by Bill Bailey
It was March 1, 1936. The California arrived in San Pedro on its homeward voyage. A meeting of the ship's crew the night before had decided that the time was ripe to press their demands for parity in wages between the East and West Coast seamen. This would amount to an increase of $5 for the firemen and A.B.s, bringing their wages up to $62.50 per month; and a $10 raise for the steward's department, bringing up their wages to $50 per month. Curran was again called upon to present these demands to the captain. But word had already reached the captain through one of his spies. He in turn notified the company agents ashore who decided to recruit a replacement crew hours before the demands were even presented. Again the company miscalculated. They expected the crew to do what the Pennsylvania crew did, namely, to walk off. But the California had several Communists and old-time IWW members trained in organization aboard. After the demands were presented, the crew remained aboard ship, continuing with their everyday work. This baffled the captain and company officials. When the hour came to sail, the captain ordered the men to stand by to let go the mooring lines. It was here that the new strategy would undergo its first test.
The men refused to let go the lines. Through Curran, they told the captain that they were ready to perform all duties of maintenance and upkeep of the ship, but under no condition would they let go the lines--or let anyone else do it. Unless the ship was allowed to depart, replied the captain, the crew would face charges of mutiny. Again the orders were given and again they were refused.
For the next three days the ship remained tied to the pier. Newspapers throughout the country picked up the story. Playing down the crew's demands for improvements in conditions, they carried headlines characterizing the action as an act of mutiny, "defiance against lawful authority." Radio stations hourly carried news of the California, each time conjuring up another charge against the crew. "Impeding the U.S. mails," "insurrection," and "conspiracy" were added to "mutiny." Officials from the East Coast division of the ISU came aboard, first ordering the men, then begging them, to let go the lines and allow the ship to sail. When that failed, orders came from the Secretary of Commerce demanding the ship to be set free. No success. The Department of Justice got into the picture and "some 50 government agents were ordered to the scene of the mutiny." The crew held their own in the midst of this pressure that had its trying moments. The ship remained tied up. On the third day of the tie-up, a pier security officer came to the top of the gangway. He had a message for Curran. The Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, "wishes Mr. Curran to call her Washington office immediately."
For half an hour they talked, with Perkins finally asking, "Joe, just what is it you men want?" Curran laid it all out: elimination of the differential in pay between the East and West Coast seamen; overtime pay; all hiring through the union hall; improvement of the living and working conditions of the seamen; and, finally, a crackdown on the oppressive ISU officials. Perkins listened carefully. When Curran had finished, Perkins gave him her word of honor that there would be no coercion, intimidation or persecution of either him or the other crew members if they sailed the ship back to New York. She would use her good offices to set up a negotiating committee between the crew and the company officials upon the ship's arrival in New York.
Needless to say, there was dissension when Curran reported back to the crew. They had every right to be suspicious. Too many times they had been sold down the river. Some urged caution; others pleaded to stick it out and fight to the end. After lengthy discussion, the crew voted to sail the ship back to New York
True to form, the shipowners secretly met with some ISU officials on the East Coast. The idea was to play it smart. They agreed to raise the East Coast and Gulf seamen's pay by five dollars. This was supposed to take the zip out of the sails of seamen shouting or planning for a strike. They knew that when the California arrived in New York, the bottom would fall out for Curran and the crew since the ISU officials would expel them from the union. They assumed that most seamen would grab the five dollar bait dangled before them and not say a word in defense of the California crew's expulsion from the union, nor would they partake in any strike action.
While the shipowners were working to avoid a major strike on the East Coast with their five-dollar bribe, Secretary of Commerce Roper commenced a scathing attack in the newspapers against Perkins because of her commitment to the striking seamen. How dare she lend her office and a helping hand to mutinous seamen? The arguments grew heated as the California steamed toward New York. With Roper's anti-union and anti-Perkins attack, the shipowners felt confident in chastising the California crew and making an example of them. When the California docked on the West Side, some 65 crew members, the so-called ring leaders, along with Curran, were singled out for immediate discharge and were logged two days' pay for every day they had been on strike. In addition to this harsh treatment, they were to be blacklisted from sailing with the Panama Pacific Line. If this were not enough, Roper insisted that mutiny charges be placed against Curran and the crew. Perkins quickly persuaded Roosevelt to make Roper pull in his horns.
In the company's desperation to make an example of the California crew, they were bound to commit many errors. Singling out part of the crew for severe disciplinary action had the opposite effect the company had intended. It brought the rest of the crew to strike the ship in support of the men who were fired. The company retaliated by telling the public through newspaper ads that they would be canceling the next voyage of the California, for they feared for the public's safety. They expected the public to be infuriated with the union and crew and support the company's position. the shipowners even announced that from the goodness of their hearts they had advanced the wages upward another five dollars. The public ignored the shipowner's crocodile tears; the seamen bought it even less. The five-dollar increase was a matter of small concern to the seamen. What concerned them most was the question of having all hiring of seamen go through the union hall. Forced overtime without compensation had to come to a halt, too. If these two demands could be won, the rest of the conditions the seamen sought would fall into place.
I had attended a Party meeting the night after the California crew declared themselves on strike. I heard the report of the two Communist crew members. It was a favorable report on the unity of all departments on board. Even the officers were in full sympathy with the strikers and had at times lied in their reports to save some crew members from disciplinary action. The two Party members spoke in glowing terms about Curran. By all means, the strike had to be supported, and Curran should continue as the spokesman.
It was one of those weeks on the waterfront that found few ships in port. There were perhaps a dozen foreign ships, but American ships could be counted on the fingers of one hand. We quickly assessed our position. We found out that the American Trader was to arrive the next day from Europe and dock in the next pier. She belonged to the American Merchant Line; we had one Communist on board who worked in the steward's department.
Every waterfront Party member was expected to prove himself while this strike was in progress. The crew of the Trader was to be contacted upon arrival to learn if any support from them would be forthcoming. When I went down to the waterfront the next morning, the Trader had already been docked for several hours. I ran into an old buddy, Martie Garnier, a West Coast fireman. He told me that the Trader crew had already voted to strike in support of the California. Waterfront Party headquarters was just a few blocks from the West Coast piers. I dashed off to inform our people and arrived just in time to lend a hand on a leaflet congratulating the crew of the Trader on their stand. An hour later I was back on the waterfront distributing the leaflet.
With two ships now tied up, the momentum to win the strike had intensified. In the next few days no fewer than two leaflets came off the press daily, appealing to incoming ships for solidarity or urging the crews to strike. Another ship, another, and still another joined in. A report came in from Philadelphia that a ship's crew there had walked off. Seamen
were making history.
Chapter XVI: A Beating by Baltimore Cops
I would have been content to stay on the New York waterfront, close to the historic events shaping up there, but some Party wheels had other ideas. I was called to a meeting of Party functionaries. It was the party's feeling that the strike would take on a major share of the American shipowners in confrontation, and that this was the time to intensify Party work among the maritime workers. From the discussion some decisions were made. I was assigned to Baltimore.
When the militant Marine Workers' Industrial Union had gone out of existence, much of the militant spirit that it engendered had left with it. The seamen's relief system that the MWIU had fought for and created for that port had disappeared. Now the port was controlled by arch-reactionaries of the ISU, and their job was to prevent any seamen from joining the strike of their New York brothers.
My job was to keep the seamen in the port informed of what was happening and to do everything possible to get them to join forces with the strikers in New York. Working through the Party office I had use of typewriters and mimeographs whenever I needed them. Several other Party seamen were on the beach in Baltimore when I arrived.
While crews in some ports were receptive to joining the strike, in a smaller port like Baltimore we encountered great reluctance to "hit the bricks." It took us ten days before we found a crew ready to join the ranks of the strikers. The SS Floridian was a small freighter that carried fertilizer and other bulk cargoes up and down the coast. A few dollars were collected from some Party sympathizers in Baltimore to rent an empty storefront right on the waterfront. It served as strike headquarters and a rallying center for the seamen in Baltimore. The Floridian crew was an enthusiastic one, made up mostly of young men. Over his protest, the boatswain, a man from Kentucky, was made chairman of the strike committee. We set up various committees to keep the crew active trying to extend the strike.
As the days passed, fewer and fewer ships entered Baltimore. In New York some 15 to 20 ships were tied up, their crews on the picket line. The shipowners now had to face reality. They had a strike on their hands. Hurriedly improvements were being made to keep other ships from joining the fast-growing ranks of strikers. Some crews found themselves sitting down to first-class meals in the mess room, while on other ships the "donkey breakfast" straw mattresses were being replaced by more comfortable cotton mattresses. The character of "Captain Bly" was quickly and quietly changing on board many ships as the crews were finding officers using new tactics in human relations. This had a big effect for many seamen, although they recognized that changes were a direct result of the strike. Only the strong-willed and militant crews took the big step and walked off.
Probably no other strike in the previous 20 years in New York had given such a shot in the arm to the Communist Party. Directives had been sent out to branches in the area to do everything possible to assist the strike. Some Party groups volunteered to canvas their neighborhoods and collect food and blankets for the strikers, while others filled strike headquarters with typewriters, desks, chairs, stationery and printing materials. In every Party publication, mention was made of the strike. Articles were written by trade union professionals about the strikers' need of trade union backing. It was only natural that, with hundreds of men and women engaged in the everyday class struggle, Party members were able to recruit many new supporters. The Communists made no attempt to hide themselves. On every committee Communists were elected to serve and they distinguished themselves by working zealously to make their contribution felt.
In Baltimore, we acted in the same manner. I contacted a liberal teacher from Johns Hopkins University who agreed to teach members of the strike committee better English and how to speak in public. My only error was that I failed to include myself in the class.
Still, after seven days of keeping the Floridian strike-bound, the shipowners, with the help of the gangster officials of the ISU, remanned the Floridian with scabs and sailed her in the middle of the night. Our ace in the hole was gone. She had been a symbol of man's courage to buck the odds and strike for the good of all seamen. Now we had lost our symbol in Baltimore. Our literature had to be changed. Our proud leaflet that read "There she lays!" had to be discarded. The sailing of the Floridian had a profound effect on some of the former crew members. They sank into a state of demoralization and moroseness.
In New York, the strike was reaching its zenith as the 25th ship's crew joined the strike. Of the 25 ships that were strike-bound, more than half had been crewed with scabs and returned to the high seas. It was only a matter of time before the rest of the struck ships would hire creeps, derelicts and scabs and head to sea. This was a high priority on the shipowner's list: keep the ships sailing at any and all costs to discourage other crews from joining the striking ranks and to show them that they could not win.
Since it was springtime in the East, the seamen named their strike, "The Spring Strike." It would involve some 7,000 seamen and succeed in collecting thousands of dollars from the public in its support. Hundreds of thousands of meals were served through our soup kitchens; millions of leaflets were distributed. In addition to picket line duty, the striking seamen took their case to the public via radio and demonstrations throughout the affected areas. Despite the support the strike received from trade unions throughout the country, the top leadership of the AFL did not abandon their attacks on the strike. Daily, via the press and radio, they continued to call the strike a Communist plot and the strikers all Communist dupes.
The strike was now in its eighth week. A meeting was called to evaluate it: where we had been, where we were at the moment and where we were going. This involved just the top leadership of the strike committee. The meeting continued throughout the day. There seemed to be a consensus that the strike had reached and passed its full effect. Nothing more could be gained by prolonging it. Over the previous eight weeks more than ninety ships' crews had participated. The rank-and-file movement to reform the ISU had involved thousands of seamen who never before had come face-to-face with the issue of building a strong rank-and-file union. The majority at the meeting were convinced that now these hundreds of seamen had to be gotten back on board ships. In this way future organization could be achieved.
When these decisions were reported to a general meeting, some greeted it with applause and others booed. Men took the floor and voiced their opinions regardless of how popular or unpopular they might be. A vote was taken. The majority had decided to terminate the strike. What remained now was to get a dialogue going between the ISU officials and the leaders of the rank and file to obtain assurances that there would be no retaliation or discrimination. After a few days of negotiations a pledge was given by the ISU executive board that gave assurances that most of the men would be allowed to return, with the exception of Curran and a few others. They were to remain expelled. (Included among the expelled members were several men of the Left who would play prominent roles in the future of the maritime industry, men like Blackie Myers, Ferdinand Smith, Joe Stack and Howard MacKenzie.)
The Party suggested setting up a permanent skeleton organization. A Seamen's Defense Committee was formed, to be headed by Curran and a few other leaders. The objectives of the committee were to keep in touch with the rank and file, to supply them with literature and to encourage them to organize their ships for the future, when another blow could be struck for honest unionism on the waterfront.
Down in Baltimore I greeted the decision to return to the ships with enthusiasm. Most of the crew of the Floridian had left town, heading for southern ports. Only a half dozen men stayed around to carry out the mandate of the New York Seamen's Defense Committee: prepare for a strike in the future. The Baltimore police who patrolled the Thames Street section of the waterfront made sure we understood that our presence was not something desired. We had been singled out by the officials of the ISU as radicals who deserved nothing better that to be driven out of town. Just a few years earlier, when the MWIU was st
rong in the port, the police had kept their distance from the waterfront. They recognized that any intimidation or strong-arming against the seamen would bring about a demonstration. However, with no strong union around to defend the seamen's rights, the police were now in a better position to push their weight around. They cornered drunken seamen, first rolling them of what money they carried, then clubbing them in the bargain. There was no limit to what the cops could do, and we knew we had to be extremely vigilant not to make a mistake which would give the police a chance to crawl on us.
Late one night, five of us were returning from a party meeting to our waterfront lodgings. We stopped in for a cup of coffee at a restaurant just a few feet from our rooming house. One of us had been nursing a pint of whiskey throughout the evening and was fairly out of it by the time we entered the restaurant. As fate would have it, sitting at the counter was the agent of the Baltimore branch of the ISU, Blythe, a reactionary bastard. We saw him, and he saw us. Unfortunately, our half-drunk companion saw him, too. He shouted a curse at him. The ISU agent said nothing but continued eating his meal. The man sitting next to him got up and left the restaurant. We tried to shut up our boisterous friend, and for a while we were successful. We continued drinking our coffee with relative peace of mind, but serenity was something too good to ask for. With the fury of alcohol taking the place of reason, our friend got up, walked behind the counter, picked up a long bread knife and moved toward the ISU agent. I jumped up, grabbed the knife from his hand and turned when I heard the door open. In walked six policemen who wasted no time in getting to me. Quickly we were hustled outside, then prodded with nightsticks to move across the street toward a dark section where the call box was located. "Looks like we caught you just in time, before you sliced off everyone's head," said a short, brutal-looking cop who faced me.
