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Bustin' unions: Under ‘Crape-Hanger’ Davidson, businesses perfected ways to crush workers
By Bill Millikan 28 March 2007
Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the Union Advocate newspaper as part of its centennial series in 1997.
On April 6,1917, the United States declared war on Germany. The Minnesota Union Advocate advised the working men and women of St. Paul to "Be True Americans Now" and support the country's war effort. |
The St. Paul Association, representing the leading businessmen of the city, promised "to devote its energies without stint to the solution of the problems which war lays before the city." One worrisome "problem" was the growing strength of local labor unions, particularly in the building trades. Association leaders were also well aware that Minneapolis was the center of activities in the Northwest for the militant IWW, commonly known as the Wobblies. With the mobilization of the state's National Guard units into the American army, the Twin Cities would soon be left defenseless prey for the radical union agitators. "Something must be done to protect these two cities," the businessmen said.
The Association's executive committee, dominated by men that led the city's open shop drive in 1903, immediately decided to organize an army of businessmen. They would protect themselves!
Real estate magnate E.A. Davidson was chosen chairman of a civic council that would organize the St. Paul Civilian Auxiliary. Although Davidson had no military experience, he was perfectly suited for the Auxiliary's real mission. As chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, he had engineered a massive financial and membership drive to unify the business community. As Vice President of Industrial Affairs and also leader of the National Association of Building Owners & Managers labor committee, Davidson had studied the labor "problem" and developed strong ideas about dealing with it.
Crushing the union threat
The Association publicly justified their new army as an educational experience for local businessmen that would enhance their efforts to mobilize industry in support of the country's war effort. Privately, they appointed Davidson, a man with the contacts and philosophy necessary to organize a force capable of crushing any union or radical threat.
Davidson quickly called for meetings of the city's many civic organizations. Membership poured in from across the city. The Athletic Club, the Elks and the Minnesota Boat Club all pledged over 100 members, while the Rotary Club, Shriners and the neighborhood commercial clubs all pledged a large percentage of their membership. Within a week Davidson had organized a force of 900 business and professional men, including local leaders in banking, industry, education, politics and law. But who would train and equip the Association's army, and where would they train?
At a luncheon meeting on April 4, Davidson and his Association colleagues pleaded for and received the complete cooperation of Roman Catholic Archbishop John Ireland. The staff, facilities and equipment of the St. Thomas Military Academy were donated for the training of the Civilian Auxiliary. On April 8, St. Thomas Commandant R.I. Rees drilled 250 businessmen in "awkward squads" of eight for two hours while the Archbishop watched. The college volunteered classrooms for military lectures, constructed outdoor lighting to accommodate evening drills, and furnished rifles from its armory. Although the businessmen initially bought their own uniforms, the Association later raised funds to pay for winter clothing, including knee length, wool-lined overcoats. The men provided their own handguns and riot clubs.
'War on the home front'
By the fall of 1917, the St. Paul Association was prepared for war on the home front against their sworn enemies - the IWW and local labor unions.
The Association's fears were realized on Oct. 6, 1917, when streetcar workers struck Twin City Rapid Transit Co. in St. Paul and Minneapolis. TCRT president Horace Lowry absolutely refused to recognize or negotiate with the Amalgamated Association of Street & Electric Railway Employees. In response, thousands of strikers and their sympathizers marched through the streets of downtown St. Paul. The out-numbered police were powerless as the crowd smashed streetcar windows, shouting "scab" and "yellow" at the remaining nonunion employees.
Across the river the heavily armed Minneapolis Civilian Auxiliary guarded company car barns, escorted streetcars on their routes and controlled the streets of the mill city. Davidson and the St. Paul Auxiliary, armed and ready, waited inside the St. Paul Armory for orders that never came. Ramsey County Sheriff Wagener and State Home Guard Major Mitchell were both reluctant to call out the St. Paul Association's private army, which was not yet an official part of either organization. Four days later the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety, shocked by the vehemence of the union upsurge in St. Paul, ordered a halt to the strike.
With tension again mounting in late November, Lowry issued an ultimatum that any men wearing union buttons or agitating on company property would be fired. The union, fighting for its very existence, defied Lowry and the Public Safety Commission and walked off the job again. At 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 2, close to 3,000 strikers and their sympathizers gathered in Rice Park to listen to the fiery speeches of leaders of the NonPartisan League. As the crowd dispersed, the street car company turned off its power system, leaving dozens of street cars stranded in the downtown area. The Pioneer Press reported that "trolley cars were surrounded and attacked, their motormen and conductors were dragged off and roughly handled." By 6 p.m. Twin City Rapid Transit had suspended all service and pulled all its cars except the 40 that had been disabled. Thousands of people across St. Paul were stranded without transportation. In Minneapolis, Lowry's heavily guarded street cars continued their regular service. Sheriff Wagener's small force of deputies and the police department were once again unable to control the massive crowds. Horace Lowry had the crisis he needed to demand a massive military mobilization.
Mobilization
Late that afternoon Davidson received a telephone call at his home. He was instructed to eat a hearty meal and report to the armory with his full equipment. Major Mitchell, again failing to receive orders from Sheriff Wagener, took action on his own authority, dispatching units of the Home Guard and the Civilian Auxiliary into downtown St. Paul. By 7 p.m. Davidson and the Auxiliary's D Company were marching down 6th Street in columns of four. Armed with side arms and riot clubs, the Auxiliary began making arrests at Wabasha & 7th Street, where a large hostile crowd had gathered. Swollen even larger by the patrons of several movie theaters, the crowd jeered the "silk stocking" army. The "riot" was gradually "quelled" as the union supporters walked home leaving the downtown area deserted. In the roar of anti-union publicity that followed, the Union Advocate suggested that the violent rioting had been instigated by the streetcar company to provoke military action.
The business leaders of the St. Paul Association had had enough. Davidson was summoned by vice president Meyers to a mass meeting in the Commerce Building. Led by president C.H. Bigelow, the directors of the Association petitioned Governor Burnquist to remove Sheriff Wagener from office for failing to act during the crisis. On Dec. 3, with Wagener deposed, the Governor appointed Davidson sheriff of Ramsey County. The business community's army would now be led by its own sheriff, a man who would dedicate the next decade to the suppression of St. Paul unions.
Sheriff Davidson announced that "if there is any disturbance today it will be the last time there is any in this town. We mean business, and if those fellows give us a chance, we'll go for them so they'll never forget it." If there was any more rioting there would be "many funerals in union homes" and there would be a great deal of "crape to be hung in union doors."
Davidson's threats were immediately backed up by a massive mobilization of troops. The St. Paul Association mustered out 200 more of the Civilian Auxiliary and helped the St. Paul Public Safety Commissioner hire another 200 deputies. Wagener's anemic force of 20 deputies quickly became an army of 900. Automobile squads of special deputies left the armory equipped with 200 sawed off shotguns.
In addition, state Adjutant General Rhinow brought in 11 Home Guard companies from Duluth, Red Wing, Winona, Mankato, Faribault, Crookston, Morris and Austin. The 1,500 soldiers slept on the floor of the state Capitol and were taken care of by Auxiliary members while they supposedly fought the "war of St. Paul." The streetcar company was quite pleased with the added protection, quickly returning to near normal service.
With the firepower of the state militia, the political backing of the Governor and the Minnesota Public Safety Commission and the organizational support of the St. Paul Association, Lowry defied Twin Cities unions and a Mediation Commission of the federal government. Twin City Rapid Transit recruited and hired non-union workers to replace the striking streetcar employees. The 800 men were never rehired.
Bill Millikan is a working man who has researched and written extensively on the Citizen's Alliance, its predecessors and its modern-day incarnation, the Employer's Association. He is the author of A Union Against Unions, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2001. |
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