The U.S. Interrogation of Croation-born George Milkuvich

Senator MCKELLAR. How much money did you get? How much did you get a day?

Mr. MIKULVICH. Forty-two cents an hour.

The CHAIRMAN. How many hours did you work?

Mr. MIKULVICH. Twelve hours and 14 hours.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you get time and a half overtime?

Mr. MIKULVICH. No.

Senator MCKELLAR. You just get straight 42 cents an hour?

Mr. MIKULVICH. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And after you worked 8 hours and worked on 14 hours, did you not get time and a half?

Mr. MIKULVICH. No, sir; none of us got time and a half.

if I got sickness in my home, he want to lay me off, if they can not get a man in my place, and I have sickness in my home, then if I go home, he will lay me off. When they get a man in my place, they tell me, “Go ahead and stay home.”If my family gets sick and I ask my foreman that I want off that day, because my woman is sick at home, he say “All right,” and he will go around and get another man if he can, and if he can not he will let me off. The next day I will come back and there will be a man in my place and I say to him “My woman is better.” He will say “You can go home and stay home.”

The CHAIRMAN. Is that the way the others are treated?

Mr. MILLER. That is the treatment of every other worker.

The CHAIRMAN. The complaint is that the bosses do not treat you right. Is that what you mean?

Mr. MILLER. Yes, sir.

Senator MCKELLAR. Do you mean that you do not get off when there is sickness in your family and distress in your family? And when you do have a man take your place, they discharge you?

Mr. MILLER. They say, “Go home and stay home if you want to.”

The CHAIRMAN. Don't they allow you go come back to work?

Mr. MILLER. Not if they get another man in your place.

Senator MCKELLAR. What pay do you think you are entitled to?

Mr. MILLER. Well, there is not enough money for the workmen. We work 13 hours at night and 11 hours at day, and we get 42 cents an hour.

Senator MCKELLAR. And how much is that a day?

Mr. MILLER. For a 12-hour day it makes $4.20 and for the longer day it makes $5.04.

Senator MCKELLAR. A day?

Mr. MILLER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. How many hours do you work?

Mr. SMITH. I work 10 hours a day and I get paid for straight 10 hours time.

The CHAIRMAN. And how many days in the week do you work?

Mr. SMITH. Seven days—sometimes six days and sometimes seven days.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you work on Sundays?

Mr. SMITH. Well, not so much.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other causes that led you to strike except the lack of money?

Mr. SMITH. Well, my conditions are all right. I can not say nothing about the conditions. My conditions are all right; and I would gladly keep the work if I could make a living. The conditions I was satisfied with, because I had never been kicked or abused, or anything like that whatever. The only thing that I am complaining against is that we are not getting enough money.

The CHAIRMAN. And that is the only objection that you have got?

Mr. SMITH. That is the only objection that I have got.

Senator MCKELLAR. Are there any other gentlemen in the crowd who would like to be heard?

Mr. SMITH. I say that that is not enough for a family of seven.

Senator PHIPPS. You seem to be pretty well dressed?

Mr. SMITH. Yes; I am, because I saved it up before I was married, and I have got to spend now what I saved before I was married.

The CHAIRMAN. You do not believe that two people can live cheaper than one, do you?

Mr. MINK. I have charge of these mills here. . . .

The CHAIRMAN. Well, will you give us your view of what this strike is about?

Mr. MINK. We think it is entirely the Bolshevik spirit.

The CHAIRMAN. Why do you think that?

Mr. MINK. Well, because they was gathering up the aliens; they have been

practically alien, in my opinion, very few American citizens.

The CHAIRMAN. They worked among the foreigners, do you say?

Mr. MINK. They worked among the foreigners entirely.

The CHAIRMAN. And most of the foreigners are out?

Mr. MINK. Most of the foreigners are out; 99 per cent of the foreigners that are striking here—that is, the strikers that are out are foreigners.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, does this Bolshevik tendency that you speak of, do they get any literature from any sources?

Mr. MINK. Well, we have not seen any literature, but only stuff like this, they say that if the mills are not running -we do not see this ourselves, but we get it from other sources - that they are going to get a dollar an hour and are going to get the best jobs.

The CHAIRMAN. Are they going to man the mills themselves?

Mr. MINK. Yes, they are going to man the mills themselves.

The CHAIRMAN. And you really believe that there is a great deal of that Bolshevism about, do you?

Mr. MINK. Yes, I think there is. It is not a question of wages. They have never been getting more money than they have got, and the conditions are good.

The CHAIRMAN. How about their living conditions? How are they?

Mr. MINK. The living conditions are just what the men want. A lot of them have good jobs and they make good money, and they could live a whole lot better.

 And that was during And then the steel strike came along and we were thrown out of the company house. And with the help of his friends that were union minded and all that, they built us a house... I was about ten years old; I was in third grade school there. And my oldest brother got a job in this place and my next to the oldest brother got a job. There was two working and possibly John was working there. And there was four of 'em working here. And these jobs were gotten by his friends from his home town. And they settled there. He worked there for about six months and he was blacklisted there, the entire family. So we came back home to the old homestead again, we came home to the homestead about 1922, about 1922. And father had to go out and he went to the coal mines to work in Butler. He'd get up about four o'clock in the morning with his two sons, John and Charlie, and sock coal, low lines, you know, knee deep, working the coal mines. Get back about eight, nine. No transportation of any kind. And non-union mines, because the miners had lost their strike. And through the help of other people, father was able to at least feed us. Mother had a garden. And this was up until 1929. And there was a real demand for labor and all that. By that time three or four of us brothers became musicians, and we became popular among the community. And we were able to slip back into the stream, the mainstream. Wally got into the American Rolling Mill as a laborer, very hard work. My brother was able to get into the wheel works, two of them. I got into Standard Steel and just about that [snaps fingers] time things closed up and the depression began.

... I witnessed the steel strike. This was the general strike, 1919. I was about eight years of age. And I've seen strikers being beaten by the coal and iron police—state police. And also this is the first time I ever heard the word scab. In fact, I believe possibly that one of the boys' godfather—we called him a scab. And, there was marching going on and everything. You were bound to get some of that into you and you seen people take sides. I didn't see scabs to in because I was a youngster. My uncle—well, I would say cousin—spent eighteen months in the Western Penitentiary. He was involved in at that time the 1919 steel strike. He was involved in upsetting the suburban street car hauling scabs in from the country. And he was given a stiff sentence of eighteen months because he wouldn't turn stool pigeon.