tactics of the A. F. of L.
In the same year 800 silk mill workers engaged in a strike at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This strike was lost on account of a shutdown due to the panic of 1907 that occurred shortly after the the strike started.
From March 10, 1907 until April 22, the W. F. M. and the I. W. W. at Goldfield, Nevada, fought for their existence (and the conditions that they had established at that place) against the combined forces of the mine owners, business men and A. F. of L. This open fight was compromised as a result of the treachery of the W. F. M. general officers. The fight was waged intermittently from April 22 till September 1907 and resulted in regaining all ground lost through the compromise, and in destroying the scab charter issued by the A. F. of L. during the fight. This fight cost the employers over $100,000. The strike of the W. F. M. in October 1907 took place during a panic and destroyed the organization’s control in that district.
Under the I. W. W. sway in Goldfield, the minimum wage for all kinds of labor was $4.50 per day and the eight hour day was universal. The highest point of efficiency for any labor organization was reached by the I. W. W. and W. F. M. in Goldfield, Nevada. No committees were ever sent to any employers. The unions adopted wage scales and regulated hours. The secretary posted the same on a bulletin board outside of the union hall, and it was the law. The employers were forced to come and see the union’s committees.
Beginning in July 1909, at McKees Rocks, Pa., 8,000 workers of the Pressed Steel Car Company, embracing sixteen different nationalities, waged the most important struggle that the I. W. W. took part in to that date. The strike lastes eleven weeks. As usual, the employers resorted to the use of the Pennsylvania State Constabulary, known as the American Cossacks, to intimidate the strikers and browbeat them back to work. This constabulary is a picked body of armed thugs re-
