Seattle: 1900-1920 -From Boomtown, Through Urban Turbulence ...

The 1919 Shipyard Strike and the General Strike 161officials were at a Chicago conference planning a nationwide general strike for 4 July 1919should Mooney be refused a new trial. The rank and file left behind in Seattle tended to bemore radical (and less experienced) than their leaders, and a general strike did not seemterribly portentous to them. The meeting ended with the adoption of a resolution callingfor a general strike if a referendum won approval. During the evening of 23 January, eightlocals voted to strike or at least support a general strike. On the twenty-fourth, the SeattleRetail Grocers Association discontinued credit to unemployed strikers. And when on thatsame day the Cooperative Food Products Association offered to help the strikers, policeraided the cooperative under the pretense of looking for an illegal liquor cache, though theywere really seizing office files.When the union officials returned from Chicago and called a meeting on 27January, a three-way split occurred among the 120 attendees. According to the historianRobert Friedheim, the radicals wanted an immediate strike; the progressives wanted toforce the owners to openly declare their intention to establish open shop conditions beforestriking and thereby swing public support to the strikers; and the conservatives wanted toabide by the existing contracts, although they too wanted to subject the owners to publicopprobrium. Whatever they thought, the referendum vote on the general strike could not bestopped. They did agree that if a majority voted for the strike, then they would meet againon 2 February to consider what to do next.Newspaper coverage during the week before the General Strike began is instructive.The two recognized conservative dailies, the Times and P-I, took positions of markedcontrast. The Times laid blame squarely on Piez, while the P-I blamed the radicals’ takeoverof the unions. The Times reported events fairly directly, with minimal sensationalism,which is surprising given its normal anti-union bias. The P-I repeatedly used scare tactics,which tended to inflame the situation. On 30 January the paper ran a front-page editorialclaiming that most unionists opposed the strike and that “[t]he shipyard strike was calledwithout consent of the workers.” The editorial went on to say that a general strike wouldaccomplish nothing and that the shipbuilding industry was a dying industry anyway. Thestrike would show “how completely the unions are under control of their lawless masters”and would be a “Bolshevik holiday.”The Times assured readers that although problems and hardships were to beexpected, J. D. Ross was certain to maintain electric power for homes and streetlights.The paper hoped to counteract the assertion of the International Brotherhood of ElectricalWorkers’ Leon Green that no exceptions would be made. The P-I, on the other hand, gavefull play to Green’s threat, despite the announcement by the General Strike Committee(GSC) that it intended to maintain service for homes and streetlights. (Hulet Wells, as anobserver, attributed much of the public’s fear to Green’s declaration.)In its 31 January front-page editorial, “Turn On The Lights,” the Times maintainedits relatively judicious tone. According to the paper, the strike was without purpose; theEFC’s flat refusal to allow negotiations to proceed, except for on a “certain policy outlinedby the federal authority,” was provocative; the owners should have granted pay raises tocommon labor; and the MTC had been irresponsible. The Times laid blame on all theparties.