Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1901 — This Is Open War. [ARTICLE]

This Is Open War.

The people of many prosperous manufacturing towns in Pennsylvania and Ohio are dismayed, with good reason, by the announcement of a new policy adopted by the United States Steel Corporation in fighting strikes. The corporation has determined, wherever it Is possible, to dismantle or abandon mills where the workmen have gone out. This is wasting the enemy’s country with a vengeance apd savors of real warfare. The mills are the very heart of many fine cities and towns. Thousands of persons and their small concerns depend on the activity of these establishments. The blow as usual falls heaviest on the non-combatants, the unoffending public. The operatives can move to other industrial centers and gain employment. The case is different with the merchant or banker, who has a heavier stake in the community and who has risked everything on the stability of the local conditions. He Is not apt to think very highly of a victory which is won at the cost of complete ruin to himself and his family, who have had no interest in the dispute. But the policy may have a large usefulness if It makes people ask whether a struggle between a combination of great wealth and its employes, which may practically destroy whole communities and bring ruin cm multitudes of innocent people, is really a “private matter” In which each of the contending parties can do what it wilt wfth its own.