Striking workers at one of Steubenville’s largest employers, the Pope Tin Plating Co., march across the Ohio River to the company town of Weirton, West Virginia to urge workers there to join the union.

‘Hundreds March from Steubenville to Weirton Mill’ from The Wheeling Majority. Vol. 7 No. 19. July 24, 1913.

Steubenville, Ohio, July 24. On Tuesday afternoon the strikers of the Pope plant went up to Weirton one hundred strong and marched the streets of that place. The demonstration awoke the whole town. Men, women and children flocked around to see what was going on.

The reception the strikers received was the continuous whistling from the mill warning the people of danger. The people began to ask what the trouble was. General Manager Williams and his hired thugs were soon on the scene, having motored from Steubenville like people bereft of reason. This peaceful (?) citizen soon had his mill guards paroling the town with riot guns.

If there had been an attempt to hold a meeting there would have been murder committed by those low thugs.

Some of the strikers started towards the station on the road generally used by all the people going to the depot, but were turned back by General Manager Williams and his thugs.

The Phillips Sheet and Tin Plate Company owns the town of Weirton. In fact it even assumes to own the blue sky above it. Cabin Creek and Paint Creek, West Virginia, in their worst days had nothing on this place. If there is any place in the whole universe worse than Weirton, we would like to hear of it. The people of this place may try to deny this, but they certainly have not the liberty and freedom allowed them by the constitution of our country. They dare not mention organization in any form or they are thrown out of work and are compelled to move away from the town, as the company owns nearly all of the houses.

Liberty and freedom are nothing but a joke to the slaves of Weirton. If the company thinks this is the last trip that will be made into its stronghold, it is greatly mistaken, for the strikers will soon be back again in larger numbers, and will do everything within the law to hold a meeting. They will demand that the sheriff be there to see that peace be kept by the hired thugs.

While some of the strikers were at Weirton the scabs in the Pope plant thought they would take advantage of their absence and get a little fresh air, but were greatly surprised when the men who were left on picket duty chased them back inside the stockade. They got a warm reception and we do not think they will care for a repetition of the experience soon again.