The official death toll of workers building the Hoover Dam, a ‘public’ project, was 112. The real figure, including by starvation, was many times that. A look at the brutal conditions and strike attempts of those that built the dam.

‘Hunger, Wage Cuts, Death Is Lot of Workers at Hoover Dam’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 8 No. 191. August 10, 1931.

At Hoover dam, Las Vegas, Nevada, where the unemployed die like flies from hunger and the “lucky” workers who have jobs die from rotten food, 125 tunnel workers are out on strike against a wage cut of $1 a day.

Hoover dam, which is typical of the “Hoover prosperity,” is a graveyard for hundreds of workers. Now the government is preparing to call in troops to force the wage cut on these hungry men who have waited months for their job and who have to work under conditions that kill the strongest.

Hoover Wage Cut

The strike started on Friday, with the walkout of 125 tunnel workmen when their wages were cut from $5 a day to $4. The men demanded decent drinking water because the heat is terrific and they had been deprived of water that was fit to drink.

The Six Companies, Inc., which is contracting for the work for the United States government got in touch with J.H. Fulmer, United States Marshal at Carson City. Fulmer said he would call for troops from Fort Douglas, Utah, to shoot down strikers if this is the only way the strike could be broken.

According to capitalist reports the strike was spontaneous, and is not led by any organization.

Recently the Daily Worker printed a story from Hoover dam telling of unemployed workers killing mules for food to keep from starving. The capitalist papers have reported the desolation, misery and hunger suffered by the workers at this “great Hoover project of prosperity.”

The Federated Press correspondent in Tacoma, Washington, reports that Hoover dam workers are dying like flies. He writes:

“Men are dying like flies from bad food and accidents at the Hoover, known as Boulder Dam. Grim-minded men say the dam will be a fitting memorial to the president who prefers to see men, women and children starve than break into the $38,000,000 ‘war reserve fund’ of the American Red Cross.

“The high mortality rate at Hoover Dam is largely due to bad meat packed into the lunches of the men working in temperature of 120 to 140 degrees on the canyon face and in the bottom. The lunches, taken out in paper sacks or tin boxes, according to J.H. Cochran, Tacoma union man just returned from Las Vegas, become quickly decomposed and putrid. The men, eating this rotten meat, get sick of dysentery and other poisoning diseases.

“The highest mortality for one day in the rate of accidents, according to Cochran, came from the explosion of a delayed shot. The men had been ordered back, too soon. Eleven men died in this blast. Other accidents occurred when ropes on which men were lowered to the canyon face parted and dropped men to the canyon floor.

“Most of the deaths, however, he said, were from food poisoning. “The men are charged $1.50 for such board as they get,” said Cochran. “Ten cents for hospital per day, and a poll tax of $5 if they work ten days. With deductions of one sort or another the men knock out $2 a day provided they don’t buy anything at the commissary.

“The men are mostly paid in scrip good only at the company store, where prices are very high, and there are no opposition stores allowed near the dam site.”

‘Gov’t Orders Hoover Dam Strikers to Starve in Desert’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 8 No. 195. August 14, 1931.

Insist on Enforcing Wage Cut of $1 a Day, With Troops if Necessary ; 1,400 Men and Families Face Horrible Death

LAS VEGAS, Nev., Aug. 13.—The Hoover government has ordered 1,400 striking workers at the Hoover dam off of government land and into the desert to starve. The men are striking against a wage-cut of $1 a day. The Hoover government insisted that they take this wage-cut or starve to death.

The land at the Hoover dam site in Boulder City is government property, and, as the government is behind the wage-cut, it is ready to enforce it with troops and starvation.

The men and their families, most of whom suffered hunger and privation before they got the job, now face the stifling heat of the desert at the orders of the capitalist government. This is the same government which issues lying statements to the workers about “maintaining living standards,” while it actually uses its troops to enforce starvation.

Work Closed Down.

All work at the dam is closed down. The Hoover government is now preparing to impart scabs to carry on the work and enforce the wage-cut. Most of the men who are striking had been out of work for a long time before they got the Job at $5 a day. Then the Hoover government ordered wages cut to $4 a day. Since all the men are forced to buy goods at the company store they found they could not live.

Many men died on the job of undernourishment and heat, as well as lack of water. The strikers are demanding withdrawal of the wage-cut and supplies of decent drinking water. The construction camp here is a miserable place, dirty, unsanitary, giving the appearance of acute want.

Now the men who suffered for months until they got a job are faced with the entire government trying to put over a wage-cut.

The local authorities at Las Vegas, Nev., declared that when the strikers’ funds ran out they would be faced with starvation and that the city authorities will be unable to feed the men and their families.

This is what Hoover is waiting for so that he can lash the men back to work at the cut wages with the whip of starvation. If this the sheriff here has declared he has been promised troops to smash down the resistance of the strikers and get them to agree to wage-cuts.

The American Federation of Labor officials, meeting in Atlantic City, have not said one word against the Hoover policy of wage-cutting at the Hoover dam.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue 1: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n191-NY-aug-10-1931-DW-LOC.pdf

PDF of issue 2: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n195-NY-aug-14-1931-DW-LOC.pdf