Depression in Akron as reaction takes hold after the failed 1913 rubber workers’ walkout.

‘The City of Rubber’ by Mort E. Warshawsky from Solidarity. Vol. 7 No. 353. October 14, 1916.

An hour’s ride south over undulating country, by trolley from the outskirts of Cleveland and you’ll awaken to the fact that you have saved an hour, because the time in Akron is the same as the time you left Cleveland.

This doesn’t mean that the town of Akron presents the proletariat with an hour of labor, but that they keep central time, an hour is gained from here to there. And compensation steps into its own on the return when an hour is lost.

Akron was originally mapped out in one of the irregular sections of the state, and the inhabitants are constructed at an angle of sixty instead of ninety degrees as in the level parts of the state. This is due to the hillines of the city and adaption has turned their feet upward from the customary right angle that they usually are with the legs.

Summit county in which Akron lies is reputed to be the top-most point in the state. This is true not only as to sea-level, but also as to exploitation, and utter lack of class consciousness.

Twixt the Northern Ohio Traction & Light Company, who furnish interurban and local car service, also light and power and those noble rubber barons whose industry make all else subsidiary, the toilers are passively acquiescent to such omnipotent masters.

Several years ago when the rubber workers attempted to organize and struck to obtain their demands, one of the biggest of the rubber companies purchased a local newspaper. They waged a war of infamous lies and calumnies about the strikers and never failed to boost themselves to the sky. It is almost needless to state that this firm is still in possession of this newspaper, continuing its former policy, but in a more subtle manner than previous, although they brand every incipient craft organization attempt as decidedly “unamerican.”

Craft unionism is embryonic at the very best at present as far as Akron is concerned and there is scarcely a bit of agitation going on in this field.

The laboring population is composed immensely of foreigners with a sprinkling of the migratory voyageurs of the southern states. When the southern worker gets this far and obtains a fairly good impression of the “liberal” north, he usually flits for home as soon as he obtains the price.

Rubber and Akron are synonymous throughout the entire country. The town has a population a fraction in excess of 100,000 people, according to self-appointed census estimators. Two big rubber factories each employ upward of 15,000 workers, run three 8-hour shifts, thereby obtaining three times as much usage out of their machines in a given length of time.

Most all of the rubber companies at present are adding immense buildings to their plants. One big firm is more than doubling its present shop space.

One of the heads of the B.F. Goodrich Company, the biggest in Akron, stated something to the effect that the business and the prices for the same was so enormous that a fortune was to be made, even though the war should cease in a short time and all the new shops become superfluous.

The skilled crafts, electricians, carpenters, steam fitters and the like, receive anywhere from fifteen to thirty per cent. less than their brothers in Cleveland. For example, the electricians in Akron receive 30 cents an hour from the rubber companies to 45 cents at the best from private contractors. In Cleveland the pay is standardized at 75 cents an hour or about $2.50 an 8-hour day better than Akron’s best wage in this field.

“Come to Akron, the city of opportunity,” is the mendacious insignia billboarded about the outskirts of the town to greet the credulous traveler as he whirls into the town.

The spirit of a boom town prevails in everything but big wages. Lodging is at a premium and men will double up and each pay 50 per cent. more for rooming than an individual would for only himself in any of the “lesser advertised” cities. Apartments and private residences are even more difficult to obtain and the rent is proportionately as high.

A public spirited citizen, a veritable “pillar of society,” whose acquaintance I made while doing newspaper work down there, confided to me that he specialized in “hunky homes.” He had lately erected about 25 of the crassiest variety. These shacks consisted of two three-room suites, fitted out with one light gas fixtures and a toilet in the cellar for the use of both families. For washing there was a single faucet in the kitchen and of course no bath tub.

He advertised these “proletarian palaces” as first-class modern homes, possessing all present-day innovations, and in about a week he had rented every “home” for $20.00 monthly per suite.

It is needless to reiterate that this prevaricator is of good standing in the community and that his gifts to charity never fail to bring good returns by way of free newspaper publicity, as the society editors always mention the fact that he is “the well known real estate dealer”.

Akron has its share and no more of these broad-smiling, affable capitalists but as far as big wages and Akron is concerned, why it remains for an awakening to the all-guiding radiance of a true working class cooperation, the ONE BIG UNION.

The most widely read of I.W.W. newspapers, Solidarity was published by the Industrial Workers of the World from 1909 until 1917. First produced in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and born during the McKees Rocks strike, Solidarity later moved to Cleveland, Ohio until 1917 then spent its last months in Chicago. With a circulation of around 12,000 and a readership many times that, Solidarity was instrumental in defining the Wobbly world-view at the height of their influence in the working class. It was edited over its life by A.M. Stirton, H.A. Goff, Ben H. Williams, Ralph Chaplin who also provided much of the paper’s color, and others. Like nearly all the left press it fell victim to federal repression in 1917.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/solidarity-iww/1916/v7-w353-oct-14-1916-solidarity.pdf