Hellraisers Journal: How Capitalists' Gunmen Broke Loose in Youngstown, Three Rebel Workers Dead

Submitted by JayRaye on Tue, 02/02/2016 - 12:56pm

You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wednesday February 2, 1916
From the International Socialist Review: A Report on the Youngstown Massacre

This month's edition of the Review offers an overview of the Youngstown Massacre:

Capitalist Violence at Youngstown

By JOHN RANDOLPH

A GANG of gunmen broke loose in Youngstown, Ohio, on the night of January 7. When they got through with the paid job they came to Youngstown to do, three union workingmen were dead, twenty more labor rebels had bullet wounds on their bodies, and somewhere over $1,000,000 worth of property lay smoking in ruins.

Not a life was lost nor a bullet gash received by the enemies of labor, according to reports so far arriving. Of the $1,000,000 and more property destroyed practically all was owned by somebody else than the big steel sheet and tube works, whose workers were on strike.

Look at it. Three working class rebels are dead, murdered by hired gunmen. Who paid the gunmen and where did they come from and what were their orders? Nobody is telling. The one certainty is the dead are dead.

Why they are dead those who know have not told, and those government officials who have power and resources to force the story from the lips of those who can tell have not acted.

Three theories are offered to explain how the bloody jamboree started. These are:

1. It was started by Austro-German influences to hinder war munitions manufacture. This is the least credited of all the theories. Though it was played strong in newspapers, it is easily discredited in the mere fact that General Organizer T. Flynn of the American Federation of labor was on the field. The A. F. of L. has been organizing workers at the plants involved, and the A. F. of L. officers would have already said they won't stand for Austro- German strikes mixed up with diplomatic machinations.

2. The Youngstown sheet and tube mills had refused to match the 10 per cent wage raise announced for all the United States Steel Company mills and a clash between imported gunmen and strikers spread till there was a city-wide insurrection. This theory that the initiative of the violence came from the strikers doesn't stand up well in view of the fact that all the dead and most of the wounded are strikers and workingmen, while so far no gunmen and
private detectives are known to have met death or injury.

3. Away at the top of the financial world were interests that wanted Youngstown hit hard for the purpose of hammering down the stock in the market and creating a general dejection among stockholders of Youngstown corporations. With this accomplished the way to a big steel merger would be easier. This was undoubtedly the biggest single motive force back of the whole affair. Following are the facts that support this theory:

On January 14 the news came from Pittsburgh that Frank Vanderlip of the National City Bank of New York, the largest Rockefeller bank in the United States, had completed a half-billion dollar merger of Cambria Steel Company, Lackawanna Steel Company and Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company. Vanderlip is a Rockefeller financial mouthpiece and is heading the syndicate which has effected the merger. J. C. Campbell, president of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., the man accused by labor organizers of having brought in the gunmen who started the bloody jamboree, is to be chairman of the board of directors of the new merger. Stock of the new steel company will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange before March.

With the big war, the steel business has jumped into dizzy profits. Balance sheets of the United States Steel Company for the year 1915 were made public December 31. They show that net earnings of $12,457,809 in the first quarter leaped to $38,710,644 in the third quarter, and smashed all records in the fourth quarter with profits of close to $50,000,000 and a probability that the final figures will go over that. Total profits will go above $129,000,000 for one year, or 20.3 per cent dividends on preferred stock and 10 per cent on common stock.

WHAT THE LABOR ORGANIZERS IN YOUNGSTOWN WERE AFTER WAS A BIGGER SHARE FOR LABOR OF THESE DIZZY MILLIONS OF PROFITS SPLIT AMONG STEEL MILLIONAIRES.

Tubs of champagne and dancing girls slinging short skirts in special cabarets for the high fakers who have cleaned up big divvies on "war brides"—the workers know about it and are taking this time, when immigration is at a low level, to attack the steel mills with strikes and win higher wages and establish organization.

Big danger was ahead for the steel companies of Youngstown. The workers were perfecting organization. It was a good and proper time to attack and import gunmen and private detectives and attack the strikers. The move had a double advantage. It attacked labor. And it fixed things better in the stock market. It helped discourage holders of Youngstown stock so they would sell out to financiers trying to swing a merger.

Nineteen detective agencies had "operatives" on the job, according to Organizer Flynn. He says there were sixty known gunmen from one Pittsburgh agency. What all testimony agrees on is that a large number of these gunmen were on a bridge leading to the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. plant. Chester M. Wright of the New York Call, and George P. West of the Walsh committee on industrial relations, have all been in Youngstown and their reports and the whole weight of the testimony back the theory that a big mob of gunmen were planted on the bridge, opened fire, and after this clash barrels of rum were burst in the streets, fire broke out in dozens of places, even the post office, and $1,000,000 worth of property was burned, less than $5,000 of it being property of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company.

Military men in charge of the Ohio National Guard expressed disgust when they were here of the extremely insanitary conditions existing in the foreign districts in East Youngstown. "When I visited some of the homes in which the foreigners live, I was not surprised that such a riot should have taken place," said Major D. C. Stearns of Cleveland, on the staff of Brigadier General John C. Speaks.

"Their environment is certainly not conducive to the better things of life. We went through many houses where there were no carpets on the floors, the people used soap boxes for chairs, the women were kneading dough on the floor in large wash dishes. Conditions are intolerable, and I am surprised that people live under such conditions in this civilized country."

General Speaks himself was astounded at living conditions in East Youngstown. "I am surprised that such conditions should exist in one of the richest valleys in the world," he said.

Major Gerlach of Wooster, in command of several companies of the Eighth regiment, was surprised that any community would permit sanitary conditions to exist which his personal investigation disclosed in East Youngstown. The major wondered whether the village has a board of health and expressed doubt if it has any sanitary code.

"When people live under such conditions it is not surprising that they should break loose from all bounds of restraint," he said. "I have never seen anything like it any where."

THE FIGHTING POWER OF THE WORKING CLASS WHEN AROUSED. THE TERRIBLE THREAT OF ATTACKS AND REPRISAL FOREVER POTENTIAL IN THE WORKING CLASS, IS THE BIG POINT THAT STICKS OUT FROM THE YOUNGSTOWN JAMBOREE.

If labor is so dangerous in a blind unorganized affair fomented by hired gunmen, what can it do when it organizes and calmly marches forward with definite plans for taking what it wants of the means and needs of life?