Montana labor news., 1938-09-01
Steel Firms Fought
Union With Piety And
Terror, Hearings Show
SWOC Director Tells-HOw the
Steel Companies Refused to
Sign-Minister Testifies.
BY L L RANSDELL

pressure on the church have kept
the atmosphere at the hearings of
the LaFollette civil liberties COM
mittee keyed to a high pitch re-
Gently.
The Senate committee which is
investigating interference with the
right of workers to organize as pro-
vided in the Wagner Labor Act, has
recently been examining the meth
DDS used by two of the major Little
Steel" companies, Republic Steel and
Youngstown Sheet & Tube.
The beginning of the strike trouble
of 1897, caused by refusal of Re-
public and other Little Steel" COM
panies to sign a contract, was
brought out at the hearings in the
testimony of Clinton S. Golden, re-
gional director for the Steel Workers
Organizing Committee in the eastern
area.
Golden told the committee last
week that at a conference held in
the office of Republic Steel before
the strike, the company attorney in
formed him that Republic would not
sign a contract with the union even
if 95 per cent of its employees voted
for the SWOC.
Had Never Signed Union Pact
In April, 1887, a meeting was held
between Youngstown Sheet & Tube
and SWOC officials, Golden testified,
at which J. c. Argetsinger, vice
president and general counsel of the
company said that the Sheet & Tube
would not sign a contract because
it never had signed any agreement
with a union.
When Golden called the attorneys
attention to the fact that it had
signed two contracts with the United
Mine Workers, the SWOC director
said that after a whispered consulta-
ton with other company officials,
Argetsinger replied that these UNIV
contracts we're signed by a subsidiary
which he admitted was owned en-
tirely by the Sheet & Tube.
$50 l suggested" Golden told the
committee, "that they organize an
other wholly owned subsidiary and
sign a contract with SWOC." The
suggestion was ignored.
|
Ready TO Sign Once
According to testimony and docu-
ments brought out at the hearings,
Sheet & Tube was at one time ready
to sign a contract, but was talked
out of the idea by Tom Girdler, head
of Republic, at a meeting of the Iron
& Steel Institute in New York.
A strangely mixed array of wit
nesses which included 'finks," de-
tectives, and spies of all kinds; a
minister; high officials of both Re-
public and Sheet & Tube; a NUM-
tons salesman from Federal Labora-
tories; a mayor; union organizers,
and a confusing number of police in
the pay of the two companies, filled
many pages of the record with their
stories.
Minister Testifies
The Rev. Orville G. Jones, former
minister of the Plymouth C%ongrega-
tional Church of Youngstown, al
pleasant-faced, soft spoken man, was
one of the witnesses whose testimony
was received with breathless interest.
Pastor of a church to which sew
eral Sheet & Tube officials as well
as many steel workers belonged, DR..
Jones told quietly of the Subtle
pressure" to which not only he but
other Youngstown ministers were
subjected. Believing that workers
had a right to organize, he said, he
spoke out frequently in defense of
that right, and aroused the intense
antagonism of Frank Purnell, presi-
dent of the Sheet & Tube, and Will
liam B. Gillies, vice president of the
ooiiiC SoiiiPdiiy, JUL VI WllOlil NC
longed to his church.
After he had addressed a union
meeting, DR.. Jones said, a steel Off
cial told him that eff I ever adj
dressed another union meeting,
either he or / would have to leave"
So much a~ntagonism was aroused
against him, the minister testified,
that finally he was forced to resign.
Prepared for War
In contrast with efforts to hold the
church in line with the fierce anti
union policy of Little Steel' was
the amazing tale of the preparations
for a bloody warfare, brought out
by documents, vouchers and testi-
mony concerning the munitions pur-
chased by both companies.
Purnell, Sheet and Tube official,
was forced to admit when confront
ed with the evidence that the COM
pany had $4,000 worth of tear gas
and nearly 1000 revolvers, pistols
and shot guns on hand when the
1887 strike began.
Republic had about $50, 900 worth
Of sickening gas and some 800 guns,
pistols and rifles, as we'll as nearly
5000 gas grenades and ~projectiles.
Jack Baxter, munitions salesman
for Federal Laboratories in Pitts
burgh, admitted that he had received
$40, 1000 in commission for sales of
r~. b. Do-,,k1,o