Montana labor news., 1936-10-08
Violence in Strikes

Alleged violence in strikes is a favorite theme
on which anti-labor employers, the police and
daily newspapers are united in making public
and deploring. Hardly a day goes by in times
of labor unrest without the newspapers featur-
ing headlines like these:
Paint Thrown on Employers Home"
Violence Flares in Transit Strike"
1.-TWO Killed as Guards Battle Pickets."
After reading such headlines and the articles
written to bear them out, many readers are like
ly to blame striking workers and their friends
for the violence.
But the real source was disclosed in testimony
before the La Toilette Civil Liberties Commit
tee in its investigation of labor spies in indus
trial disputes, with Railway Audit and Inspec-
ton Company as its subject. Here is a sum-
mary of some of the testimony:
E.. J. Dade testified that he had been hired by
the Railway Audit and Inspection Company for
the express purpose of creating disorder in
strikes and thus discrediting the strikers in the
eyes of the public.
There was a milk strike in Cleveland. Frank
Tabor was the head of the Tabor Ice Cream Co.,
whose employees had walked out. In order to
stimulate resentment against the strikers and
arouse sympathy for Tabor, who was the client
of a copy service for which Dade was working,
the latter and his strike breaking associates dau-
bed red paint on Tabor's home.
In the same strike, in order to make it appear
that strikers were firing on the company guards
the guards fired on themselves. This emphas-
lied the apparent necessity for more guards and
more business for the concern that furnished
these thugs.
In the strike of the employees of the Pittsburgh
National Dairy Company last year, guards were
ordered to slug members of trade unions and
thus induce a counter attack.
Seven hundred strike breakers were recruit
ed during the Wisconsin Light and Power Co.
strike in Milwaukee. The company provided
them with AK handles to slug the strikers and
turned live steam on the picket lines.
Double dealing is the regular practice of
these spy concerns. The Railway Audit and
Inspection Company sent one of its spies into a
refrigerator strike in New York City. He pos
ed as a friend of the strikers and became the
unions publicity agent and at the same time
furnished the company with daily reports on
union activities.
The testimony also revealed that the r. A.. I.
and other spy services make a regular practice
of using bribery and threats to persuade union
members to become spies.
Federal Laboratories, Inc, is a subsidiary of
the Railway Audit and Inspection Company.
According to the testimony this concern sold
tear gas bombs, machine guns and other wea-
pons to both companies and police for use in la
Dor disputes. 1t was the practice of the COM
pany's spies to stir up violence. Therefore it is
easy to see how one branch of the business
helped the other. 1t worked like this. The
more spies and company guards there were to
create violence, the more gas bombs and guns
were required and the more workers killed.
During the depression this un-American bus
mess netted the spy concern a profit of 81 ,300,-
900, after paying its officers large salaries. The
money was contributed by concerns which re-
fused to pay their workers enough wages to pre-
vent strikes.