The real or imaginary wrongs of the workers played not the slightest part in the decision to organize the steel industry.
It was a citadel of the open shop that was the subject of attack, it was the last barrier against complete and final unionization of American industry, against which Foster and Fitzpatrick combined their wits and resources.
And it is to the everlasting credit of Judge Gary that he successfully resisted this attack, for it is to the interests of the public that the principle of the open shop be sustained.
[Illustration: (_Upper_) Part of the Duquesne Works]
[Illustration: (_Lower_) Detail of Unloading Ore--a Hulett Machine]
How important to the labor unions was the hope for organization of the Steel Corporation is obvious. Between 500,000 and 600,000 workers are engaged in the industry, the Corporation alone employing about 275,000. Possibly another half million are employed in closely allied industries. And the steel trade, as well as these allied industries, has for years looked to the Corporation for guidance on important questions of public polity. Hence, United States Steel’s adherence to the open-shop principle was a deep and rankling wound in the side of the labor unions.
[Illustration: Making Wire Rods--Old Method]
So long as the big enterprise of which Judge Gary is head remained outside of the union’s fold there was small hope of herding into it any material number of workers in other plants. U. S. Steel was a citadel of the open shop, the bulwark between free and union labor. If it could be converted from “open” to “closed” shop, the early unionization, not of the steel trade merely, but of all American industry, would follow, and the power of the union leaders would be expanded to an almost illimitable extent.
It is doubtful if the older and wiser among the union chieftains would have forced the issue at the time they did had they been left to their own decisions. But they were not. They had the radical element to reckon with.
It is perhaps unnecessary to explain that organized labor in the United States is divided into two parts: On the one hand, there is the American Federation of Labor, headed by Samuel Gompers, and including the great majority of unionized workers. This organization recognizes property rights and is loyal to the principles of American government. But its leaders, being only human, are apparently determined to bring all industry under its sway and are impatient of the ideas of those workers who prefer to stand on their own feet.