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The Lizard's Trail
One of the most tenacious of Johnston's attackers was Carl
Person, a hot-headed young militant from Clinton, Iowa who had
written and circulated a series of fire-eating handbills during the
strike. When it was finally called off, Person drafted an indictment
of Johnston and other shop craft leaders, accusing them of
double-crossing the members, leading them out on strike and then
deserting them.
A short time later Person was lured into ambush by a company
thug, a six-foot 200-pound former Clinton police chief. Person, a
bantam of a man, not more than five foot five and 130 lbs., was in
danger of being beaten to death when he pulled a gun and shot and
killed his attacker.
In the murder trial that followed, other unions joining the
IAM in raising funds for Person's defense. Despite the usual
newspaper and employer efforts to prejudice the public and the jury,
witnesses and the evidence clearly supported Person's plea of
self-defense and he was acquitted. Despite the help he received from
the IAM, Person continued to rage at the "sellout" of the
strikers on the Illinois Central and Harriman Lines. He kept up the
attack, going before a convention of the strikers by confiscating
funds that were rightfully theirs. Johnston then suspended Person
from membership with the approval of the General Executive Board. In
Person's appeal to the 1916 Grand Lodge Convention in Baltimore he
had many supporters. A resolution by a Louisiana lodge suggested
"If we had about a dozen more Carl E. Persons . . . labor
conditions would be much brighter."
The Appeals and Grievance Committee recommended the suspension
stay in effect until Person gave the GEB written assurance that he
would refrain from any such misconduct in the future. Following a
long, heated debate in which delegates were assured Person would not
be required to apologize for his past actions the Committee's report
was approved on a division of the house. Person refused to accept
reinstatement on the terms offered. He pursued his vendetta against
Johnston by authorizing a vitriolic diatribe, purported to be a
history of the Harriman strike, which he titled "The Lizard's
Trail." Throughout the rest of Johnston's tenure his enemies
used Person's volume to smear and slander him.
Although this particular strike was lost system federation
bargaining became the norm in railroad negotiations for many years
to come. The IAM's Arthur Wharton was one of the few who came out
ahead in this long and dreary dispute. He led the Federation of
Federations with such distinction he was chosen to head the new
department for railroad employees when it was created by the AFL. As
will be seen he was later elected International President of his own
union.
The IAM and the First World War
With the outbreak of the "Great War" in Europe in
1914, metalworking industries in America began a rapid buildup to
meet an avalanche of armaments orders from the combatants. In
Connecticut, for example, the Remington Arms Company was swamped
with requisitions from the Czarist Government of Russia for small
arms ammunition, artillery shells and weapons of every kind.
Companies not directly engaged in output of weapons worked
night and day turning out machine tools and parts. The demand for
machinists became frantic. To meet a growing shortage of skills
employers began to install specialized machinery and hire
inexperienced workers as operators, including great numbers of
women. As employment skyrocketed union growth exploded. Between
April 1915 and April 1917 membership almost doubled, going from
69,277 to 119,977.
In the spring of 1915 the IAM launched an all-out organizing
campaign in armaments' plants throughout New England. In a report to
the Journal on his activities in the summer of 1915 GVP Pete
Conlon described the militancy of machinists in New England. The
policy, he said, was to "1st. Strike the plant of any employer
resisting our demands. 2nd. Immediately ship the men to other jobs
[and] 3rd. Picket the plant and keep the employer shorthanded for
help." Success came on a rush of worker sentiment for the eight
hour day. The IAM caught the tide of this powerful and popular
appeal. According to Conlon, "Everyone has the fever and all
you can hear is eight hours. The sidewalks, the telegraph poles and
even the office steps of the factories are chalked in large letters
'WE WANT EIGHT HOURS'."
IAM organizers and business representatives exhorted the
membership to, "Talk eight-hours, write eight
hours and work for the eight-hour day." Millions of
gummed labels with the slogan "For The Eight-hour Day--A
Movement Nearer To Justice" were distributed. Members were told
to stick them on their letters, lunch boxes and anything else with a
flat surface. In Cleveland the slogan became "A Cent a Minute,
Eight Hours A Day." And in 1916 more than 5,500 members of
District 54 joined a general strike for this goal. A nationwide
shortage of skilled labor gave the IAM more clout at the bargaining
table than it ever enjoyed in the post. The number of members
working under eight-hour day contacts soared from 7,000 in early
1915 to 60,000 a year later.
With lush profits guaranteed from the munitions production.
employer resistance to the eight-hour day crumbled. Where employers
remained hard-nosed, IAM lodges did not hesitate to strike. Between
the summer of 1915 and that of 1916, 28,000 Machinists were involved
in 128 strikes in thirty-five cities.
After the eight-hour day was won in the munitions industry it
began to spread, first to nearby civilian industries and then into
the mines and on the railroads. The Adamson Act, establishing the
eight-hour day for the operating unions on the railroads, was
hastily enacted by Congress late in 1916 to avert a mass walkout.
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