fing about having men at work. But behind the gate
there are other men, and that's no bluff.
Monday Afternoon,
5 P.M.
Things begin to look a bit brighter. Nothing hap-
pened all morning, and the picket lines have been
slowly growing. There are about two hundred now,
some of them women, wives of the strikers. The
company has made no move of any kind. Everything
behind the gate is quiet. A few of the guards have
taken positions up on the roof of the mill, and we
can see their gun-barrels glint in the waning sun-
light. We get word from other mills up the line that
they will be down to help us picket as soon as they
change shift. Workers from the Timken Bearing
plants from the south end of town are beginning to
drive up in their cars to see how we are making out.
They are very friendly. We need all the friends we
can get.
So far, we haven't got word from the big shots of
the American Federation of Labor. Maybe they'll
come and help us, and maybe they won't. They don't
like strikes very much; we know that from experi-
ence. If they want to help us, well and good. If they
want to stay away, good again. Just so long as they
don't shove their noses in and try to run things.
One of the newspapermen asks Wagner if we have
sanction from the Federation for our strike. Wag-
ner says no, and old Mills, who doesn't like
the Federation leaders, tells the reporter, "If we sit
around on our tails waitin'
for headquarters in
Washington to sanction this here strike, we'll have
whiskers down to our belly buttons."
He's about right. Our union is a federal local,
affiliated directly to the A. F. of L., under the juris-
diction of the Executive Council. They are too
busy lobbying and making speeches about the Reds
nowadays to sanction any strike.
The reporter writes down what we say, passes
around a pack of cigarettes and promises to print
things just like we told him. But I know from other
strikes I've been in that the papers seem to think that
we workers are just natural-born liars and what we
say is not worth printing, for fear that their papers
won't give the readers nothing but the truth, and the
whole truth, so help them.
The early afternoon paper, for instance, has a
piece about the strike which gives a statement from
the company and not a word about why we are strik-
ing. We gave a statement to them after the rally
last night. The paper says that the company "anti-
cipates no trouble and expects most of the few em-
ployees who have remained away from work back
Tuesday morning." Then it goes on to -say that the
mill is working and a check-up shows that only sixty
employees did not report for work. That's a lie.
There aren't ten men in that plant. There's not many
on the picket line, but they are not working either.
PARTISAN
REVIEW
Monday Afternoon,
5 :45 P.M.
They are coming by the hundreds to help u.s.
The
area around Eleventh and Beldon Streets on up to
the mill gate is beginning to fill up with the crowd.
Many of them are here in their mill clothes, carrying
their lunch pails. Lots of kids home from school are
playing on the street and having a swell time. We try
to chase them away, in case of trouble, but they re-
fuse to go. A few city cops stand off to themselves,
making no attempt to keep the streets open for traf-
fic. A gang of young fellows are pitching pennies;
there's a heated game of pinochle on the steps of
Peley's restaurant, and Peley himself is doing a
booming business inside. A small huddle of Italian
strikers are playing their number game; one facmg
the other, both jabbing their fingers and yelling,
"Uno" or "Quattro" or other Italian numbers at
each other. They sweat, eyes glistening, heads wag-
ging furiously.
Suddenly, up front, near the gate, there's a com-
motion. We all stop and look. The gates are slowly
opening again. Something like an electric shock runs
through the crowd, and we stop whatever we are
doing to focus attention on the gate. The police
shamble away uneasily and go into the restaurant.
The gate suddenly swings wide open, and a low rum-
bling sound sweeps over the crowd. A big armored
truck stands in the gateway, motor idling. It begins
to move towards us, slowly at first. The crowd near-
est the gate stumble back. Here and there a striker
stoops to the ground, for a brick or whatever he can
find to throw. The armored truck, a big twenty-ton-
ner, rolls towards us, gathers speed. The crowd backs
away, facing the truck. Somebody shouts above the
crowd,
"A truck load of sCilbs-they're taking them
home!"
"Get the rats!" from another voice.
"Let 'em through," from another.
I push up toward the gate to get a better view. It
must be scabs, I think, and the company is escorting
them home under guard. I see the driver. He's scared
stiff, his face pasty grey, and he's glued to the wheel,
hunched over. On either side of rum, standing on the
runningboard, are two thugs, tin hats on, and ban-
doliers of tear gas bombs swung over their backs.
The truck reaches the street. We surge toward it.
Some try to push backward, away from it. The whole
street is roaring now. Then, one of the guards,
growling, swings his sack around, pulls out a tear-
gas bomb and lets it fly right into the crowd.
A dull, muffled explosion, a roar of anger, and
then a shower of bricks. Pickets try to rush the dri-
ver, but the truck gathers speed. More gas bombs
fly on all sides, and part of the crowd is completely
enveloped with low-rolling clouds of gas. More
bricks. More curses. The truck swerves, and one of
the thugs crumples up and falls into the driver's cab.
By this time, the truck is a half block from the gate.
21
