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Attempts were made to mail food and clothing into the plants. Local postmasters refused to accept such parcels on the ground that they were "unusual" shipments and the Post Office had for "30 years" had a rule against making unusual shipments in troubled areas. Steel company officials then charged that a parcel of medicine for a man in one of the besieged plants was opened and sent on its way only after two union leaders had passed upon its contents. To Postmaster General Farley, Republic sent a vigorous protest.
The union next made a broader, bolder move to close the plants still operating. It set out to organize the ore mines in upper Michigan and Minnesota, to shut off Republic's ore supply. Representative John T. Bernard of Eveleth, Minn., one-time miner, fireman and labor leader—who signalized his appearance in Congress last January by delaying passage of the Neutrality Act until the Mar Cantabrico had sailed with a cargo of arms for Spanish Loyalists (TIME, Jan. 18)—hastened home from the Capital to help C.I.O. organize the iron-miners.
High Words. Chairman Tom Girdler of Republic recently obtained a vote of confidence from his industry when he was elected head of the Iron & Steel Institute instead of William A. Irvin of U. S. Steel (which signed a contract with S.W.O.C. without a fight). Ever an outspoken man, Tom Girdler expressed himself freely on the situation last week. He insisted that 21,000 of his 50,000 workers were still on the job, that his mills were shipping 8,000 tons of steel daily. Reporters asked about a suit started by Stockholder Robert W. Northrup of Toledo, who complained that Republic's officers had spent $1,000,000 on arms & ammunition not required in the steel business. "He's crazy," laughed Tom Girdler. But hadn't the company laid in arms in anticipation of a strike? "I wouldn't say in anticipation of a strike and I would say it was some years ago. I never knew a steel plant that didn't have guns and ammunition to protect its property."
Had he conferred with John L. Lewis? "I've never seen John L. Lewis, except at a distance, and I hope to God I never do."
Wasn't it just supposition that the strikers whom the police fought in Chicago had actually been going to attack the Republic plant? "I don't know. Most of them had clubs and weapons. One man even had an old-fashioned razor. Maybe they were out to catch butterflies."
Equally rough were the words of Philip Murray, chairman of S.W.O.C., addressing a strike meeting in Warren: "I'm here to tell Tom tonight that he's not going to get much more ore. Girdler is not a steel man. He was chief of the Jones & Laughlin police force before he was dragged by the bootstraps to be president of the Republic. He's a company cop, nothing more and nothing less, and there's no company policeman big enough to whip us."