Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 24, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1901 — LOSS BY STEEL STRIKE. [ARTICLE]

LOSS BY STEEL STRIKE.

Effect* of the Great Industrial Battle Are Far-Reaching. The effects of the strike in the steel and iron rolling mills are so great and far reaching that they can hardly be computed with any reasonable degree of accuracy, because the bad results at£ felt as far away as the ore mining regions of Duluth, and through the network’of trade from the manufacture of clothing and shoes down to the small shopkeeper in the strike-affected districts. The losses of the constituent companies of the United, States Steel Corporation have been very severe in the Way of trade lost that cannot be made'up, cost of maintenance of plants during enforced idleness when nothing was coming in, in interest for several months on a vast investment lying idle and loss of profit that •would thave been made had operations continued as in normal times. A tonnage of upwards of 250,000 tons of tin plate, pipes and tubes, sheets, bars, cottpn ties, puddled iron and finished products has been lost by the steel trust. An average of the selling price of the articles mentioned is S3O per ton, or $7,500,000 —a terrible price to pay for a victory over a labor union. The workingmen have lost millions in the strike and gained nothing; in many cases their families are living in straitened circumstances with the winter at hand; the resources of all but a very few of the higher paid men have been exhausted and their bank accounts depleted. The brunt of the trouble is borne by workeqp not concerned in the matter one way or another, such as machinery men, clerical forces, millwrights, shippers, transportation men, and the host of middle class labor that goes to make up the personnel of a steel strike. As to the matter of wages, averages taken of the earnings of the skilled men, unskilled and artisans affected show that the aggregate is close to $7,000,000, or nearly equal to the amount lost by the trust by reason of product not manufactured.

A summary of the Amalgamated losses is as follows: In funds, $150,000; a fourth of the mills, if those of the American Tin Plate Company have been made nonunion, and the association in that branch lost 1,300 members; a fourth of the strength in the mills of the American Sheet Steel Company has been lost, and 800 members have been lost in the sheet branch; in the National Steel Company 200 members have been lost, and 700 have been lost in the mills of the Illinois Steel Company. This is a net loss of about 3,000 men, reducing the membership from 13,800 to 10,800, most of which is in the mills of the Republic Iron and Steel Company, and in important tin plate, sheet and hoop mills. The losses in 'the individual companies are about as follows: American Sheet Steel Company, 25,000 tons; American Steel Hoop Company, 75,000 tons; American Tin Plate Company, 1,250,000 boxes; National Tube Company, 40,000 tons; Illinois Steel Company, 50,000 tons. The general economic results have been disastrous to the trust, strikers ang unconcerned public. PLAN TO CONTROL ANARCHISTS. Immigration Bureau Now Working; on a System. Foreign anarchists will, -be excluded from the United States if law’s are adopted in accord with the ideas now being worked out by Mr. Powderly, the Commissioner of Immigration, and several members of Congress. The head of the immigration bureau proposes a scheme which, if adopted, will exclude foreign anarchists, and if they develop anarchistic tendencies after reaching here they can be deported at any time before they are naturalized. The idea under consideration as outlined by Mr. Powderly contemplates naming certain ports in Europe from which immigrants will be allowed to land in the United States. At those ports officers of the immigration bureau will be stationed. When a person desiring to enter the United States presents himself he will be required to give a certificate of character from the time of his birth to the day of sailing.