The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-07-27

impact or the inuusVryS most tnOro'
 The picture which assumes Q s leaves out the most important 9actor-the l60,000 men who make steel. They are the ones who are going to decide whether they want Co join Q union,
 Right there is where the drive of John l.. Lewis Committee for Industrial Organization Is differ ent from previous efforts. For many reasons, there is more chance this time than ever before that the men will make their own decision.
 The steel towns are quiet. If there Is any great seething unrest, at is for enough below the surface that 1t is not apparent to observa- ton and questioning. The organi- ration drive has not yet displaced baseball as Q topic in the cafes across the street from the mills.
 Many conversations with steel workers, executives, and union or- ganiHers make tho threat of imrni- nent strike seem exaggerated. Al- most certainly there win he no gen- eral steel strike this summer. Prob ably not this fall. Perhaps not even in the spring,
 There will be local disturbances where newly organized men get tout of hand," however. A violent inci- dent in such Q local strike might ilnaNk the nenceful plans of orgNn- iEers, however.
 No War Preparation Seen
 If steel mills are being fortified and companies of armed guards drilled, as alleged, neither defenses nor guards are visible to tho naked eye in walking through c dozen mills.
 The organized drive is getting under way without fireworks, and comes nearer to being . straight sales campaign than anything else ever seen in steel.
 The organizers aren't talking strike to prospects, and almost the only public suggestion of conflict waS by the Iron and Steel Insti- tute itself in . paid newspaper cd. vegtlsement.
 Actual overt reprisals by steel companies against employees for joining unions have been surprls- ingly few compared to those of the past.
 It is Q bloody and violent past, At Homestead, in 1892, rife and pistol fire laid pinkeTton men and strikers low in the Battle of the Barges" which has become Q classic of labor violence.
 yn i9io, the great steel strike conducted by William 2. Foster, while comparatively free from vio- lence, was unexcelled in the bitter ness engendered. Some of it per. sists today on both sides.
 Drive Quiet, Systematic
 But despite this past, tho present drive iS being launched in on at- mosphere of temperateness and calm. From light, airy quarters spreading over the whole floor of Q great downtown Pittsburgh ofiice building, from the windows of which the stacks of several steel plants and the hay smoke from many others is visible, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee is doing its work.
 Rows of offices, with organizers drifting in and out, telephones busy with distance calls to diS- trict organizers in Chicago, Bir- mingham, Cleveland,
 An expert press agent giving all the union side of the news to news papers, more ready than ever before to print 1t,
 Quiet, humorous-eyed Phil Mur- ray, veteran miners organizer and right-hand man of John L, Lewis, holding press conferences twice daily.
 And high up in New Yorks Em- pire State Building, the offices of the Iron and Steel institute emit frequent statements of the manage ment side. Thus far 1t has been Q battle of newspaper statements.
 Free choice for the steel workers! It never happened before in the steel industry, but there is Q chance of it this time.
 Assured Square Deal
 This organization drive opened ,~fAa. a wa.,hiia vas asaaAs,ae, N,a TPn,.a a,k n. l