by John P. Spencer
In the fall of 1919, some 350,000 recently organized steel workers fought a nationwide strike against the United States Steel Corporation, and failed to gain a single concession. Like the bitter Homestead strike of 1892, it was a standoff marked by violence. Yet, equally fierce was the battle over the image of the strike that was projected by the press, for the steel strike of 1919 occurred during the great "Red Scare." In a year of "national hysteria," many saw industrial conflict such as the steel strike through an ideological prism of anti-radicalism and anti-Bolshevism. It has been suggested that newspapers contributed to this tendency, and to the downfall of the steel strike in particular, by portraying it as a revolutionary conspiracy involving foreign-born "agitators" and even the Soviet Union itself.[1] If "red-baiting" was the general tendency of the mainstream press in 1919, however, the question arises: were there notable exceptions? Were there any newspapers which, like the Washington-Post during the McCarthy era, showed a degree of independence from the prevailing trend?[2] To address this issue is to test the Jeffersonian notion of an independent and civic-minded American press at a historical moment when that function was most sorely needed. Moreover, the extent to which even highly regarded newspapers were prone to the excesses of the Red Scare may forcefully illuminate the degree and nature of such excess. News coverage in 1919 was important in reflecting public opinion as well as shaping it.As the unofficial capital of journalism, notable in 1919 for its selection of eighteen daily newspapers, New York City provides a compelling field of study.[3] Of particular interest is an examination of the city's three most widely read papers: The New York Times of Adolph Ochs, with its self-styled reputation for decency and impartiality; the New York World that Joseph Pulitzer and his successor Frank Cobb had shaped into perhaps the most highly regarded liberal newspaper of the era; and the New York American of William Randolph Hearst, who, like Pulitzer, had built his career by cultivating a working class readership, albeit with different motivations. Given the reputation and ethos of these papers, and particularly of the Times and the World, one might expect to find in them a less apocalyptic and sensational image of the steel strike than was evident in lesser papers. Indeed, in their coverage of the events leading up to the strike, the Times, the World, and the American differed substantially from, say, the New York Tribune, which epitomized the anti-radical tendencies of the era. Yet, over the course of the five-week period in which the steel strike dominated the front page of all three newspapers, the tone and emphasis in both the Times and the World shifted dramatically. Initially portrayed as a conflict between the owners and workers of the United States Steel Corporation, the strike metamorphosed, at several critical junctures, into the conflict between Bolshevism and Americanism that so pervaded the larger culture. Of the three, only Hearst's American remained moderate in its treatment of that theme. The degeneration of such highly regarded newspapers offers a telling illustration of the spread of anti-radical discourse in 1919, and suggests ignoble images of our vaunted democratic press: newspapers as instruments of political propaganda, or, conversely, as commercial enterprises that were shaped by and reactive to what was popular among readers.
In assessing the image of the strike projected by the World, the Times, and the American, this study is concerned with front page news coverage rather than editorial comment. By 1919, the front page, and especially its headlines, reached a wider readership than the editorial page, and engaged in a more subtle, even unconscious process of image-making and editorializing.[4] Reporters and editors made significant decisions about what to emphasize in their writing and presentation, what kind of tone to adopt, and what kinds of sources to consult; in so doing, they defined what happened, why those events happened, and what they meant. This process was especially significant in the case of the steel strike of 1919 and the "Red Scare" in general, given the atmosphere of controversy and the dominance of newspapers in the field of mass communications. It should be noted, however, that this paper, in focusing on the extent of anti-radical discourse in the coverage itself, does not seek to argue conclusively about the causes and effects of such coverage.
Each of the three newspapers under consideration was resurrected and reshaped in the late nineteenth century by a notable publisher with a journalistic mission. After buying the 15,000 circulation New York World in 1883, Joseph Pulitzer announced his high purpose and independence in a credo that would appear on the editorial page until the paper's demise in 1931:
An institution that should always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.Pulitzer turned the World into the first mass circulation newspaper-he had 250,000 readers by 1887-by appealing to the working class with a curious combination of idealistic crusading and lurid sensationalism.[5] After 1900, however, the World grew more sophisticated and appealed to middle-class liberals as well as workers.[6] From 1904-1923 the paper was edited by the brilliant Frank Cobb, whom Pulitzer had groomed as his successor. Under Cobb, the World championed free speech and the rights of minorities and labor, and was noted for its independence, intelligence, and fair-mindedness.[7] Writing in 1923 during his tenure as editor of The Nation, Oswald Garrison Villard applied his "ethical measuring stick" and asserted that despite occasional lapses, the World "remains the nearest approach to a great liberal daily which we have in America."[8]In reviving the New York Journal in 1895, William Randolph Hearst used Pulitzer's populism and New Journalistic sensationalism as his model-and then carried such techniques to even greater extremes. Calling for nationalization of coal mines, railroads, and telegraph lines and "destruction of criminal trusts," Hearst adopted a pro-labor stance even more radical than Pulitzer's.[9] Contemporaries and historians alike have agreed that Hearst made such appeals to the masses for cynical and self-serving reasons, hoping to sell more papers and further his political ambitions.[10] He is generally associated with the rise of "yellow journalism," defined by one historian as Pulitzer's sensational New Journalism without a soul.[11] Yet, after about 1910, Hearst's "yellowness" began to fade just as Pulitzer's had, especially in the morning New York American, which he edited himself and which in 1919 had a daily circulation of about 300,000.[12] Moreover, the publisher demonstrated his unpredictability by opposing U.S. involvement in World War I and denouncing the persecution of socialist and German-language newspapers.[13] Though Hearst is known more for cynicism than high purpose, his American was the type of paper that may have resisted the "red-baiting" tendencies of 1919.
When Adolph Ochs bought the failing New York Times in 1896, he hoped to build a paper that would represent an alternative to the sensationalism of Pulitzer and Hearst. Like Pulitzer, Ochs made a high-minded mission statement, though of a different sort:
It will be my earnest aim that The New York Times give the news, all the news, in concise and attractive form, in language that is parliamentary in good society...to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of any party, sect or interest involved; to make the columns of The New York Times a forum for the consideration of all questions of public importance, and to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.[14]With Adolph Ochs as publisher, The New York Times was well known for the political conservatism of its editorial page and its business-class readership. Equally familiar, though, was the image of the Times as a "news-gathering machine," a paper in which editorial commentary was secondary to the dispensing of large quantities of information.[15] Above all, the paper would be "decent"; engaged in a moral war with Pulitzer and Hearst, Ochs proudly proclaimed that his paper would not "soil the breakfast cloth" like the "yellow" journals.[16] The Times gained readership as well as respect; a circulation of 9,000 when Ochs bought the paper had grown to some 340,000 by 1919.[17] In 1911, reporter and newspaper critic Will Irvin wrote that the Times came "the nearest of any newspaper to presenting a truthful picture of life in New York and the world at large."[18]Whether in the name of impartiality, justice, or crass populism, each of the three papers under consideration suggests a potential for unusual coverage in 1919. Moreover, New York was close enough to steel producing centers for the newspapers to send correspondents and cover the event extensively, yet removed enough to enhance objectivity.
The tense social climate in which the steel strike occurred was certainly not conducive to objectivity and independent newspaper work. World War I set the precedent for anti-radical fervor in 1919. The government jailed socialists and other dissenters under the Espionage and Sedition Acts. The Russian Revolution injected fear into an already fervent debate over patriotism; to many the revolution seemed the very antithesis of all that was American. Censorship of socialist and German-language newspapers was rampant. Decades of peak immigration from Southern Europe had caused social tension to escalate; in the industrial East of 1919, half the population was either foreign-born or of foreign-born parentage.[19]
Tensions were aggravated in January 1919 when a general strike shut down the city of Seattle for five days and caused alarm throughout the nation. Seattle mayor Ole Hanson and others succeeded in stigmatizing the strike as a revolutionary threat, setting an example for other political leaders and employers who might use anti-radical rhetoric in the fight against unionism.[20] On April 30, newspapers reported another astonishing story: the postal service had intercepted mail bombs intended for dozens of prominent Americans, including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan. This, together with May Day riots in several major cities, raised further concern about radical activities. Industrial conflict was a constant backdrop to such events; throughout the year, hundreds of strikes occurred every month, including the dramatic Boston police strike in early September.[21]
The steel industry was ripe for conflict. In 1901, when the U.S. Steel Corporation was formed during a wave of mergers in the industry, sixty to seventy percent of the nation's steel making capacity came under the direction of a single holding company.[22] Sixteen subsidiary companies maintained their own identities, but answered to the board of U.S. Steel. By 1919, the corporation consisted of 142 mills in twenty states and one Canadian province.[23] In the course of this transformation, unions had virtually been eliminated from the industry.[24] The situation of labor was bleak: by 1919, almost half the men worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, and an unskilled worker's average annual income was less than the estimated minimum subsistence for a family of five.[25]
Efforts to change this situation began in August 1918, when twenty-four trade unions met in Chicago and established the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers, with Samuel Gompers as honorary chair, John Fitzpatrick as acting chair, and William Z. Foster as secretary-treasurer. Throughout the next year, despite bitter resistance from steel interests, this committee achieved surprising success in organizing workers in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, and other districts throughout the Northeast.[26] On June 20, 1919, the union leaders asked Judge Elbert H. Gary, Chairman of the Board of Directors of U.S. Steel, for a conference to discuss working conditions and wages. Receiving no reply, the Committee circulated a strike ballot among the local unions, all of which voted to strike. On August 26, with a strike threat to back them up, union leaders requested a conference with arbitration, this time receiving no for an answer. President Wilson attempted to head off the crisis by promising a national industrial conference and urging the steel unions to seek a settlement of grievances in that venue. Yet on September 10, under pressure from local union leadership, the National Committee issued a strike call for September 22. The Times, the World, and the American each announced the move the following day-the first time the strike had made the front page.
In the week before September 22, the crisis was the lead story in all three newspapers. Coverage emphasized the official positions of management and labor. On September 18, banner headlines in both the Times and the World announced that Judge Gary was "Firm For Open Shop." On the top right of the page the two papers also printed and placed a box around the chairman's letter to the heads of subsidiary companies; in it, Gary explained that he declined to meet with union leaders because he did not feel they represented a majority of the employees of U.S. Steel, and because negotiation with labor unions "would indicate the closing of our shops against non-union labor; and large numbers of our workers are not members of unions and do not care to be." Elaborating, Gary declared that his stand was one of "principle...vital to the greatest industrial progress and prosperity." The following day, the strikers dominated the news. All three papers featured their twelve demands in a special box; the right to bargain collectively, an eight hour workday and six day week, and wages "sufficient to guarantee American standards of living," were especially notable. Quoting extensively from a letter written to President Wilson by National Committee chairman John Fitzpatrick, the lead stories exposed readers to a year's worth of historical background from the perspective of the strikers, including references to "despotic and un-American industrial conditions," the workers' patriotic decision to wait until after the armistice to press their demands, and the "obstinate" refusal of Judge Gary to discuss such matters.
Though all three papers initially covered both perspectives on the strike, the tone of both the World and the Times was slanted in subtle ways against the workers. Headlines dealing with Judge Gary emphasized his stated belief in the open shop principle. In no instance did a newspaper announce that "Strikers Insist on Eight-Hour Day," or "Union Firm For Right to be Recognized." Headlines about the strikers also hinted at their unreasonableness. In the World, workers "ignored" and "rejected" a "plea" from President Wilson. The Times indicated that the unions were "chafing," that they insisted "Gary Must Give In," and that they "Advocate No Compromise."[27] Meanwhile, Gary was "firm" for principle, and the newspapers did not highlight his refusal to meet with members of the strike committee. The American was generally more favorable to strikers; the union did not appear rigid, but rather it had "Gone Too Far To Turn Back." Hearst's paper did not visibly emphasize Gary's position over that of the workers.[28]
More serious than such bias, however, was the anti-radical undercurrent that appeared mainly on page two of the World in the days preceding the walkout. On September 18, a headline declared that William Z. Foster, secretary-treasurer of the National Committee, was "Once An Anarchist." Essentially a reprinted editorial from the steel industry publication The Iron Age, the story chronicled Foster's former involvement with the Industrial Workers of the World and quoted revolutionary rhetoric from the pamphlet "Syndicalism," which Foster wrote in 1911. The following day, a sub-head on page one reported that "Foster, Real Leader of Movement, Becomes Storm Center of Charges Which Accuse Him of Radicalism." Extensive coverage on the second page carried headings such as "In League With Radicals" and "Wrote For Radical Journal." On September 22, when the outbreak of violence on the eve of the strike was the lead story, the World emphasized the corporation's view of the "Radical Leader" in its page one sub-head "(Steel) Trust...Thinks Foster May Preach Violence." Buried on the bottom of page two was a sentence explaining that employers were engaging in "propaganda" against Foster by reproducing and distributing copies of "Syndicalism" without its 1911 publication date.
With the exception of such secondary coverage in the World, however, the three major New York newspapers displayed little anti-radical fervor in the week preceding the walkout; on the whole, they portrayed the strike as a traditional labor dispute, albeit one of epic proportions. For contrast, one only need examine the New York Tribune for the same period. Founded by Horace Greely in 1841 as a radical weekly-the famous editor named the paper for the ancient Roman tribunes that defended the rights of common people-the Tribune had been transformed following Greely's death into a rigidly conservative paper.[29] On September 19, its banner headline proclaimed that "Socialization Of Basic Industries is Fitzpatrick's Aim" and in subsequent days it heavily stressed the issue of "Americanism vs. Alienism."[30] Labor, according to a front page Tribune headline of September 20, was merely "eager for a vacation." The Tribune was not unusual in its approach; many papers in northeastern cities carried excerpts of "Syndicalism" as lead news in the opening days of the strike.[31] The Times, the World, and the American could have chosen to portray the struggle in these terms, and did not.
On the 22 and 23 of September, the strike was ushered in by violence and conflicting reports on how many men had actually walked out. Press coverage of both issues had significant implications. All parties agreed that hundreds of thousands of men had initially walked out. Yet, hoping to create the impression of business as usual, and thus demoralize the strikers, U.S. Steel announced on a daily basis that workers were streaming back to work and that mills were re-opening. Though often false, these claims made headlines in many newspapers, especially in Pennsylvania, where over fifty U.S. Steel mills were located. In all, it was later estimated, such stories claimed some 4,800,000 workers had returned to mills where only half a million had worked before.[32] In its highly regarded report on the steel strike, based on seven months of inquiry during and after the conflict, the Interchurch World Movement cited "the feeling that 'this thing is not succeeding'" as the most important reason the walkout failed.[33] Coverage in the Times, the World, and the American was notably balanced on this issue as the strike began. Stories generally quoted both sides and carried neutral headlines such as "Conflicting Claims in Steel Strike."
The three New York papers were also relatively balanced in reporting on violent clashes between Pennsylvania police and strikers in the opening days of the walkout. On September 22, the lead stories of all three papers quoted from William Foster's letter to Pennsylvania governor W.C. Sproul:
At North Clairton, Pennsylvania today, while representatives of the American Federation of Labor were holding a meeting of steel workers at a place especially designed for this purpose by borough officials, a detachment of the State constabulary suddenly appeared on the scene and began riding down and clubbing the helpless and innocent bystanders in murderous fashion. Many were seriously injured and many others were thrown into jail. Similar events transpired at McKeesport at a meeting held on our own property. We protest against these outrages and appeal to you to restrain the State constabulary from these unwarranted attacks.Three days later, on the front page of the Times, the governor's response was printed in full and featured prominently in a box. Sproul emphasized that harsh measures were necessitated by the attempts of "agitators" and "evil-disposed persons" to spread propaganda and overthrow the state. The statements of Foster and Sproul came to embody two interpretations of violence in the strike: in the view of company spokespeople and many local government officials, the strikers were lawless troublemakers who terrorized the "loyal" men that sought to return to work, while the strikers claimed that their right to assemble was routinely and brutally violated by "Cossacks"-the state police. The latter view rarely received attention in the mainstream press during the strike. Moreover, it has been argued that violence fueled charges of Bolshevism and foreign agitation.[34] None of the three New York papers demonstrated much investigative zeal in covering the disturbances; to their credit, however, they did not reflexively attribute the disturbances to Bolshevist agitators, either.Anti-Bolshevist rhetoric began to make the front pages of these newspapers only shortly thereafter, though, when the U.S. Senate Committee on Education and Labor initiated hearings on the strike. In the pages of the World and the Times, witnesses for U.S. Steel were given greater prominence than those affiliated with the union, anti-radical discourse escalated, and most importantly, an attack on immigrants emerged as a dominant theme of the strike. Such tendencies were less evident in the American.
The strike was barely two days old when the Times and the World announced on the front page that the Senate committee would hold its inquiry. The articles offered a hint of anti-immigrant rhetoric to come, the Times indicating in a sub-head that the committee would seek to "Find Out How Far Aliens Are Responsible," and the World emphasizing the contention of one of the senators that "Most of Strikers are Slavs U.S. Fought For." The World story consisted of lengthy quotations from senators who clearly intended to inject the issues of immigration and radicalism into debate over the steel strike. The American story and headline downplayed that angle.
In the panel's first session on September 25, National Committee chairman John Fitzpatrick called for an arbitrated settlement of the strike, with President Wilson as the chief mediator, and received heavy coverage in all three papers the next day. In addition to clarifying Fitzpatrick's dramatic proposal, lead stories and extensive page two transcripts of the testimony described workers "living like paupers" and angry at U.S. Steel for provoking violence. Equally prominent that day, however, was Judge Gary's response. "Principle Can't Be Arbitrated," declared the World in a banner headline over a boxed front page statement in which Gary explained the moral imperatives of the open shop. Again, subtle differences in language colored the news; on the front page of the American, Gary the upholder of principle was merely "unmoved" by the workers' "plea."
Less subtle was the anti-radical and xenophobic tone that began to dominate the front page of The New York Times in the wake of Judge Gary's testimony before the committee. On October 2, following a week in which President Wilson's nervous breakdown had knocked the story out of the lead position for first time in ten days, the Times wrote its banner headline and lead story from Gary's perspective: "Open Shop Is The Great Issue Of The Strike, Says Gary." Two days later, coverage of William Foster's testimony did not similarly emphasize his insistence on the strikers' right to collectively bargain-the article devoted one sentence to that issue-but announced instead that senators "Grill Foster On His 'Red Book.'" The story consisted almost entirely of a transcript of two senators questioning Foster about his current views on passages from "Syndicalism," and about the notion that Foster had infiltrated the AFL in order to radicalize it. The World, despite its earlier preoccupation with those issues, indicated that such "grilling" was balanced by inquiry about the origins of the strike. There was no trace of such inquiry in the Times, however, with obvious implications for the image of the strike.
The Times also featured prominent coverage of witnesses who spoke harshly of "aliens." A number of native-born employees of U.S. Steel testified along with Gary and projected a new image of the strike. American workers, the Times reported on its front page of October 2, were satisfied with their jobs, and resented the efforts of the foreign-born to burn their homes or assault them if they did not join the strike. Several days later, the accusations grew more severe: "Strikers Want Control Of Mills; Steel Corporation Employees Tell Senators of Soviet Agitation; Put Blame on Foreigners." The front page headline reflected the views of three skilled steel workers who earned as much as $17 a day-three to four times the wage of most unskilled workers.[35] The Times devoted an entire front page column and most of its inside coverage to quoting a roller named T.D. Davies, who claimed "they should be kept out of the country, and if necessary, some of them ought to be shot. The labor leaders themselves have to cater to these radicals."
In deciding how to cover the Senate investigation, the Times could have emphasized other witnesses and issues. At least half of the strikers interviewed by the committee complained of "low wages."[36] Indeed, the anti-immigrant theme expressed by T.D. Davies might have taken on new meaning if the Times reporter had pointed out that the division between native and foreign-born workers corresponded roughly to the division between the well-paid skilled workers who had stayed on the job and the poorly-paid unskilled workers who were on strike.[37]
The Times, the World, and the American had ample opportunity to emphasize such issues when Senate investigators paid a visit to the Pittsburgh strike district from October 10-12 and interviewed dozens of workers on site. The trip, and the coverage in all three newspapers, revealed workers' anger over unjust treatment at the hands of police and the steel corporation. Yet, not one story made the front page. In covering the first day of the visit, the Times indicated that wages were the main concern for everybody interviewed, but relegated the story to page two under the tiny and unsensational headline "Senators Visit Strike District." For two more days workers angrily testified that their rights of free speech and assembly had been repeatedly suppressed; one of the stories appeared on page two of the Times, while "Strikers Multiply Injustice Charges" was buried on page 22. Likewise, on October 13 the American printed "Hardships In Steel Strike Stir Senators" on page four. Coverage in the World focused on several senators' dismay that most of the workers spoke little English, yet made no attempt to explain why.[38] Discussion of low wages, difficult working conditions, and abuses of workers' civil rights figures prominently in secondary literature on the strike, as well as in certain primary sources.[39] During the strike, however, those issues were reported in the Times, the World, and the American only when presented by dozens of workers as testimony to senators. Even then, the stories were de-emphasized in stark contrast to the attention given a handful of skilled workers with an anti-radical, anti-immigrant message.
While the Senate investigated the strike, a conflict erupted in the Chicago strike district that caused the anti-radical tone of newspaper coverage to escalate further. By mid-October, coverage on the front pages of the Times and, to a lesser extent, the World, linked strike leaders with a national and international conspiracy involving the Soviet Union. The controversy began in Gary, Indiana on October 4. According to both the World and the Times - they used the same story-rioting began after a crowd of angry strikers attacked a car of black strikebreakers who had been recruited by U.S. Steel. Two days later, following further disturbances, the governor of Illinois requested the aid of federal troops, who arrived on October 6 and imposed martial law under the order of General Leonard Wood. All three New York newspapers presented a conflict between "reds" and the forces of "order," quoting extensively from General Wood in such stories as "Foreign Agitators Held Responsible in Gary" and "Red Literature Seized at Gary."[40] A careful reading of those articles indicates another side of the story: strikers had been angered not only by the importation of strikebreakers, but by what they perceived as unjust arrests of their fellow workers. Some strikers contrasted the "Americanism" of their struggle for improved working conditions with "Garyism" as practiced by law enforcement and steel corporation officials.[41] These aspects of the conflict, however, were available only to readers who persevered to the conclusion of the articles on page two.
A week later the rhetoric in Gary intensified dramatically as the army raided homes and offices of alleged radicals, including several prominent strike leaders. On October 14 the front page of both the Times and the World reported that four copies of a "dangerous" Communist Party handbill had been "found on a striker." The handbill called on Gary workers to rise up against the military presence in the city. The article in the Times offers a clue as to how such stories attained prominence, mentioning that Colonel W.H. Mapes, commander of the troops, distributed copies of the handbill to newspapermen. Meanwhile, steel workers issued a formal statement disavowing the proclamation; on October 16, the news appeared in the World at the bottom of page one, in the Times at the bottom of page two.
The strikers were never linked conclusively and directly to such literature, but their image was tainted by association. While this study seeks to determine the image of the steel strike in several newspapers, and not the actual nature of the event, several comments are in order regarding the relationship between strikers and radicals. It is clear that a notable radical movement existed in the United States in 1919, and that among hundreds of thousands of workers and numerous local and national leaders, some viewed the steel strike as an opportunity to pursue a revolutionary agenda.[42] In apparent vindication of those who had accused him of infiltrating the AFL, William Foster emerged from the failed effort as a Communist leader and later admitted he had hoped the steel strike would lead to more radical developments.[43] Nonetheless, revolutionary activities were a minor element of the strike, and many radicals actually held the efforts of the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers in contempt. Throughout the campaign, I.W.W.s criticized the committee's decision to operate as twenty-four separate craft unions instead of the more revolutionary "One Big Union;" indeed, Fitzpatrick, Foster and others actively rebuffed those who urged a general strike.[44] Eugene Debs went to the Youngstown, Ohio strike district and attacked the organizing effort in his speeches.[45] The Socialist Labor Party newspaper Weekly People went so far as to suggest that union leaders were in collusion with U.S. Steel itself.[46] Regarding the notion that the strike was a radical "plot," the report of the Interchurch World Movement concluded that "a mass movement involving 300,000 workers and twenty-four national unions cannot be controlled to secret, opposite ends."[47] At best, newspaper stories linking strikers and radical conspirators were misleading and distorting; at worst, they were simply untrue.
Such stories and loose associations reached a crescendo in The New York Times from October 15-17. On the 15th, the steel strike was linked indirectly to a foiled nationwide "I.W.W. Plot to Seize Power"; the following day the Times ran the three-column headline "Scores Arrested in New Gary Raids" over a story in which Colonel Mapes declared: "If evidence disclosed as the result of the raids early yesterday was revealed, a sudden termination of the strike would result." Both stories are notable for their shoddy attribution techniques. In one instance, the Times reporter confirmed a fact by noting that Colonel Mapes "failed to deny information...which had been obtained from other reliable sources."[48]
On October 17, strike leaders were linked explicitly with the Soviet Union itself. The Times carried the extraordinary front page headline "Seized Documents Link Gary Leaders With Russian Reds"; under the headline "Hand Of Soviet Is Bared In Strike," the World printed the same story, slightly rewritten. (Each paper claimed the story as its own "special" report.) Quoting a "high military source" with "definite information" obtained in the course of the Gary raids, the article linked strike leaders with "Soviet enclaves," and forecasted numerous arrests of agitators on a nationwide basis. At the bottom of the page came angry responses from John Fitzpatrick, who demanded proof and claimed that ninety-five percent of all "reds" arrested at Gary were steel workers who had been discharged for union activities; and Paul Glazer, attorney for the strikers in Gary, who denounced the story as "damnable lies," and a "plot by steel officials to divert interest from the strike itself." Alongside this story, the Times devoted an entire front page column and continued inside coverage to the article "50,000 Aliens Here Spread Radicalism; Backed By Rabid Press."
That same day, The New York American devoted a front page banner headline and lead story to a different event, one which it had emphasized in recent days, and which was arguably far more relevant to the crisis in the United States: the industrial conference called by President Wilson in late August. In a vivid contrast to the front page of the Times and the World, the American announced on October 17 that "Rockefeller Pleads Labor Cause; Earnestly Advocates Right of Collective Bargaining." Back on September 17 - the first day heavy coverage of the steel strike began - delegates representing capital, labor, and the public had been selected by President Wilson to attend the conference. Majorities of each of the three groups were to be required in passing resolutions. Amazingly, Judge Gary and John D. Rockefeller had been chosen as two of the public's representatives, with no mention of controversy over their selection except in a news brief on page two of the September 19 World.
The conference began on October 11, and was covered by all three New York papers; noted labor reporter John J. O'Leary reported for the World. Yet, it was only in the American that the conference dominated front page news. As the World and especially the Times became increasingly focused on the sensational events in Gary, the American traced in banner headlines the rise and fall of Samuel Gompers' conference proposal to end the steel strike with arbitration. It was in the name of this proposal that Rockefeller made his astonishing stand on behalf of labor, and for several days thereafter American headlines spoke optimistically of "Capital and Brawn Growing Nearer" and a "Labor-Capital Concord; Storm Clouds Clearing."[49] The American on those days presented a tone of optimism that countered the dire warnings in the headlines of the Times and the World. Such optimism was soon dashed, however, with the breakup of the industrial conference. After Judge Gary finally swayed key representatives of capital and the public against the Gompers proposal, the Times' three column headline of October 23 indicated that "Labor Quits Conference"; the American described labor's move as a "withdrawal."
While dissolution of the conference did not signify an end to the steel strike, it was an ominous development for the workers. News from the Senate investigation only added to their troubles. On October 21, in "All The Reds Backing Steel Strike," the Times reported that I.W.W. lawyer Jacob Margolis had exposed William Foster as an infiltrator of the AFL with ties to a number of radical groups. The World carried the story on the front page as well, while the American ran it on page three. Four days later the Times highlighted the testimony of a Lieutenant who had served in Gary and who now displayed a mass of seized "red propaganda" as evidence against strike leaders. The Lieutenant noted to the committee that "a pleasing feature of the investigation was that among all the radicals examined, not one was an American-born citizen." The final day of the inquiry was telling; labor witnesses were called, and W.A. Ratterbury of Gary testified he was on strike for the eight hour day and recognition of collective bargaining rights. The next day, on October 26, his testimony appeared on page 20 of The New York Times under the tiny sub-heading "Striker Charges That Press Reports of Red Activities Are Greatly Exaggerated."
The steel strike was only one-third completed-it would last another seventy-five days-but its legitimacy seemed mortally damaged, if not destroyed. Rarely did it achieve any prominence in the news after October 26. On that day, the nationwide coal strike took over page one of the newspapers. The New York Times announced the end of the steel campaign on January 9, 1920 in a small front page story that consisted mainly of an official statement by the National Committee:
The Steel Corporation, with the active assistance of the press, the courts, the federal troops, the state police, and many public officials, have denied the steel workers their rights of free speech, free assemblage, and the right to organize, and by this arbitrary and ruthless misuse of power, have brought about a condition which has compelled the national committee for organizing iron and steel workers to vote today that the active phase of the steel campaign is now at an end.The story also disclosed that William Foster had resigned as secretary-general of the committee, following four months as "the storm center of the strike, the alleged vehicle...by which radicals of labor, 'boring from within,' were aiming to wrest control of the American Federation of Labor from President Gompers and the conservative leaders." The American ran the same story, minus that sentence about Foster, on page six. The workers had gained not one concession, though in The Lessons of the Great Steel Strike, published not long after the conflict's conclusion, Foster claimed they had won a psychological victory by doing what had previously been unthinkable: challenging the largest industrial corporation in the United States as an organized body.[50] In 1923 the corporation grudgingly yielded to governmental pressures and adopted the eight hour shift.[51] The "open shop" would remain in effect, however, until 1937, when U.S. Steel recognized the steelworkers' union in order to end a bitter strike led by the recently formed Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O).Just before the strike formally ended on January 9, the nationwide hunt for radicals came to a frenzied conclusion with the notorious Palmer raids. The banner headlines of The New York Times were sensational: "Red Concentration Camp Urged Here"; "Palmer Counts on 2720 Deportations"; "Fifty Reds Bagged in Night Raids."[52] They convey the usual image of "Red Scare" hysteria. Indeed, the culture of anti-radicalism was so pervasive that even the "liberal" New York World and the staid New York Times participated in the "Bolshevizing" of what appears in hindsight to have been a trade union strike in the traditional sense.[53] Yet, the anti-radical tendencies of those papers evolved during the course of the strike, and the various stages of that evolution suggest different images of the press in the United States. Before the walkout, when many newspapers had already cast the strike as a revolutionary conflict, the three major morning newspapers in New York City played some semblance of an independent civic role, printing transcripts and accounts of the statements of both sides in the conflict and generally avoiding incendiary rhetoric. Further research would be required in order to assess how and why xenophobic and anti-radical themes came to overshadow coverage of the strike itself, and what kind of impact such coverage had. In so doing, it would be important to address not only the conscious ways in which reporters, editors, and publishers pursued their own agendas, but the more subtle, unconscious process by which they responded uncritically to outside pressures and sources-senators, corporate leaders, military leaders, "mass hysteria."
Endnotes
1 See Robert K. Murray, Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919-1920, (Minneapolis, 1955), pp. 135-152; and Interchurch World Movement, Public Opinion and the Steel Strike, (New York, 1921), pp. 90-155.2 David Halberstam, The Powers That Be, (New York, 1979), pp. 193-200.
3 Oswald Garrison Villard, Some Newspapers and Newspaper-Men, (New York, 1923), p. 319. This figure includes six morning dailies and twelve evening dailies, including four evening papers in Brooklyn.
4 Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of Newspapers, (New York, 1978), p. 98. Schudson comments on the diminishing role of the editorial page in the late-nineteenth century.
5 The circulation figure is from Michael Emery and Edwin Emery, The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media, (New Jersey, 1992), p. 174.
6 Sidney Kobre, Development of American Journalism, (Dubuque, Iowa, 1969), p. 571 and Emery & Emery, p. 174.
7 Kobre, p. 579 and Emery & Emery, pp. 213-14.
8 Villard, p. 62.
9 Emery & Emery, p. 216.
10 Villard, pp. 16-41.
11 Emery & Emery, p. 191.
12 Kobre, p. 583; the circulation figure is from Villard, p. 319.
13 Emery & Emery, p. 257.
14 Quoted in Schudson, pp. 10-11.
15 Kobre, p. 587.
16 The Times motto is quoted from Emery & Emery, p. 235 and Ochs' emphasis on the "decency" of the Times is discussed in Schudson, pp. 108-109, 112.
17 Schudson, p. 114.
18 Quoted in Schudson, p. 107.
19 Emery & Emery, p. 210.
20 Murray, p. 67.
21 Ibid., p. 111.
22 Gerald G. Eggert, Steelmasters and Labor Reform, 1886-1923, (Pittsburgh, 1981), p. 11.
23 The New York Tribune, 19 September 1919, p. 1.
24 Eggert, p. 14.
25 Murray, p. 137.
26 Ibid., p. 135.
27 The New York World, 17-19 September 1919, p.1 and The New York Times, 17- 18 September 1919, p. 1.
28 28 The New York American, 18 September 1919, pp. 1-2.
29 Richard Kluger, The Paper, (New York, 1986), p. 14.
30 The New York Tribune, 20-22 September 1919, p. 1.
31 Interchurch World Movement, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919, (New York, 1920), p. 35.
32 Murray, p. 143.
33 Interchurch World Movement, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919, p. 155.
34 Murray, pp. 144-5.
35 Reported in the New York World, 18 September 1919, p. 2.
36 Interchurch World Movement, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919, p. 90.
37 Ibid., p. 85.
38 The New York World, 11-13 October 1919, p. 2.
39 See Murray, pp. 135-52; Interchurch World Movement, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919, pp. 44-118; Interchurch World Movement, Public Opinion and the Steel Strike, pp. 163-220; and The Nation, 15 November 1919: pp. 633-35.
40 The New York World, 08 October 1919, p. 1 and The New York American, 08 October 1919, p. 1.
41 The New York Times, 08 October 1919, pp. 1-2.
42 Interchurch World Movement, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919, pp. 37-9.
43 Emery & Emery, p. 260.
44 Interchurch World Movement, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919, p. 36 and 39.
45 Ibid., p. 45.
46 Weekly People, 04 October 1919, p. 1.
47 Interchurch World Movement, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919, p. 35.
48 The New York Times, 15 October 1919, p.1.
49 The New York America, 18-19 October 1919, p.1.
50 William Z. Foster, The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons, (New York, 1920), pp. 4-7.
51 Eggert, p. 15.
52 The New York Times, 04-06 January 1920, p.1.
53 Interchurch World Movement, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919, pp. 40-41.
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
The Nation, 15 November 1919.The New York American 18 September 1919.
The New York American 08 October 1919.
The New York American, 18-19 October 1919.
The New York Times 17-18 September 1919.
The New York Times 08 October 1919.
The New York Times 15 October 1919.
The New York Times 04-06 January 1920.
The New York Tribune 19 September 1919.
The New York Tribune 20-22 September 1919.
The New York World 17-19 September 1919.
The New York World 18 September 1919.
The New York World 11-13 October 1919.
The New York World 08 October 1919.
Weekly People 04 October 1919.
Secondary Sources
Eggert, Gerald G. Steelmasters and Labor Reform, 1886-1923. Pittsburgh, 1981.Emery, Michael and Emery, Edwin. The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media. New Jersey, 1992.
Foster, William Z. The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons. New York, 1920.
Halberstam, David. The Powers That Be. New York, 1979.
Interchurch World Movement. Public Opinion and the Steel Strike. New York, 1921.
Interchurch World Movement. Report on the Steel Strike of 1919. New York, 1920.
Kluger, Richard. The Paper. New York, 1986.
Kobre, Sidney. Development of American Journalism. Dubuque, Iowa, 1969.
Murray, Robert K. Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919- 1920. Minneapolis, 1955.
Schudson, Michael. Discovering the News: A Social History of Newspapers. New York, 1978.
Villard, Oswald Garrison. Some Newspapers and Newspaper-Men. New York, 1923.