The Organizer (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 1934-08-03

              DAILY STRIKE BULLETIN^^:
UNITED
LABOR
ACTION
<** ^W'^A
SMASH THE
CITIZENS
ALLIANCE
TWO TWENTY-FIVE
SOUTH THIRD STREET
Volume 1, No. 19
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 1934
Price one cent
We Have Won the Fight on the Picket Line!
We Shall Not Lose It In the Settlement!
Bosses Import
Plug * Uglies
Predicted   by    "News-
Week," Seen by Pickets
Pickets on duty on the outskirts
of the city this morning reported the
first signs of the imported professional plug-uglies of the P. L. Berg-
off strike-breaking and murdering
agency of New York City.
A picket car drew up close to a
truck parked on the South Side. The
driver of the picket car asked the
driver of the truck whether he knew
that he was doing scab work. One
of the pickets got out of his car to
stretch his legs. He stepped a foot or
so ahead of the truck, and inside he
saw two hard-boiled specimens of
underworld humanity. They appeared to be awaiting an opportunity to
begin trouble.  Quite a group of peo-
Sle were gathered around the truck,
owever, and no move was made by
the thugs. After a bit the picket car
drove off.
Another picket car reported passing a wholesale grocery on the corner near where ^e shooting occurred
on Bloody Friday and there seeing
several suspicious characters standing beside a truck which was being
loaded. One of these pickets stated:
"I have been in trucking for eight
years in this town and I never saw
any of these fellows around before.
I should say they were about the
worst looking specimens of humanity
I ever laid eyes on."
The Bergoff agency is known to
have sent its gangsters to Minneapolis a few days ago. Some of them
are operating as scabs.
The News-Week, a conservative
magazine, last week carried the announcement that Bergoff the Blood-
thirty was sending some of his
strike-breaking gunmen to this city.
These Bergoff agents are infamous
throughout the country.. They helped
break the great steel strike of 1919
and, as the News-Week says, hundreds of lesser strikes. When the
street railway workers of Milwaukee
struck last month, Bergoff sent twenty of his assassins to Milwaukee by
airplane. They were caught at the
airport by the Milwaukee police and
on the orders of Mayor fioan they
were searched, deprived of their artillery and deported.
The Bosses' "Foreigners"
When it comes to scabbing, strikebreaking and the murder of workers,
the bosses and their henchmen are
quite willing to use forces from any
other state1 in the union. And you
may be sure that they do not inquire
whether their hired assassins have
ancestors who came over on the
Mayflower. No, indeed! They are
even "internationalists." They would
be quite willing to import a bunch
of Adolf Hitler's perverts and professional murderers to help crush the
workers.of our city.
But when it comes to labor's side,
any man who lives over the Henne-
lin   county  line   is   classified  as   a
foreigner."
What is Governor Olson going to
do about this matter?
We suggest, no, we insist, that
Governor Olson look into this matter very deeply and very carefully.
Let him round up every scab and
every special deputy and guard and
what-not in town. Let him investigate every one of them and find out
how many of them are imported
gangsters. And let him take steps
to eliminate this offal, this riff-raff
of hired assassins.
And then let us go on from there
and get the men behind the men behind the guns, the employers and
bankers and their highly-paid office-
boys who are responsible for this influx of assassins.
HERE WE STAND!
I
Great changes have taken place in the
strike situation in the last 48 hours. Our headquarters, taken from us by military force, is
again in the hands of the union. Our incorruptible leaders have been freed from the military stockade and are back on the firing line.
The sympathy and support t)f our brother
unionists and of the great mass of the general
population are stronger than ever.
AND—
. The arrogant bosses have come down off
their high horse and submitted a "peace" proposal!
This proposal is not acceptable to our union.
It is full of jokers and traps for the workers
and we shall take care not to be caught in
them. Besides that, the proposal contains
points which are 90 per cent bluff, put in for
"trading" purposes. Our Strike Committee of
100 understands all this and will explain it
clearly to the membership. But first of all, and
most important of all, we must understand the
basic causes of the favorable changes in the
situation which herald a sweeping victory for
fighting 574.
" TKese^auses are: " ~^ -^-l-
First, the indomitable fighting spirit of the
rank and file of our union. The lion-hearted
battlers of Local 574, deprived of their headquarters and part of their leading staff, and
menaced by military suppression, reformed
their ranks under fire and picketed the town
with such energy and courage that they stopped 75 per cent of the trucks from operating.
That's the first cause of the change in the
situation.
Second, the call for a general strike of protest against military tyranny, re-echoed
throughout the rank and file of the Minneapolis labor movement, sent cold chills down the
spines of the oppressors. They fear the power
of organized labor. The mere threat of a general strike brought positive results.
That's the second cause of the change in the
situation. And the deeper this slogan goes
into the rank and file, the more clearly the
trade unions of the city make it manifest that
the general strike is no bluff, that the organized workers are ready to go through with it,
the sooner will the bosses come to terms. They
are losing half a million dollars a day now.
And that's nothing to what a general strike
would cost them.
The Governor has just issued another statement. He says that unless a "decent" settle-
mfciic-is reached by midnight, he will revoke'
permits for all trucking except those for milk,
ice, bread and "kindred necessities." He will
also "prevent" forcible picketing.
In plain words, our idea of a decent settlement was contained in our very first proposal.
Then came the Haas-Dunnigan proposals. Although it fell short of our demands it was
highly praised by the representatives of the
Federal Government, by Governor Olson, and
many others. It was endorsed by the Central
Labor Union. The Union, never unreasonable,
accepted the Haas-Dunnigan plan as a compromise, as a minimum.
Then, according to Messrs. Haas, Dunnigan,
and Olson—who do not recognize as the strikers do, that there is no neutrality in this fight
—we have this situation:
The workers represented by the Strike Committee of 100, and the "general public" represented by the Federal Conciliators and the
Governor, had agreed on a fair plan to settle
the strike. Only the bosses were holding out.
Logically, you might have expected that the
representatives of the "general public" would
have brought pressure on the recalcitrant bosses. But no. All the pressure was brought on
the Union. Scab trucks moved with military
permits; pickets got 25 days in the workhouse;
and "chiselers" (a particular kind of scab
flourishing under martial law) were fined $3;
our headquarters was seized; our leaders were
arrested; scores of pickets are still iri the
stockade; we were made to face an armament a thousand fold more threatening than
anything Bloody Johannes ever had at his
command.
And the simple truth is: THEY COULD
NOT BREAK OUR SPIRIT; THEY COULD
NOT SCATTER OUR LINES OF INDOMITABLE PICKETS.
We have won victories on the picket line.
We are not going to be cheated out of thetm
in negotiations by anybody.
We accepted the Haas-Dunnigan plan. We
said this was the furthest we could go. We
said we would fight it out on this line all summer if necessary. On this position we still
stand, strong as the Rock of Gibraltar.
We call on Father Haas to stand by-what
he called a fair proposal, and to characterize
properly those who threw it in his face. We
call on Governor Olson, who indorsed the
Haas-Dunnigan plan, to do the same.
Local 574 is an organization of reasonable
workers. It has a reasonable leadership. The
entire organized labor movement -of Minneapolis indorsed our strike at the outset and
our policy at every stage.
If Governor Olson wants to crack down anywhere, let him crack down on the recalcitrant
and greedy bosses and the sinister Citizens
Alliance clique behind them.
As for forcible picketing, this point in the
Governor's ultimatum obviously cannot be directed against us. As long as we were not
interfered with, the city was as peaceful as a
Sunday school. The "forcible" activities have
come from the cops who murdered Harry Ness
and John Belor, from the militia which drove
us out of our headquarters, and from the bosses' imported plug-uglies.
The Governor says that constitutional rights
will be assured. That is all we have demanded.
We have a right, yes, and a duty, to walk
up to these imported scabs and ask them not
to take the bread out of the mouths of our
wives and children.
We mean to maintain that right and to carry
out that duty at all costs. We nave other constitutional rights. We know what they are and
if necessary we will die fighting for them.
Yes, if the Governor wants to pull any more
raids, let him raid the Citizens Alliance and
clean out the sinister clique which forced this
strike. If he wants to make any more arrests,
let him arrest the imported finks, check their
criminal records, run them out of town, and
pillory the dark forces who have paid them
blood money.
Local 574 means to stand firm. It is sure of
the justice of its cause. It has saved the sacred
honor of the labor movement in this city. It
has written a golden page in the history of
American labor. For the right to assemble
freely, to speak our minds, to choose our own
leaders, to organize independently, to picket
peacefully, and to provide our families with a
decent living, we have fought an epoch making battle.
WE HAVE WON THE STRIKE ON THE
PICKET LINES!
WE SHALL NOT LOSE IT IN THE SETTLEMENT!
Dunne Speaks
On Boss Plan
Says It Contains Several
Ridiculous Proposals
As this issue of The Organizer was
going to press the Strike Committee
of 100 was preparing to go into session to consider the latest developments and take a positon on the
settlement proposals made by the employers. The action of the committee is forecast in an interview given
to The Organizer by Vincent R.
Dunne after a conference with other
leaders of 574.
"There is very little new in the
present proposal," said Brother
Dunne, "except that the bosses are
now beginning to talk definitely
about wages. They offer 50 cents an
hour for drivers and 40 cents for
helpers and inside workers. That is
not enough. But the bare proposal
shows the bosses are beginning to
realize what is at the bottom of the
strike—wages, working conditions
and the right of organization. The
workers want to, live—that's what
they are fighting for.
"We stand"pat oh the Haas-Dunnigan proposal which the union membership accepted as a compromise.
The Federal mediators and Governor
Olson all declared this proposal to be
reasonable and fair. That's not our
idea of it, but we accepted it as a
compromise. Now we expect Father
Haas and Mr. Dunnigan to stand by
the proposal they themselves made
and condemn the bosses if they do
not accept it.
"There are several ridiculous
clauses in the bosses' proposal.
Whether they are meant seriously or
put in merely for 'trading' purposes
—it makes no. difference. Local 574
is never going to agree to a "preferential list" which puts the rights of
scabs ahead of the rights of union
men. The same holds good for the
proposal to discriminate against strikers whom they accuse of committing
'unlawful acts.' By that they evidently mean our pickets. Doesn't it take
a colossal gall for people who sent
out squads of murderers to shoot our
pickets in the back to talk about
'unlawful acts'?
Strike   Committee   Meets
"I speak only for myself—since
the Committee of 100 has not yet
acted on the matter—but it is inconceivable to me that such insulting
proposals should even be given serious consideration.
"Local 574, now as in the past, is
ready to come to an agreement. We
never made any unreasonable or unrealistic demands and we make none
now. We accepted the Haas-Dunnigan proposals as a compromise. Governor Olson endorsed them. Now let
the bosses get in line and we can end
Hie strike."
Brother Dunne also expressed himself forcibly on the latest statement
of Governor Olson. "It is to be
hoped," he said, "that the blows of
the Governor will be directed this
time against those who obstruct a
settlement and flout the Haas-Dunnigan proposal which the Governor endorsed. It certainly is a shameful
situation when a Governor elected by
the workers and farmers and supported by organized labor hurls military force against a union on strike.
He has no one to blame but himself
if the workers have turned against
him with bitter indignation. It is
high time for him to put a tittle pressure on the Citizens Alliance. They
are the only ones standing in the
way of a 'decent settlement.'
"We know that many employers
want to settle the strike and deal
with the union. They have come to
us and said so. But the Citizens
Alliance and the chain banks won't
let them "