Chicago Strike

Chicago was in that position last spring. The Employers' Association and the Federation of Labor were the combatants, and the helpless citizens stood between the battle lines. The question at issue was one far deeper than any strike: Shall any body of citizens be permitted to jeopardize the peace, comfort, prosperity and personal safety of their fellows in the settlement of a private quarrel? Or, as one man puts it, "Who is Chicago for, anyway—all of us or just a few ? "

This condition arose from two distinct strikes which occurred in the autumn of 1904. On November 19th some six thousand employees, members of the United Garment Workers of America, struck in the twenty-seven wholesale houses which were then members of the National Wholesale Tailors' Association. Justice seems to incline to the side of the employees. For three years now the larger employers of Chicago, through the Employers' Association, have been fighting for the principle of the open shop, and in a majority of industries that principle prevails to-day. It did not prevail in the tailoring industries when this strike occurred last fall. The National Tailors' Association had agreed with its employees, as members of District Council No. 6, U.G W. of A., by a contract dated June 26, 1903, to employ in their shops only members of the union and to send out work only to union contractors. This is the closed-shop principle in its strictest form.

Whether the garment workers are right or wrong in this makes no difference on the point we are considering, that they hold this belief with all the tenacity of their stubborn, untrained minds. Unless an employer really desires a strike he must approach them very diplomatically when he proposes a change from a closed shop to an open one.

The National Tailors' Association was not diplomatic at all. That closed-shop contract, dated June 26, 1903, and expiring March 1, 1905, contained two other important clauses.

The first clause provided that if one party desired to change the provisions of the existing contract he must present his proposal to a joint meeting not later than November 1st. The second clause provided for the arbitration of all disputes.

The second strike was of an entirely different sort, and it is difficult to find any justification for the men. The firm of Montgomery Ward & Co. was not a member of the Wholesale Tailors' Association. It had a special contract with the unions, agreeing to employ only union cutters, fixing hours of labor and compensation therefor, providing for arbitration of all differences, and stating most specifically that no further demands should be made by the union during the life of the contract. On December 15th the nineteen cutters of the house walked out because it dealt with unfair houses. This was their only grievance, and the manager, after trying for four days to meet the officers of the union and confer on the difficulty, secured new cutters.

THE TEAMSTERS GO OUT

The Brotherhood of Teamsters is the most powerful fighting body among the unions of Chicago, for a strike of teamsters paralyzes the business of the city. It has grown to be a habit on the part of other unions, when in difficulties, to call on the teamsters for a sympathetic strike, and the six thousand beaten garment workers did it in this case. Rumor is rife in Chicago that the leaders of the teamsters long ago realized the moneymaking possibilities inherent in their strategic position and have demanded and received round sums for their services before ordering their men to strike. No one, however, has come forward who was able, or willing, to prove these charges in any specific case. The garment workers solicited in vain for a long time, but at last, about the first of April, the teamsters voted to take up the cause of the strikers.

The only weapon the strikers had was violence, for under present conditions a peaceful and successful strike is an impossibility. As some one said recently, "What are they going to do? Say to the employer, 'I don't like the way you're treating me, so I'm going home and sit on the front steps. When you want me to come back just drop me a postal' ?" While there are in all our cities so many non-heroic, non-professional strike-breakers lounging on every street corner ready to die for unlimited beer, the striker, whether his cause is just or unjust, must be prepared to say to them, "See here! If you try to take our jobs while we're looking for a square deal we'll just break your heads." Intimidation is the only argument that appeals to a certain class of minds.

Yet nothing hurts the cause of the striker with the public more than violence, and public sympathy says the last word in a strike. The Employers' Association understood that thoroughly, and it gave the strikers every opportunity to injure themselves. From the start it marched its wagons in long trains. Of course the claim was that protection could be given more easily to a train of wagons than to the same number singly. But this formation was the very one most calculated to cause violence, since it was the most conspicuous and also the most likely to cause blockades, with their attendant dangers.

The strikers claimed that this was done expressly to incite such violence as would necessitate the calling in of troops, and they pointed out one very concrete instance. On the morning of May 5th, Sheriff Barrett telephoned the strikers' headquarters, asking that any men who desired to be sworn in as deputy sheriffs should come to his office between three and four that afternoon. As the strikers had long been requesting this, a number of them responded. When they approached City Hall at the hour named they met a train of some ten wagons of the Employers' Teaming Association loaded to their limit with colored strike-breakers. When the strikers entered Sheriff Barrett's office he refused to swear them in. They returned to their quarters without violence, but full of very evil suspicions.

By such methods as these the employers drove the strikers relentlessly from ditch to ditch. At any time the union would have snatched at a merely nominal compromise for the sake of peace, but the Association would offer no terms save unconditional surrender, and the strikers had grown too desperate for that.

Finally the Association induced the Team Owners' Association, composed of the transfer, trucking and local express company owners, to direct their union drivers to deliver to all stores or be discharged. The team owners had up to that time held the balance of power by remaining neutral. Again the issue was put squarely to the teamsters: they must give up entirely or go on to the end. To go on meant to call out all the 35,000 teamsters, paralyze the business of the city, and run the risk of violence little short of civil war. And the Employers' Association announced its fixed purpose of fighting it out on this line if it took all summer. No wonder the ordinary citizen grew weary.

For weeks his city had no government. From one end of the City Hall the Mayor proclaimed that no violence would be tolerated, and urged well-disposed citizens to keep off the streets as much as possible. Why should they keep off their own streets? From the other end of the Hall the Sheriff of Cook County was sending out numberless deputies, with orders to shoot to kill if attacked. Down in the Monadnock and Marquette Buildings the officials of the Employers' Association were handling the situation by means of armed strike-breakers and private police and deputies. From the strikers' headquarters, President Shea assured the Secretary of War that Federal property in transit would not be held up in the streets of Chicago, and issued permits (" passes ") to certain favored individuals to have goods delivered to them. Homicides and vicious assaults were of daily occurrence; a man going about his day's work on the streets might be struck at any moment by a missile thrown from a tenth-story window or shot by some wildly firing deputy or strike-breaker; their very children in the schools were striking and rioting—the whole situation was chaos.