NOLAN REILLY The General Strike in Amherst, Nova Scotia, 1919* On 19 May 1919 news of the Amherst general strike spread throughout Nova Scotia. "So far as it can be learned", the Sydney Record declared, "it is on practically the same lines as the one which has been paralyzing the city of Winnipeg for several days past".1 Another editor worried that this eastern "replica of Winnipeg labour troubles" might spread to other towns in the Maritimes.2 Strike leader Frank Burke did little to alleviate these fears when he "championed the One Big Union idea" before a large meeting of local workers the next evening and predicted that "the time would be here speedily when the Union would have full power from the Atlantic to the Pacific".3 By the time of this speech, striking workers in Amherst had already closed the town's eight largest industries and local mechanics and civic workers had also joined the strike. For the next three weeks the life of the community was dominated by the general strike. Throughout Amherst, "the new 'One Big Union' buttons" became "conspicuous not only on the streets, but also in many establishments, worn by the employees . . . in sympathy with the men".4 Most of the town's workers and their families attended daily union meetings to discuss the progress of the strike. In speeches and petitions the strikers advanced their demands: recognition of the Amherst Federation of Labor — popularly known as the One Big Union —, improved wages and working conditions, and a shorter working day. At first the employers refused "to deal in any way or form with the One Big Union as a whole", but after several weeks of often bitter negotiations they granted some, although certainly not all of their employees' demands.5 Vying for public attention with the more dramatic episodes of class conflict that occurred in western Canada in 1919, the Amherst events received scant notice outside the Maritimes. Most contemporary commentators viewed the Amherst strike either as a sympathy strike to support Winnipeg workers or as a spontaneous protest against low wages and poor working conditions. Historians * For their critical comments on an earlier draft of this paper, the author would like to thank David Frank, Greg Kealey, Sharon Reilly, and David Sutherland. 1 Record (Sydney), 21 May 1919. 2 Post (Sydney), 20 May 1919. 3 Daily News (Amherst), 21 May 1919. 4 Eastern Federadonist (Pictou), 31 May 1919. 5 Daily News, 22 May 1919. Acadiensis 57 have treated the general strike in much the same manner.6 In part, this disin terest stems from the highly specialized regional interests of Canadian historians. While there have been a number of studies of western Canadian radicalism, the writing of Maritime and central Canadian working-class history has lagged behind.7 But recent work suggests that what David Bercuson and others have seen as western exceptionalism in the early twentieth-century history of Canadian working class radicalism may well have been a more generalized phenomenon. The political and organizational form of this activity varied from region to region and the tendency to divide the country into radical and con servative groups of workers perhaps misses the variety of working class responses to post-war industrial capitalism.8 The Amherst general strike resulted from the interaction of two broad historical processes which began prior to the First World War. First, the impact of the de-industrialization that accompanied the centralization of power and wealth in central Canada affected Amherst's working class in immediate terms as working conditions, wages, and living standards fell behind those of other Canadian workers. Particularly ominous for local workers were the signs pointing toward the complete economic collapse of the town. Second, the local labour movement, partly because of previous failures, began to move toward a more radical response to these economic developments. In 1919, the merging of these two forces forged a new working class solidarity in Amherst, which found 6 David J. Bercuson, Fools and Wise Men: The Rise and Fall of the One Big Union (Toronto, 1978); Ernest R. Forbes, The Maritimes Rights Movement, 1919-1927: A Study in Canadian Regionalism (Montreal, 1979). 7 See, for example, David Frank and Nolan Reilly, "The Emergence of the Socialist Movement in the Maritimes, 1899-1916", Labour/Le Travailleur, 4 (1979), pp. 85-113; David Frank, "The Cape Breton Coal Miners, 1917-1926" (PhD thesis, Dalhousie University, 1979); Don Macgillivray, "Industrial Unrest in Cape Breton, 1919-1925" (MA thesis, University of New Brunswick, 1971); Robert Brym and James Sacouman, eds., Underdevelopment and Social Movements in Atlantic Canada (Toronto, 1979). For an assessment of Canadian working-class historiography, see David Bercuson, "Through the Looking Glass of Culture: An Examination of the New Labour History in Canada" (unpublished paper delivered at the Conference on "Class and Culture: Dimensions of Canada's Labour Past", Montreal, 1980); Gregory S. Kealey, "The Working Class in Recent Canadian Historical Writing", Acadiensis, VII (1978), pp. 116-35; Gregory S. Kealey, "Labour and Working-Class History in Canada: Retrospect and Prospect" (unpublished paper delivered at the Conference on "Class and Culture: Dimensions of Canada's Labour Past", Montreal, 1980). 8 David J. Bercuson, Fools and Wise Men: The Rise and Fall of the One Big Union (Toronto, 1978), and "Labour Radicalism and the Western Frontier: 1897-1919", Canadian Historical Review, LVIII (1977), pp. 154-75. For other studies of western Canadian radicalism, consult Gerald Friesen, " 'Yours in Revolt': The Socialist Party of Canada and the Western Labour Movement", Labour/Le Travailleur. I (1976), pp. 139-57; A. Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement, 1899-1919 (Toronto, 1977); Martin Robin, Radical Politics and Canadian Labour, 1880-1930 (Kingston, 1968). 58 Acadiensis expression in the rise of the Amherst Federation of Labor, the renewed interest in socialist ideas and, of course, the three week general strike. In 1919 Amherst's economy was in crisis. Like the rest of the Maritimes, the town was confronting the final effects of its integration into the national economy. Throughout the early years of the twentieth century, Amherst thrived on a manufacturing economy that produced railway rolling stock, steam engines and boilers, woollen goods, boots and shoes, enamel ware, furnaces, pianos, and home and office furniture. The largest manufacturer in town, Rhodes-Curry & Co., employed 2,000 men to build railway cars and to meet the demands of its construction business. Robb Engineering, known nationally for its engines and boilers, hired 500 workers, and the shoeworks and woollen mill each had 200 employees.9 Between 1901 and 1906, Amherst's total value of production soared from $1 million to $4.5 million and the population doubled to reach almost 10,000.10 The town bore the distinction of being one of the region's most important and rapidly growing manufacturing centers, and became known throughout the Maritimes as "Busy Amherst". Following the 1907-1908 recession, however, Amherst entered a period of decline that intensified over the next 15 years. The flood of central Canadian manufactured goods into the region and the extension of metropolitan financial control over the region's economy spelled disaster for the town.11 In 1909, in the first and most important of a series of industrial mergers in Amherst, the million dollar Rhodes-Curry & Co. was linked with two Montreal concerns to form the Canadian Car & Foundry Co. The serious 1913-1914 depression signalled yet a further weaving of local manufacturing into the national economy. Industries severely reduced staff and at least one factory in Amherst closed permanently. Although this pattern was repeated across the country, few towns faced the total ruin of their manufacturing sector that was confronting Amherst. The demands of the First World War brought an artificial buoyancy to Amherst's economy. Unemployment declined as men enlisted in the army and factories shifted to wartime production. The railway carworks concentrated on munitions, Robb Engineering built marine boilers and manufactured shells, the 9 Employment statistics are compiled from a variety of newspaper and government sources. See, for example, Nova Scotia, Journals of the Assembly, 1911, Appendix no. 15. Historical accounts of Amherst's two largest industries are available in The Busy East (March 1911) and Norman Ritchie, The Story of Robb's (Amherst, N.S., n.d.). 10 Canada, Census, 1911, vol. Ill, Table XI, "Manufactories of Cities having 5,000 inhabitants and over compared for 1891, 1901, 1911 by provinces". 11 A number of recent writings provide a general introduction to the economic history of Atlantic Canada: Brym and Sacouman, Underdevelopment and Social Movements in Atlantic Canada; T.W. Acheson, "The National Policy and the Industrialization of the Maritimes", Acadiensis, I (1971), pp. 3-28; David Alexander, "Economic Growth in the Atlantic Region, 1880-1940", Acadiensis, VIII (1978), pp. 47-76; David Frank, "The Cape Breton Coal Industry and the Rise and Fall of the British Empire Steel Corporation", Acadiensis, VII (1977), pp. 3-34. Acadiensis 59 piano factory provided shell boxes, and the woollen mill and shoeworks thrived on government contracts. The armistice of November 1918 brought an abrupt halt to this activity. Manufacturers warned of a prolonged "readjustment period" and prepared to lay off staff, as unemployment again became a serious problem with the return to Amherst of 500 war veterans. While many local residents worried about the ability, and in some cases, the desire of local business to make the transition to peace-time production, the most heated debates were reserved for speculation over the future of the crucially important carworks.12 Before the war Canadian Car & Foundry had suspended operations at the Amherst Malleable Iron Co. and, in 1919, it announced the closing of plants in Halifax and New Glasgow. These actions were integral aspects of Canadian Car & Foundry's policy to concentrate production in central Canada. Supervised by Nathaniel Curry, former president of Rhodes- Curry, this policy threatened the existence of the Amherst carworks. As one observer remarked, "the days of the wooden cars" built in the Amherst works were passing as surely as the days of "wooden ships and iron men" had slipped into a bygone era. If Amherst was to remain an important center of the rolling stock industry, it needed modernization, especially equipment to construct pressed steel rolling stock. But while Canadian Car & Foundry modernized its Montreal facilities and constructed a new plant in Ft. William, it retreated from car building in Amherst.13 In 1919, the declining importance of the Amherst shops within Canadian Car & Foundry's corporate structure created three pressing problems for local workers: irregular employment, poor working conditions, and wage differentials favouring the company's Montreal employees. Finding steady employment was a serious concern for Amherst carbuilders. During the winter of 1918, the company operated with fewer than 200 men. Although this number increased to 800 in the spring months, this was still far below the 2,000 workers employed in 1905. Given the erratic employment practices of the company, even the men hired in 1919 had few prospects for steady work. Canadian Car & Foundry often raised the hopes of Amherst workers with announcements of massive hirings, followed several months later by equally impressive layoffs. Persistent rumours of one department or another being removed to Montreal further heightened the workers' anxieties.14 Working conditions in the carworks also created tension. In 1919 moulder William Rackham complained to the Royal Commission on Industrial Relations of high gas levels in the foundry and claimed that the factory inspector refused to heed his complaints. The commis sioners were urged to tour the plant and discover for themselves that conditions 12 Amherst Daily News, 4 January 1919; Town of Amherst, Urban Renewal Study, prepared by Norman Pearson and Canadian-British Engineering Consultants (Amherst, 1965), p. 12. 13 Daily News, 20, 21 June 1919; Monetary Times, Annual Review for 1913, p. 79. 14 Daily News, 21 June, 6 May, 17 June 1919. 60 Acadiensis "were far from being what the law demanded".15 Although such conditions were common, Canadian Car & Foundry's decision not to direct new investment into its Amherst facilities undoubtedly aggravated the problem. The most contentious issue in 1919 was Canadian Car & Foundry's decision not to extend to Amherst the agreement it reached with its Montreal employees. The Montreal contract recognized the International Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, and adopted the "Whitley Advisory Council idea", the nine hour day with 10 hours pay, five day week, overtime pay, and layoffs by seniority. Considered a "fair and reasonable settlement" by the Amherst press and most local workers, all agreed that the contract should be extended to the eastern carmen, but the company refused to grant any concessions to its Amherst employees, except the nine hour day with no provision for 10 hours pay.16 The marginality of the Amherst shops to the financial health of the Canadian Car & Foundry strengthened significantly the company's negotiating position. Concentration of railway car production in Montreal made it easier, and probably necessary, given the relative decline in productivity in Amherst, to resist the contract demands of eastern workers. Management believed that the long layoffs of the previous year and the threatened closure of the carworks, which finally occurred in the 1920s, would make the carmen reluctant to strike. Canadian Car & Foundry's successful attempts to curtail union organizing in the years preceding the war, especially the 1914 defeat of the International Association of Machinists, further bolstered its determination to bargain hard in 1919.17 But the carmen were equally determined to win a contract consistent with that of Montreal workers and partly because of their previous failures at union organizing, they began to move toward a broad based industrial unionism. The same pressures that prodded the railway carmen toward a new form of union organization als.o affected other Amherst working-class families. In 1919 none of the town's eight major industries appeared to have a particularly stable future. Managerial attitudes toward the employees of the Toronto controlled Dominion Manufacturing Co. and the Truro, Nova Scotia dominated Stanfield's Co. varied little from those of Canadian Car & Foundry. Both Dominion Manufacturing's 1914 purchase of Amherst's Christie Woodworking Co. and Stanfield's takeover of the Amherst Woollen Mill during the war were mergers to improve profits through reduced competition and were followed by a rationalization of productive capacity that detrimentally effected Amherst and 15 Daily News, 10 June 1919; Eastern Federationist, 14 June 1919. 16 Daily News, 13 May 1919. For information on the Whitley Council concept in Canada, see Bruce Scott, " 'A Place in the Sun': the Industrial Council at Massey-Harris, 1919-1926", Labour/Le Travailleur, I (1976), pp. 158-92. 17 "Strikes and Lockouts File", Strike #1914 (15), RG 27, vol. 303, Public Archives of Canada [hereafter PAC]. Acadiensisôl brought the eventual closing of the facilities.18 Next to Canadian Car & Foundry, Stanfield's was the most aggressive company in the pursuit of this policy. Stanfield's resisted any attempts to improve working conditions which were easily the most deplorable in Amherst and wages among the lowest in town. The employees' response was predictable, and between 1918-1920 they fought three bitter strikes and they were the last employees to return to work during the general strike.19 In 1919 a number of important Amherst industries, including Amherst Boot & Shoe, Amherst Foundry, and Robb Engineering remained ostensibly locally owned and managed. These companies continued to struggle against the forces that had pushed other local industries into mergers, although Robb Engineering was already heavily financed by Montreal interests and the Amherst Foundry had proposed, but failed to complete, a union with a Port Hope, Ontario company. After the war, competition with central Canada's large scale "specialized factories" and a freight rate structure that was beginning to push local manufacturers even from traditional regional markets worried Amherst businessmen and during the general strike, local owners resisted the demands of their workers with the same determination as Amherst's absentee employers.20 In one way or another, the impact of regional underdevelopment touched the members of all classes in Amherst. For some individuals of the business class, like Nathaniel Curry, it brought participation in a financially attractive industrial merger and the continuation of a lucrative business career in Montreal.21 Other manufacturers, like David Robb, who lacked Curry's shrewdness in the ways of high finance and probably retained some commitment to the region, faced the collapse of their industries before fierce central Canadian competition. Underdevelopment also posed a threat to the livelihood of many small businessmen, since factory closings and a declining population represented lost business to local merchants. Finally, the working-class families attracted to Amherst during the 1898-1908 boom faced a most uncertain future, since local industries offered little long term security and few immediate benefits.22 18 Dunn and Bradstreet, Gazetteer for the Maritime Provinces (July 1915), p. 370; A. Robson Lamy, "The Development and Decline of Amherst as an Industrial Centre" (Honours thesis, Mount Allison University, 1930). 19 Daily News, 22 May, 10 June 1919. 20 For an analysis of the problems facing Maritime capitalists in 1919, see Forbes, Maritime Rights Movement, esp. pp. 54-72. 21 Monetary Times Annual Review for 1913, p. 79: Who's Who in Canada, 1919-1920 (Montreal, 1920). 22 Daily News, 21 June 1919. 62 Acadiensis Amherst's deepening economic crisis prompted a remarkable upsurge of local working-class activity in the immediate post-war years. In November 1918, while the Amherst Board of Trade sponsored armistice celebrations, labour spokesmen made their first public appeals to "workers of every grade" to join in the building of a new labour council. They argued that collective working-class action won industrial disputes and predicted "that so long as the employers can keep you [workers] in your unorganized condition, just so long will you be at their mercy".23 This call for organization struck a responsive chord among Amherst's working-class population. In late November they formed the Amherst Federation of Labor, which by the end of the year had 700 members, making it the largest labour organization in the town's history. By April 1919, its ranks had doubled and, in the early days of the general strike, its membership must have numbered over 3,000.24 Although it drew its leadership from among the town's skilled workingmen, the Amherst Federation of Labor's organiza tion diverged significantly from that of the short-lived 1904 and 1913 labour councils chartered by the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada. The Amherst Federation of Labor rejected the exclusivism which had characterized the craft orientated pre-war movement and emphasized the organization of unskilled workers, the majority of whom had little trade union experience prior to 1919. The commitment to the unskilled went beyond union membership to include a genuine effort to reduce the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers. In essence, the Amherst Federation of Labor was an independent industrial union that grouped the employees of Amherst's eight largest manufacturing concerns into one organization. The union also included building trades and civic workers, tailors, garage mechanics, the unemployed, especially the veterans, and even a restaurant owner, boarding house proprietor, and a local doctor. As former member Lester Doncaster recalls, it "was supposed to be One Great Union, just one Great Union of all the factories in Amherst".25 The initial structure of the Amherst Federation of Labor was relatively simple. Workers paid a "one dollar fee", which brought them the right to participate in the election of officers and all other affairs that came before the union.26 Membership gave the workers, at least theoretically, an equal hand in setting contract demands, initiating strike action, and the ratification of all agreements reached with individual manufacturers. During a general strike the approval of all union members was required before any one group of employees could return to work. Yet, while the Amherst Federation of Labor functioned as a single body, special units were established in several of the factories. Dane Lodge, the first and largest of these units, was organized early and may, in fact, 23 Ibid., 20 December 1918. 24 Ibid., 3 January 1919. 25 Interview of Lester Doncaster by the author, Amherst, 1977. 26 Daily News, 20 December 1918. Acadiensis 63 have been organized simultaneously with the larger body. This lodge served as a workplace unit, giving special attention to the problems of union members employed in the carworks.27 In May 1919 the Textile Workers' Union, a committee similar in purpose to Dane Lodge, was organized among the predom inately female work force in the Amherst Woollen Mills.28 It is not surprising that these units emerged first among the textile and carworkers since conditions in these shops made them the most militant in Amherst. In late summer 1918, before the formation of the Amherst Federation of Labor, both factories had experienced strikes of several days duration.29 The presence of such organiza tions also accounts, in part, for the cohesiveness of these employees throughout the general strike. In June 1919 they were the last workers to reach settlements with their respective employers. Neither lodge, of course, had any independent status and they were bound by the decisions of the larger organization. Although the Amherst Federation of Labor was the largest trade union organization in the town there were several locals of national and international unions. The railway freight handlers belonged to the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees and some tradesmen supported the International Associa tion of Machinists, Iron Molders' Union of America, and the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers' and Helpers' Union. The relationship between these unions and the Amherst Federation of Labor remains ambiguous. In the carworks, for example, most metal workers joined the Amherst Federation of Labor, probably while maintaining membership in their respective inter nationals. Throughout the general strike these skilled workers participated in the deliberations of Dane Lodge and other Amherst Federation of Labor activities.30 A different situation existed in the Amherst Foundry where the moulders continued to support a strong I.M.U. presence. First organized in the 1890s, these moulders enjoyed the longest and most successful history of any Amherst union and, as recently as April 1919, had emerged victorious in a struggle over wage schedules. But although the Amherst Foundry moulders did not join the Amherst Federation of Labor, they struck in sympathy with the union.31 On the other hand the metal-workers at Robb Engineering showed less support for the Amherst Federation of Labor. Robb's employed the largest concentration of metal-workers in Amherst, approximately 350 workers, perhaps one-half of whom were machinists and the remainder largely moulders and boilermakers. During the months leading up to the May confrontation, 27 Ibid., 31 March 1919. 28 Eastern Federationist, 17, 24 May, 1919. 29 Daily News, 31 August, 9, 11 September 1918. 30 Interview of Lester Doncaster by the author, Amherst, 1977. 31 Amherst Daily News, 1 May 1919; "Strikes and Lockouts File", Strike #19(92), RG 27, vol. 311, PAC; Eastern Federationist, 14 June 1919. 64 Acadiensis these workers gave what appeared to be lukewarm support to the Amherst Federation of Labor. Though they participated in the initial stoppage on 19 May, the men broke ranks with other workers and returned to work the follow ing day. The reluctance of the Robb employees to follow the lead of the Amherst Foundry moulders and maintain a sympathy strike was influenced by several factors. First, and most significantly, the company's history of paternalistic management fostered at the very least the grudging loyalty of the work force into the 1920s. In fact, until 1919, Robb Engineering could boast that the company had never experienced a strike since its organization in 1891. This was a remarkable achievement since elsewhere metal-workers struggled against technological change and managerial reorganization of the work process. As early as 1909, the metal trades journal, Canadian Machinery, carried reports on Robb's experimentation with piece-work and the premium system, two important components of a managerial programme condemned by labour as "making of men what men are supposed to make of metals: machines".32 Robb's dependency on shell contracts during the war also should have created workplace tensions, since munitions work often brought new initiatives by the employers in the areas of mechanization and the introduction of semi-skilled workers into positions controlled previously by tradesmen. This process of skill dilution generated numerous confrontations between management and labour in Canadian, British, and American metal shops. But at Robb Engineering these tensions never gave rise to a strike.33 David Robb embodied the paternalism that guided the company's industrial relations policies. Son of the industry's founder, active in local political and social affairs, and manager of Robb's for almost 20 years, David Robb was Amherst's most respected businessman. While guiding the company, Robb was reputed by some of his former employees to have "paid a fair day's wage", sponsored a sick benefit association, and maintained an apprenticeship program that "gave local boys a chance to get a skill and stay at home".34 The company's economic problems were also important in keeping the men at work. Pushed from its traditional steam engine markets by large central Canadian suppliers of electric motors, Robb Engineering faced financial ruin in the pre-war years. After 1914, generous munitions contracts from the Borden government "gave 'Robbs' a new lease on life", but the company's problems returned with the 32 Labour News (Hamilton), 1 March 1912, as cited in Craig Heron, "The Crisis of the Artisan: Hamilton's Metal Workers in the Early Twentieth Century" (paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, Saskatoon, 1979). 33 See Craig Heron, "The Crisis of the Artisan"; Craig Heron and Bryan Palmer, "Through the Prism of the Strike: Industrial Conflict in Southern Ontario, 1901-1914", Canadian Historical Review, LVIII (1977), pp. 423-58; James Hinton, The First Shop Stewards' Movement (London, 1973); David Montgomery, Workers' Control in America (New York, 1979). 34 Interview of Robert McKay by the author, Amherst, 1976. Acadiensis 65 war's end and David Robb embarked on a new "staple line of production to fill the gap that must naturally follow the cancellation of shell orders". The Robb-Baker tractor was expected to be the industry's new source of riches and in 1919 it was ready for production.35 The message for the employees was simple; only an immediate shift to tractor building could avert bankruptcy. This situation was well known to the workers because, as Robb told the Royal Commission on Industrial Relations, he "showed his men his accounts, and demonstrated to them . . . the urgency of the contracts upon which it [the company] was working".36 The relatively harmonious state of industrial relations at Robb Engineering contrasted sharply with conditions at the Canadian Car & Foundry shops. To many Amherst residents, Robb's situation demanded the co-operation of management and labour to avoid the collapse of the company, which everyone feared. In the carworks the crisis seemed to be the creation of corporate policy makers, not uncontrollable economic forces, as the relatively financially secure Canadian Car & Foundry was preparing for a possible flight from Amherst in search of profits elsewhere. Such a program did little to instill any sense of loyalty among the company's Amherst employees and the carworks' history was dotted with bitter confrontations between management and labour, especially after the 1909 merger, when the general improvement in economic conditions gave rise to an upsurge in labour organizing. In the autumn of 1910 the car- workers formed Fair Play Lodge International Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America (I.B.R.C.). While over 500 workers were brought into this industrial union, company hostility and internal strife brought its demise in early 1911.37 After the I.B.R.C.'s collapse conditions in the carworks steadily worsened, as Canadian Car & Foundry used the recession of 1913 to introduce significant wage reductions for the workers. The rolling mill and sheetmetal workers struck on separate occasions but were successful only in limiting and not reversing wage reductions of almost 30 percent.38 Buoyed by these victories, the carworks' management prepared- for a major confrontation with its machinists, the company's only unionized workers, and in 1914 announced a 5 to 15 percent wage reduction for one-half of the company's 33 machinists. Rather than accept these changes, the members of the International Association of Machinists (I.A.M.) struck in a dispute that lasted for more than a year and that was never formally settled because the company continued production with non-union workers, forcing the I.A.M. to call off the strike.39 35 Daily News, 13 July, 29 August 1917, 9 October 1918, 4 January 1919. 36 Ibid., 10 June 1919. 37 Eastern Labor News (Moncton), 18 February 1911. 38 "Strikes and Lockouts File", Strike #1914 (15) and 1914 (2), RG 27, vol. 303, PAC. 39 Ibid., Strike #14 (23); Eastern Labor News, 9 August 1911.