Cantrell, of the Lake Seamen’a Union, recounts the years-long struggle of workers on the ships and docks of the Great Lakes to organize in their interests against the bosses and the class collaborators in the craft unions.

‘The Lake Seamen’ by Frank Cattell from the International Socialist Review. Vol. 11 No. 10. April, 1911.

ROBERT CORCORAN, the Marine Union Fireman, has at last been found guilty of cutting off the ear of a scab fireman named Fraser on the night of June 27th last. The trial lasted over two weeks and the jury were out six hours. Nine ballots were taken. Daniel Cruice, the well-known Chicago lawyer, defended the accused. An appeal for a new trial is now being made.

This case is the outgrowth of the war on the Marine Unions by the Steel Trust, alias the Lake Carriers’ Association. The fight has been waged for three years and the end is not yet in sight.

During this time a score of union men have been murdered in cold blood by the hired assassins of the Shipping Trust. Brutal murders of union men are followed by prompt acquittals of the hired butchers. While union men, innocent of any crime, are arrested on some trumped up charge, thrown into jail and railroaded to the penitentiary as victims of craft unionism.

Over a score of boats have been sunk, hundreds of accidents have occurred as a result of incompetent crews on these vessels.

Corcoran was convicted on the unsupported testimony of a pimp who acknowledged on the witness stand that he had never done a day’s work in his life and had lived in a house of prostitution for the past three years.

Corcoran took the stand. denied being in the vicinity 0n the night of the crime and had a dozen witnesses to support him. In spite of all they could do the prosecution was unable to shake his testimony or that of his witnesses.

Four union men were arrested in New York and brought back to Buffalo. Charged with this crime: Robert Corcoran, Joseph Myers, Larry Millan and John Norton. Myers has already been sentenced to serve from six to thirteen years in Auburn prison. An appeal to the Supreme Court for him is pending. Norton and Millan have been in jail over seven months and have not been tried yet.

These workingmen are innocent and everybody knows it. But the Steel Trust is determined to smash the Marine Unions and hopes to do so by bankrupting them through defending the men arrested on false charges.

These men are victims of craft unionism. They would never have gone to jail if the unions in Buffalo had raised a protest. Debs offered to come here and hold a protest meeting, but the unions laid down for fear they would offend the Powers that Boss. They decided it would be the best policy to go around quietly and collect a few paltry dollars to pay a lawyer to defend their brothers. The business agent of the Central Labor Body had sons holding down political jobs.

It is not the leaders who do the picketing or who go up against the guns of Corporation detectives. They take no risks. As Debs says, they are cowards and lack the courage to stand up at the front and if these leaders believe in craft unionism and are honest about it. Let them furnish the corpses as well as draw the salaries. Let them have some of the hardships as well as banquets with plutocratic lords under the prostituted auspices of the Civic Federation, where the triumphs of craft unionism are lauded to the skies.

The Lake Unions engaged in this struggle have put up a heroic fight against tremendous odds. This is one of the hardest fought battles that ever occurred in this or any other country.

It is not the SCABS that have defeated the unions, but the craft unions themselves. In 1904 the Masters and Pilots went on strike and the remainder of the unions stayed at work. in consequence of which the Masters and Pilots were defeated.

In 1906 the Mates, Firemen and Longshoremen went on strike and the union Sailors and Cooks stayed at work because they had contracts which they have been taught to believe are “sacred.” They watched their brothers go down to defeat.

In the spring of 1909 the Lake Carriers’ Association demanded that every man employed on their vessels take out what they called “a welfare book.” Ln this book was recorded degree of ability, description of physical traits, and character of the man. The book cost him one dollar. It was to be turned over to the captain of the vessel on which the man shipped. If he quit the boat or complained in any way of the treatment accorded him. or the captain did not like his looks. his book was withheld and he was forever barred from sailing on the lakes again.

The men were to get the benefits from being possessors of this book when they were dead. when the Bosses promised to bury them, provided they were obedient slaves during their lives.

The unions protested, seeing this move threatened their very existence, and the Seamen, Cooks, Firemen and Engineers called a strike. But the other crafts. being composed of “good union men” and not wishing to offend their masters by breaking their contract, stayed at work.

So we have the spectacle of Union Tug men towing ships loaded with scabs; union grain scoopers helping scabs to unload grain and union dredgemen digging deeper channels so that scab boats can navigate safely. The engineers have been completely wiped out and the seamen, firemen and cooks are being supported by the seamen on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

Money cannot win this fight. For every dollar the unions can contribute, the Trust can and will contribute a million. Only through an industrial organization composed of everybody employed in the transportation industry and recognizing their class interests and that an injury to one is an injury to all, can this fight be won?

The rank and file are ready for such an organization, but the so-called leaders keep them apart. President Conners of the Longshoremens’ Union, is a member of the Executive Board of the Militia of Christ, an organization formed by the Capitalist Class and composed of labor leaders. or labor skinners to preach the Identity of Interest between Slave and Master and to fight Socialism.

It will be a great day for the working class and a bad day for the leaders when the unions wake up and recognize how they have been fooled.

The unbearable conditions aboard the ships have caused the scabs themselves to revolt and they are now joining the unions in a body. The latest rule of the Trust, of withholding one—tenth of the pay of every man until the close of the season has finally convinced the strike breakers that working for the vessel trust means absolute slavery.

Only the men who remain till the close of the season are entitled to receive this 10 per cent. In other words. any man who quit for any reason or who is fired, will be docked 10 per cent of his total wages. No matter how wretched the conditions aboard his boat may be. He will have no means of protesting and he will not dare quit unless he wishes to lose one—tenth of his earnings. And the man who quits will be blacklisted for life.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v11n10-apr-1911-ISR-gog-Corn-OCR.pdf