go to work. Even the mill itself looks different. Like
some huge live thing crouching motionless, ready to
leap at you. Everything is quiet and forbidding.
There are no more cars parked in front of the mill,
and even the buses are not passing along their usual
route. The neighborhood in the vicinity of the mill
that usually teems with crowds and traffic every
morning at this time is suddenly avoided, like a
plague-ridden area. The very silence itself is charged
with dynamite. We all feel it. We're on strike.
Occasionally a few of the men from the bigger
mills up the line, the Alloy and Stark workers, pass
us on their way to the day turn. They are all strong-
sinewed fellows, but look as though the blood has
been drained out of them. Some of them grin at us
shyly. One of the,m passes close by me and mutters
out of the side of his mouth: "Give them hell, kid
I"
But that's just talk. If they would come out on
strike with us, we'd have a better chance of winning.
We can't lick the whole Republic Steel by striking
one of the smallest mills. But we had to strike; there
was nothing else to do. Months of promises from
the labor boards, from the company itself, amount-
ed to so much hot air. From the company we got
this : "We have your proposals under consideration,"
From the labor board, we got a bombastic deci-
sion in our favor, and we thought we were getting
somewhere, but the company didn't even bother to
reply to us or the labor board. So it was either
strike, in the hope of winning a few cents increase,
and recognition, or see the union wither away before
our very eyes. And then the company would herd
the men into the company union. Conditions could
get no worse. vVe decided to strike.
So here we are, the first morning of the strike.
Fifty of us picketing and the other three hundred
and fifty-God knows where. One thing is in our
favor from the beginning-the mill is empty. Ex-
cepting a few maintenance and boiler-room men,
nobody on the Sunday night shift stayed inside to
scab on us. They come out at quitting time this
morning, walk past the picket lines, and go home.
We ask them to stay and give us a hand, but most of
them answer that they want to wash up and have
breakfast. They will be back, they say. But it's 6
:30
and only a few have returned.
Monday,
8 A. M.
A big, well-dressed guy comes out of the time
office and crosses the street to where we are stand-
ing. You can see that he is a big shot. One of the
boys recognizes him and says, "So help me, the
division Super himself!" vVe think maybe he is com-
ing over to bring some word from the company.
Perhaps they want to call it off. But we know in our
hearts that the company never quits without a fight.
And neither will we.
White is this guy's name. I'm nearest to him
20
when he crosses the street to us. He don't even say
good morning. He looks surly.
"Who's in charge here?" He wrinkled his nose at
me as if I smelled bad.
"Mr. Wagner, there," I point. "He's our presi-
dent, our union president."
He walks through the pickets and over to Wagner
and says in a rasping voice loud enough for all of us
to hear, "Now you chaps can do all the striking you
want," he begins. "It's within the law. But be damn
careful you don't put your pickets over there on
company property
I"
He jerks his thumb over his
shoulder toward the sidewalk in front of the gate.
"We won't cross the street, mister, not unless you
try to move scabs in," Wagner answers him. We
like that. This guy White is too uppity. All big shots
are.
"The first one of your men that steps on com-
pany property
will regret the day he ever learned to
walk,"
White snaps at \Vagner. With that he turns
and walks right through the crowd as though we
don't exist any more. \Vhen he gets across the street,
instead of going back in by the time office, the big
gates swing open for him.
A nd there they are!
About a hundred of them,
lined up in the gate entrance. Hired agency thugs-
the toughest-looking crew I ever saw. All of them
with guns. Mean-looking rats, dug up from God
knows where. They are lined up, some of them
wearing old, battered soft hats pulled low over their
eyes. Others wear caps, and a few have tin hats on.
They glare across the street at us and finger the
triggers of their shotguns. They look as though they
want to let loose on us then and there. One I
notice in particular-looks
like a hill-billy. Tall,
sd,rawny, with a mouth that reaches to his ears, with
thin brown tobacco juice stains. He has a mean grin
on his wrinkled face. While I stare at him, he leans
over on the barrel of his shotgun and squirts tobacco
juice in our direction. But they don't yell at us or
make any cracks. They stand there. Then two black-
uniformed company guards swing the big gates shut.
N one of us says anything for a moment. That picture
across the street doesn't look pretty at all. The com-
pany is going to fight.
A few minutes later, smoke begins to pour out of
the mill chimneys. It scares us-can there be scabs
at work? When did they get in the mill? Then Mills,
one of the old-timers, a furnaceman who has been with
the company for years, breaks the tension with a
chuckling laugh.
"They ain't workin' them furnaces," he tells us,
"that's tar paper they're burnin' ... it's an old trick
. .. throws a heavy smoke."
That makes us feel better. The company is bluf-
JUNE,
1936
