ABSTRACT
In May, 1937, the Republic Steel Corporation refused to enter into any written agreement with the Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee. The union called its members on strike to protest what it considered a patent violation of the law and a denial of their rights. Maintaining its refusal, the corporation continued to operate its plants with what forces it could muster. On Memorial Day a union meeting was held near the South Chicago shops—a meeting touched with holiday, and attended by women and children as well as several hundred men. The question was an important one: how could the workers who were still on the job be brought to see the seriousness of the issue and the need for full support of the union’s protest against the company’s stand? A mass demonstration was decided upon. Fifteen hundred strong they would march to the plant, past the gates, and establish a picket line with slogan bearers. The union speakers assured the crowd of their right to do this, their right to picket. The President had said so, the Wagner Act had said so. More important, the Chicago Corporation Counsel and the mayor had said that “peaceful picketing is legal.” The police commissioner had supplemented this assurance with the opinion that the number of pickets need not be limited, as long as they were peaceful.
