data col ected, including original documents from the notwithstanding companies, inter views with the managers of two spy firms, afidavits and court documents"
 Documents are quoted to show that the "under-cover men" were inside the unions and that the manager of one agency had boasted that we expect eventually to control the unions which have fallen into radical hands in the last few years" This same manner is quoted as declaring that a 1nenlDe1 O1 tIle Slccl Sll lke Id- tional committee was their man.
 AFFIDAVITS GIVEN
 The commission presented the detailed attidavits of an operative who worked for several years inside Chicago unions, stirring up strikes and then breaking the strikes. Many manufacturing plants are named and an attempt to swing a union election is detailed. A Chicago spy agency, it was declared was indicted for conspiracies and intent ito create riots, instruction and murder" In Wheeling, in the past month. It was stated, the unions exposed officials there who were also spies.
 The commission closes its report with details of it's futile efforts to present to Chairman E. H. Gary of the United States Steel Corporation, a plan looking for mediation of the strike. Letters to and from Mir. Gary are cited. A chapter also details the history of the commits sion's efforts to obtain Government action on its steel report recommendations and indicates that a widespread popular sup port for the recommendations has been largely thwarted so far as visible reforms in the industry are concerned. DENIM P P SUMMONED