STEEL WORKERS' SUCCESS STORY
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
STEEL WORKERS' SUCCESS STORY By WILLIAM E. BOHN BN New York the C.I.O. is the prize subject of * conversational debate. I still hear people say flat it is but a belated I.W.W., and a flash...
...British Tory diplomacy, beneath its silk top hats, has a horror of playing the Wong horse...
...The .second bulletin came in Jan* b Msg the insupportable nervous tension: ~ . * "STALIN SURPASSING HIMSELF STOP MAKBS HOTEE LOOK LIKE PIKER STOP STAKHANOVTTES VOTWQliS STOP LONE VOTER ATTEMPTED TO WRITE IN MARK BUT WAS INSTANTLY LYNCHED...
...That is just where they are wrong...
...Chaniberhn's earlier books on Russia will find his recent "Japan Over China" instructive and interesting...
...Yes, most of the advocates of this panacea are undoubtedly sincere...
...but 1 Chamberlin himself does noS-Ssfg to be oa the side of the Not quite, at an> rate...
...BjJ For once, Mr...
...These men have all been brought into the union within the past year...
...He judged Soviet Russia's efforts to establish a, Socialist society with deep sympathy for the ideal itself, while, ins distrust of the ruthless methods used in the pursuit of that ideal, was no less deep...
...December 12th, will remain memory as a day ringed *^ in red and embellished with asteriks...
...The paper's columnist devoted his entire wordage to the fact that on the following Sunday', the S.W.O.C...
...there is-a "itH...
...Japan has ' been trained for centuries in the spirit of martial discipline, of utter devoMa.to the Stale, to the Emperor, eahdarity and efficiency, lee Chinese revere the family and care little for the Moloch of the State...
...Dewey sad his colleagues reported on their findings after an exhaustive stady of the trial records and other documents in the so-called Trotskytrt trials...
...It makes a policy now of giving the union a fifty-fifty break in the allotment of space...
...THE "MISSION" Of JAPAN WERE Mr...
...1^ * Mr...
...And if, such an amendment having been adopted here, circumstances should arise which, in the* absence of that clause, would have prompted a declaration of war, no doubt the clause would be respected—there would be no declaration, no war, but there would be fighting, shelling, bombing, wholesale slaughter just the same...
...They are not foreigners—though their parents same from half the countries of Europe...
...Though they are unorganized, the union has already helped them settle grievances.- The organizers assert that they could now easily win an election in the plant, but they prefer to win recognition without this sort of coercion...
...But the professor and his fellow-investigators went equal to the task...
...They have all come in since the failure of last summer, and they know better than anyone else how complete that failure was...
...I never had anywhere a more certain sense that I was talking to men and women who were substantial and genuine, to men and women who will stick...
...Then I met the organizers and some of the men...
...Chamberlin is...
...It is said that Eugene Grace is swinging over to the union side...
...Chamberlain "displayed both a profound mastery of the subject and a definite moral and political viewpoint...
...Even Comrade Yeshov couldn't liquidate that many at once...
...They found that merchants, editors, lawyers and preachers are as open to good sense as other people...
...was proved wrong...
...In the history of the degradation of the human spirit, December 12, 1937 will forever provide a gruesome peak...
...Japan's military and industrial circles are drawn, as if by a magnet, by the vast potential wealth of China and Eastern Siberia, both as nuukets and soustss of raw Mr...
...Jobs Demy might do to upset things...
...The international importance of the capture of Teruel transcends even its military importance...
...Will"' it disappear when the season changes...
...The election, like the trials, has been eagerly accepted st face value by wishful thinking outsiders...
...That they are quietly promoting it1** not impossible...
...It is announced that Stanley M. Isaacs, nominated by the Republican Party and accepted by the A.L.P...
...They stand to gain by it...
...Chamberlin gives as account of the semi-fasosjpPy of the Japanese ruling elasjsjjr* their faith in "Japan's misses*"* "¦bring peace" to Asia...
...Within five minutes I sensed the fact that something has happened sinoe last summer...
...In a legal and constitutional sense, there is no war in China and no war between either Italy or Germany and the Spanish Republic There is fighting, shelling, bombing, wholesale slaughter, but no war...
...I was up, alert, hoping for the hast but ready for the worst It was not until neon, however, tjjtfB* first hot bulletin arrived: <v ' "STALIN LEADING WITH NINETY MILLION VOTES Bn&f/ EVERYBODY ELSE SECOND WITH NOTHING FL*p» m I refused to be so easily reassured...
...rw: THE Russian electoral farce, however, is more tram MB amusing...
...Perhaps not all of them...
...Owmhrrlin calls upon geography and history for assists nee Abb, upon the psychological factors...
...She is poor and highly industrialized: a paradox...
...Isaacs as a total loss, and try not to endorse unfit candidates quite so nonchalantly next time...
...They are all solid, decent trade union men with no faith in miracles...
...For all I know, while I loll here, Stalin and his party sasy already be half-way out of power, and some monstrous TrotaMSr ' kulak-saboteur-bandit-spy amalgam on its way ha...
...Futile proposals which are in themselves innocent enough may do very great positive harm if they distract the people's attention from effective measures and lull them into a feeling that all is*well when in fact there is grave danger ahead...
...The parallel is a fair one...
...No doubt most of those who sure carrying on or supporting this propaganda are thoroughly sincere in believing that such a measure would be an effective means to a good end...
...I groped m my returning consciousness for some clue—and then I remembered...
...The fact that the men in the CarnegieIllinois plant are 100 per cent organized, paying dues, and getting the service of their union, furnishes a living argument to use with the Bethlehem employees...
...For, in "Russia's Iron Age," Mr...
...And ev,en the iron ore in Basque territory, will not outweigh that horror...
...FLOODS—BAN OF JOHNSTOWN *?*AKE Johnstown, fitted into a narrow groove * between bleak hills, with the rapid river racing down a sluiceway from end to end...
...IBM WHERE THE NEWS ENDS By EUGENE LYONS CUNDAY...
...Their notion is that although it will probably do not good, it cannot do any harm...
...Books . . . and Writers All books reviewed in these columns may be purchased at the Rand Book Store, 7 East 15th Street, N. Y. - Japan-Shanghai Gesture By euas tart am " THOSE who have not read Mr...
...But I could loll no more...
...It fooled the Russian masses no more than the trials fooled then...
...Suppose Italy, Germany, and Japan each had such a clause in its constitution...
...But...
...What if ninety million Russians decide to —rttra BseJl tickets...
...Nothing that those three nations have done would violate the provision...
...I had a look, too, at some of the union lodges which have been built up...
...as its candidate for the presidency of the Borough of Manhattan, is going to appoint Si Gerson as a "special inspector" to handle the press relations of the borough president's office...
...The change in the attitude of the citizens is their work...
...The object of the suss turn-out, according to the Soviet papers, was to enable SteBa b exclaim "Good...
...It is sa^NsVstrange...
...I would be the last to enter this noisy debate...
...GERSON T*HE NEW LEADER would have been only too happy to sing the praises of all the men elected or re-elected to office in Now York City by the vote of the American Labor Party, but some of them are making it impossible...
...Weak and very strong...
...But that is not all...
...That is one way in which this propaganda may do serious harm to the cause of peace...
...TERUEL A TURNING POINT y^HEts Loyalist troops smashed through the deep-dug frozen defenses of the rebels at Teruel they not only released thousands of troops for action on other fronts and with one blow wiped out the danger which had been threatening all Eastern Spain since the civil war broke out, but they handed international democracy the finest Christmas gift the free nations of the world could receive, Tories in England, the Nazi high command in Berlin, and I) Duce in Rome are dazed at the brilliance of the manoeuvres, the discipline, and the fighting strength of the Republican troops...
...Japan's dealings with her neighbors, her problems of foreign land domestic policy assume a coherence gratifying to the lay-reader...
...The involved relations with Soviet Russia, America and, of course, with China, are presented with a wealth of pertinent fact, argument and detail...
...Insurrection and hatred against Italian and Nazi officers are rife in rebel ranks...
...The plant is 100 per cent organized, the men are all 'working and all paying dues...
...All thoughts of peace with the Insurgents have been abandoned...
...He said: "Labor—we hope—is gradually developing a more intelligent technique...
...Listening to their report—the details of lying by the prosecution, "admissions" of impossible facts, shrieking contradictions in the testimony, etc.—I could not help drawing certain parallels with the election being put through in the country of the Trotskyist demonstration trials...
...There started what was to be a great patriotic movenient, the Citizen's Committees, which were . to protect the sacred ark of American life against the unholy hands of union men...
...Those who have read his earlier books will find "Japan Over China" instructive, but not as enlightening as his Russian volumes...
...Instead there was an evident and earnest desire to learn the ways of unionism...
...He fBMB*T thizes with the Chinese psofb...
...Dimly, tantalizingly, I was aware that it was no garden-vavistg Sunday, but a day pregnant with vast decisions...
...Chamberlain...
...Second: the legislative machinery set up under the new Stake Constitution does not differ in essentials from the legislative sstiSS until then...
...They know their job, and they are at it night and day...
...The citizens have changed their attitude...
...I knew that the IvmBaJsa^ the North Pole had not yet been heard from...
...Well, I got off the train last Friday and crossed the stream—which was mounting so rapidly that old inhabitants had their eyes on the high-water mark...
...At any rate, it is the general opinion that Bethlehem will sign up before the winter is over...
...It was on- the way out...
...The next few weeks may be a turning point in and out of Spain...
...It would thus actually play into the hands of all the elements whose machinations bring about the fact oi war and who do not care whether it is called war or not...
...The fourteen thousands workers in the mile-long plant which lies beside the treacherous stream were to be protected against the lure of the organizer by the embattled storekeepers, lawyers, and preachers...
...They reached the conclusions— 1. That the 100 per cent confessions by Old dtolsbeviks west phony...
...Mr...
...We used to be taught that we could protect ourselves from contagions disease by sprinkling vinegar around and burning fragrant spices...
...There is no reason to doubt that he is a true believer in Communist doctrines, including the doctrine openly avowed by Lenin and lived up to by Stalin, that deception and falsification are legitimate methods of Communist action—that such means are justified by-the noble ends of dictatorship...
...One of the committees bad arranged the banquet, and their Women had done the cooking...
...The managers of the United States Steel Corporation are well satisfied with the way ki which the union agreements have been .lived up to...
...Among ninety milhos people in the happiest, most patriotic, most bovinely contained nation imaginable, there must be a few freaks, congenital beByachers, masochists, ingrates who disapprove of the status quo...
...MR ISAACS AND MR...
...ladeed, it was the Bolsheviks who abolished the secret ballot sat boasted of their "superior Soviet democracy" through a, "frssk and honest show of hands...
...The situation has, Of course, its very economic and Pv^iticjd^ietss^ Jsgaa is well trained, w^5j)sjPi|^pBfei cient, and, at the same time, poor in natural resources, minerals, and even food...
...I have just returned from Johnstown and Pittsburgh...
...LIGHT WITHOUT ENLIGHTENMENT WR CHAMBERLIN brings the "* same . research, restraint and careful weighing of evidence to his "Japan Over Asia...
...of iwgay'** Japanese imperialist...
...The final bulletin, which awaited me after the Dewey raeetinf, therefore came as an anti-climax...
...Chamberlin invites us to look at various aspects of the problem, but the soul of, and the answer to, the problem escape us...
...Chamosrhn » J»* fair, too judicious, toe po hts host...
...Food continues to pour into Loyalist Spain, as the Fascist organization and morale disintegrate...
...there a prison in the world where such deadly unanimity LUijMjbl mustered...
...let's say one per cent, or half of one per cent...
...Opening my eyes that morning, stasias at that spot on the ceiling, I had a sense of great issues -npendmg...
...It was election day in the Soviet Union...
...1 ": » • • CHIHA AMD JAPAN JLffR...
...The proposed amendment would no more prevent the fact of war than vinegar and incense prevent contagion...
...Last summer the flood of strike bitterness carried it up again into national notice...
...BjW** whole nation, the masses ^M"* selves, seem to revere the agbssS forces, the soldier...
...Instead of offering treats, they went to the people with reasons...
...The vinegar and spices did no harm...
...The amendment would not prevent the fact of war, but it would tend to prevent clear thinking...
...This was outside stuff...
...and 2. That the trials m general were frame-ups...
...I still hear people say flat it is but a belated I.W.W., and a flash in the pan...
...The Loyalists are hardly the push-over the Fascists expected to find...
...They have not declared war...
...The spectacle of abject obedience by a wkeb population is as obscene, as horrifying, as anything in the memory of mankind...
...The fate of a nattse, of a creed, trembles in the balance...
...Voting for the Duma under the Tsar was secret Voting b the local "zemstvo" elections before the revolution was secret...
...legitimate anfr defense against "reason of and "manifest destiny.'' That » where the book, and the SUbB* himself, seem so waver...
...Or is the ChineseJapanese puzzle too intricate even for Mr...
...This,'' I said to myself, "this is a day when history has g" rendezvous with destiny...
...Some good union sympathizers in 'faraway places seemed able to restrain their grief but could hardly hide their grins...
...The pious belief that under the new labels it will suddenly spro* a backbone and ultimately develop some legislative fisibstbffb 1 the most transparent sort of wishful thinking...
...Well, Stalin had exclaimed "Good...
...sees the saV *w* nation in the shape at an...
...It was a day of anxiees waiting and wondering...
...Sub-Regional Director, and he has a staff of .four...
...It announced that ninety-fivs of the ninety million voters, called upon to decide- between Staha and Stalin, had decided unanimously for Stalin...
...Phillip J. Clowes is the...
...No social coasessass...
...Yet the Chinese people s?e industrious, capable and intelligent...
...The new Psrliaiaset "elected" by secret ballot, will remain an inert rubber-staBse • b the paw of the dictatorship precisely like the Tzik "elected" ay » < show of hands...
...Only fear can explain the fantastic unanimity.' The election demonstrated only the efficacy of force in whipping an eeJee people into line...
...The thing is a red herring dragged across the track of the foxy dealers in death...
...in hie account one seems te ayy a note of real admiration 1ST PJP Spartan qualities displayed $y *¦ military and naval men, S SPi of admiration for then- fasgsaP bravery and deteraajnetNjF, ** "achieve Japan's great destiny •* perish in the attempt...
...The belief that they could stop contagion did immeasurable harm...
...And who is SI Gerson...
...The election, like the trials, was a frame-up...
...The ward echoed through the StaUnesque press of the world, was'cssgBstey by the ex-liberal press, by the Friends of the Soviet Union, by well-meaning but muddled friends of democracy...
...TWO points need to be underlined, because they are se generally * misunderstood: • First: this was not the first time that Russians tried the sesret ballot...
...In Mr...
...a familiar voice by my side sail sleepily...
...To keep silent when they are slapping labor and democracy in the face would be criminal...
...So long as people believed that they did not seek other and really effective measures...
...I am discussing nobody bat the steel workers of the Pittsburgh region...
...Even in the Hitler plebiscite, of several years ago thire was a tiny minority that dared to vote *No...
...Another such victory by the Spanish Government forces may bring to Franco that famous British cold shoulder...
...Nothing phoney here, no belief in violence or magic...
...Reports from Germany already indicate that the Nazis are worried...
...And these UbHsa . limit to what Trotsky and Diego Rivera and Prof...
...Phillip Clowes got up to elaborate on a letter which he had sent to them, a letter outlining the functions of a union and the duties of union men...
...Lodge 1288, the men of the Lorain Workers of- the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Company, was holding a banquet that night...
...While waiting for the final results I decided to waste a few hours by attending the mass meeting at which Prof...
...The C.I.O...
...The trials without justice were matched perfectly fey an election without democracy...
...irresistible force (Japan) moving against an object which is not at all immovable (China...
...CHAMBERLIN...
...The strike was lost...
...The book had unity, depth and power...
...Chambe'rlm'e book Dm* has a good ease, but Japan has eb almost as goad...
...And so is Mussolini...
...There was a really wonderful spirit of unity and cooperation...
...Remember—I am not talking about the rubber ^virkers of Akron or the automobile workers of Detroit...
...So let's write off Mr...
...That any government could march its entbs?MNk: population to the polls to vote for the one candidate of •Jsbub : party in the name of the one Leader is altogether ^n""1,Nfc jlfc...
...Maybe their organizations are on their way to take places beside the snows of yesteryear...
...I kept asking myself the questions: "Is this a mushroom growth...
...Soviet democracy, the Stalin Constitution, the heritage of Marx and Browder . . ." "Aren't you well, darling...
...The new bi-cameral Parliament differs only In nana from the old bi-cameral "Tzik" or Central Executive Commitssa...
...was holding a mass meeting of steel workers in the auditorium of the Cochran High School...
...The right of men to work for low wages was vindicated...
...The Johnstown Democrat of that day had printed John L. Lewis' convention speech in full on the editorial page...
...And I recognized that I had beep excited over a "demonstration election...
...The Bethlehem men are reached in the shops when they are working and in their homes when they are unemployed...
...Whatever the debt that had to be paid, whatever the purpose in view, he knows...
...Ninety million Russians can't be right," the neighboring vafb droned and trailed off indolently into sleep...
...The 100 per cent confessions were bo stranger than the 100 per cent vote for Stalin...
...The most difficult thing in the world to prove, of course, is the obvious...
...It would fool people into the belief that they need not worry any more about the war danger...
...I throw off such sentences with the greatest of ease before I'm quite awake...
...It seems hardly possible to pack into one book more well digested information on the . various .aspects of the Far rnill ma uaubsiiu than the reader finds here...
...The merchants of the town, the very men who last summer set up the Citizens' Committee, had contributed the meat and potatoes and ice cream for the feast...
...No doubt, this fact bears weight with the Bethlehem officials...
...Even after the perusal of "Japan Over Asia," the riddle of the Far East, the riddle of China versus Japan, seems as 'baffling as the world finds it today...
...I am repeating what people think about this thing right in the'middle of the steel world...
...He is the Tokyo spondent for the Christ*** assess* Monitor...
...The main thing that they think is that the Steel Workers' Organizing Committee is doing a great job and that the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers is building on a^ solid foundation...
...A member of the Communist Party, holding a high piece in its official hierarchy, and for the last four years a member of die staff of the Daily Worker...
...Another paradox—for, ort the face of it, China should be the most powerful empire in the world as she had been in the past...
...That night I met the men of the Lorain plant face-to-face...
...Chamber lir/s book is M of valuable information...
...Isaacs knows what he is doing...
...Twice the floods floated the town up into the headlines...
...There I had a chance to size up the activities of the Steel Workers' Organizing Committee...
...The mysterious East...
...That all of them are so we do not feel so sure—but let that pass for the moment v A great many well-meaning persons who really do not have much faith in the scheme are willing to sign petitions or otherwise support it...
...WORKERS* attitude CHANGE bapidly *T*HE change in the workers has been more striking than that among their fellow townspeople...
...i ' ~ f A DANGEROUS RED HERRING V*HBRE is just now a very curious flare-up of propaganda on behalf of the proposal that we amend the Constitution of the United States so as to provide that, except in case of actual invasion of our soil or attack upon our coasts, our government ¦hall not declare war without having first got the approval of the people through a referendum...
...On the other hand, China has considerable natural resources, a population six or seven times the size of Japan's but is backward industrially, technically and, what makes matters worse, disunited politically...
...Is fanatical sincerity in holding such doctrines a qualification upon which a Republican borough president should choose his confidential spokesman?1 "*• v ___ - _ No doubt, either, that Mr...
...While one comes to know more, one seems to understand even less than ever before...
...I'm well enough," I replied with some heat, "but our epoch b in danger...
...I talked with their organizers, with rank-andfile members of the new lodges, and with citizens of .Johnstown and Pittsburgh who have watched the whole process of organization...
...It would, so far as it had any effect, paralyze every effort to establish real peace and put it on a safe basis...
...They all talk good English, and there are no racial or religious divisions among them...
...Anyone who watched the faces of these men" as they took in the ideas of unionism from their organizer could never doubht that—though they have carried their cards less than twelve months —they are solid, reliable trade union members...
...Even in heaven in its balmiest days there were(resajting angels...
...What is it...
Vol. 20 • December 1937 • No. 52
