Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 232, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1919 — REPORTS SHOW 342,000 STEEL MEN NOW IDLE. [ARTICLE]

REPORTS SHOW 342,000 STEEL MEN NOW IDLE.

The third day of the great steel strike passed without either capital or labor having made any apparent material gains. Last night attention was being focused on Washington, where the inquiry into the industrial struggle by the senate labor committee is to open today. From their respective headquarters, industrial leaders and directors of the strikeissued their usual conflicting statements, which left still in doubtthe exact number of workers who have walked out. Wm. Z. Foster, secretary of the strikers’ national committee, claimed that in the various steel centers, 15,000 men had abandoned their posts, bringing the total to 342,000, but in the crucial Pittsburg district, officials of the United States Steel corporate nand several “independents” asserted that the stream of laboT had turned and was flowing into the mills. __ According to reports from Pittsburg, where union leaders held a general parley to consider the conduct of the strike, managers of the plants are now seeking to take the offensive. Not content with merely holding what forces remain with them they are said to be trying to induce wavering strikers to return. On the other hand, labor’s recruiting forces are not inactive, as shown by the fact that organizers from the mine workers' union have been called to reinforce agents of toe steel workers’ union in enrolling' nonunion workers. In the Youngstown district, where advances were claimed by the strikers* the strike spread yesterday to the fabricating plants* two of which were closed, as was the Youngstown Pressed Steel company. Paralysis of production in the Mahoning valley, caused by the idleness of 44,000 workers, continued, every plant being closed. From Canton, 0., came the anof the Canton Sheet Steel company that his men, numbering twelve hundred, had voted to return to work. Yesterday was marked by a sharp decrease in violence. Althought rioting occurred in Cleveland, order reigned in Buffalo, New York, and Pittsburg. Newcastle and Farrell, Pa., the storm centers Tuesday. On the heels of these riots came charges from strike headquarters that in Buffalo the trouble had been “incited” by “hired detectives” for the purpose of “bringing in the state constabulary and breaking the ranks of the strikers." Governor Smith would be asked to order an investigation, it was announced. A complaint sent by Mr. Foster to Governor Sproul, of Pennsylvania, concerning the action of the state police in dispersing crowds in steel towns, brought from the governor a reply that he had been informed “dangerous and evil-disposed persons at points in other states” were preparing “to collect armed mobs to come across the state line to attack our citizens and destroy their property,” and that such mobs would be treated “as armed invaders of Pennsylvania.”