The Quarterly Journal of Contemporary Narrative Verse
Fall 1997 Volume I Number 3
NEWTON STEEL
by Ronald Gordon Ziegler
NEWTON STEEL
by Ronald Gordon Ziegler Ph.D.
c 1986
Prologue
Along the banks of the River Raisin
as it flows into Lake Erie's wet,
stand twin towers of the future
blinking as a lightning set
across the waters, so that sailors
out upon that shallow sea
on warm summer nights await the thunder
the flashing would portend there'd be.
South of Fermi's citadels
rising o'er medieval cries of fear,
stand two sentinel smokestacks,
but different from those of other years;
and they, too, set their flashing
out across the flatland country
stretchhing toward the sunset haze.
On the west shore of Lake Erie
where the Raisin marsh did unfold,
among the lotus and the white crane,
another story yet is told
-- not the tale of Colonel Custer
who was a Braddock of the west,
nor of the Raisin Massacre,
nor of where Custer's horse is laid to rest,
nor of the founding of the Frenchtown,
later called for President Monroe,
nor of U of M's, or accounts
of the state's first capital.
For this was a workers' town --
a town of hardworking common men
as much as it was anyone's --
and this is a tale of them.
The paper mills set their smokestacks
and furnaces were the trade;
in times even before furniture
and shock-absorbers were made.
Workers, farmers, grinding out
the wealth that made our land;
surely the product of entrepreneurial zest,
but equally of their hand.
"Don't walk out! Sit down! Sit down!"
-- the cry of two score years and ten
-- in the dark days of the thirties,
when they organized GM.
They fought the battle of the Overpass
and in Flint they yelled "Sit down!;"
deputies ran in Minnesota;
and in Toledo, workers ran the town.
In those days this was a different town;
lying different now is the land;
it was here in thirty-seven
that the workers made their stand.
The Telegraph Office
For as long as anyone can remember,
a railroad track ran through town
passed the Evening News and main street
from the mill and further down.
And just across from old Dorsch Library
to a small storefront set aside
the now foresaken Sears and Roebuck,
the wires of the world were tied.
A train was passing slowly eastward
along First Street one new spring day
at early morning, as the manager
of the Postal Telegraph made his way
alongside the freightcars to the doorway
of the office. The paper in his hand
was filled with stories of the sitdowns
breaking out across the land.
Two weeks before, first at Dodge Main
and then eight other Chrysler plants
around the Motor City, workers
had locked themselves inside to chant:
"Don't walk out! Sit down! Sit down!;"
seeking just to have the right
to decent wages and safe standards
and a union to represent their plight.
And in the weeks before that fire
had spread across the assembly lines,
three dozen other Detroit factories
had set upon the same design
that had won the union Fisher Body
-- at Flint, GM was organized --
and now cigar workers -- even Woolworths --
were sitting down organized.
On the front page were the photos
of workers holding signs that read
"Injunctions won't build automobiles:"
"We're here to stay," the banners said.
And flying underneath Old Glory,
the Union had drapped other signs:
"Give us liberty or give us death," and
"Scabs and rats won't run this line."
In just two months, two hundred thousand
would end a march at Cadillac Square
in a rally for the right to strike
and unionize -- they gathered there.
And three days later at the Rouge Plant,
vowing they would never pass,
henchmen met the organizers
and bloodied them at the overpass.
But now a large black man was waiting
just outside the office door
and entered in behind Carl Ziegler,
as the rain outside began to pour.
The Organizer
Leonidas MacDonald was a big man,
standing fully six foot three,
and hefty, just as you'd expect
a steel organizer to be.
He was sent to town some weeks before
by the U.S.W.A.
to co-ordinate the effort
to unionize the mill. He stayed
at the Park Hotel -- a hot spot once,
which in its own heyday
had been the resting place of Presidents
and all who knew where to stay
when they passed through Monroe.
He stopped in once a day
for friendly words and for business
and then went out and on his way.
"Young fella, I made it through another week.
What have you got for me?"
Cork thumbed through a paper stack
and said, "Well, now, let me see.
Your stipend draft is in here
and a reply to the report you sent.
But it don't say much, Mr. MacDonald."
"Hell, it'll pay the rent!,"
came back the big man's retort
with a laugh as he read;
but the laugh ended abruptly
as he realized what it said.
"Lewis and Murphy have decided
that our friends in government
are all we need if we have to strike."
The message they had sent
had ruled out using a sit-down.
After all, good old FDR
was firmly in their corner,
and the N.L.R.B. was far
along in its endeavours,
and would guarantee their rights.
"Washington's a long way off
if there's gonna be a fight,"
MacDonald said to Corky just as
the telegrapher sat down at his desk.
"Know a good place for breakfast
that you might suggest?"
Every day he asked him that
and he always got the same reply,
for there was not a real bg choice,
and the telegraph operator was not shy:
"Well, there's Munch's on the corner
and Kresge's should be open soon.
Or you can walk over to Roy's Triangle,
but it's still a good little while till noon,
and the bars won't be open till then.
"Wanna treat me to a beer?'
"Ah, yes, that's just what I need.
As long as I am here,
I don't think I'll be drinking much.
They even watch me when I sleep."
"They'll be in here before you go.
Got a wire for me to keep
until they leave?" asked Corky.
And he took the message down
and slipped it into his desk drawer.
But before he could sit down,
the door to the office opened
and in walked Joe Barley,
the county sheriff himself, no less,
and MacDonald said calmly,
"Well, fancy meeting you here, Sir."
"Don't hand me that crap,"
the Sheriff said as he turned about
with his customary snap,
"I just want to remind you
that we're watching your every step.
We don't want no trouble here.
These men don't need no Rep
from somewhere's else -- especially you,"
he chuckled and then he said,
"What on earth were they thinking of
sending you in here instead
of a white man. I guess they know
that there won't be no strike here.
The men won't listen to you.
Just remember who the boss is here."
"Yessur, mas'sr," replied MacDonald.
"Watch yourself, there, son,"
Barley spat out as he turned and left.
"In every town there's one,"
MacDonald softly uttered
as the door went briskly shut;
"But there's more than one in this town
who'd like to kick my butt.
Listen, Corky, do you think that
you could cash this here for he again?
The bank won't do it and the post office
will not be opening until ten?"
Cork counted out the money
and MacDonald said, "I'm Weisel's bound.
See you again tomorrow, that is,
if I'm alive and still around."
And with that he was out the door,
across the tracks and street
to Weisel's for his breakfast.
Against the window, the raindrops beat.
The Mill
The Cuyahoga River ends
its trek through Ohio
emptying into Lake Erie
at Cleveland, its muddy flow;
and up above the city
it winds and splashes along
toward its destination
whispering its streamy song.
Here and there along its way
through Ohio's rich farmland,
it cascades over rocky falls
where little towns came to stand,
built around the many mills
and shops that used its flow
to provide the drive and electricity
they took as it would go;
miniature reflections of those
of Youngstown and Pittsburgh east,
set in this heartland of America
where man's labor is unleashed
to order the world and subdue the land
as had been His decree,
using muscle and machine to enhance
his muscle so he could be more free.
Newton Falls was one such burg
that grew along its way,
and among its mills was Newton Steel
which set out to parley
its sales to Detroit's auto plants
into a plant built more closely to
the teeming assembly lines of Ford,
Chrysler, GM, and Packard, too.
And so thye came to Monroe
and at the very western shore
of Erie, built a steel mill
where the river was deep enough for
the ships to slip in and where railroads,
which a centruy before had made
this town bigger than Detroit and Toledo
though now it was in their shade,
could take on the great rolls
which could be formed to make
cars and trucks and tractors
just up the Detroit River above the lake.
With the mill, Newton Steel had brought
a large number of its men
to settle in this quiet town,
and their families came with them.
(And, as it had brought MacDonald
to pass through the telegrapher's life,
it also had brought the family
that would later give him his wife).
Little Steel
This was the Great Depression
of which stories fill our lore,
by which we judge much our present,
and which filled every pore
of every working man who lived
and suffered through its reign,
leaving scars that never heal
on those who felt its pain.
This was the Great Depression
which had brought America down
onto one knee crying --
no less in this River Raisin town.
And yet the mill of Newton Steel
ran on, though at a pace
reduced from what it had been
in that earlier time and place.
Misery followed unemployment
as the economy was shut down,
but the mill rolled on in Monroe
-- a life-line for the town.
It ground out steel in fiercest heat,
oppressive heat the men endured --
it ground out steel in fiercest heat,
oppressing those who were secured
in their jobs by whatever fate
left them to be employed.
It ground out steel in fiercest heat,
their sweating muscles yet enjoyed
for the luxury of working,
while it idled so many more,
and it ground their flesh into the steel,
and fire filled their every pore.
While all across the nation,
the men whose muscle seared
with the heat of that oppression
were permeated with the fear
that tomorrow they'd be laid off,
if they merely bent beneath the weight,
or were overheard whispering "Union,"
in an effort to stand up straight.
And all across the nation,
the men whose muscle ached
with the heat of that oppression
were organizing just to make
a place for themselves in the sun
that seemed somehow to have set
-- but each knew this was America
and were willing to stake a bet
upon their blood and spirit
that it would rise again,
and that the only way to help it
was to stand up and be men.
This was the Great Depression.
But they ground out steel in fiercest heat.
And all across the nation
working men would not accept defeat.
The Big Steel strikes were organized
and the Union won the day
singing, "Solidarity Forever."
And America heard them say
"Don't Walk Out! Sit Down! Sit Down!,"
as Detroit was organized,
and the men in little steel plants
across the nation heard the cries.
Then in 1937,
in May and June they made their show,
and the Little Steel Strike erupted
and came to Newton Steel in Monroe.
Interlude: The Proletarians
This was the Great Depression.
They ground out steel in fiercest heat.
And all across the nation,
working men would not accept defeat.
All across the nation,
the men whose flesh was seared
with the heat of the oppression
were filled full of fear
that tomorrow they'd be jobless
and they'd see their childred weak
with hunger in ragged clothes --
and many set to seek
a way that it be ended --
these men whose muscle ached
with the heat of that oppression,
were organizing just to make
a place to stand in the sun
the heat told them was there,
though it was hidden behind dark clouds,
eclipsed from their stare,
or that the heat that burned their flesh
was truly the stuff of hell,
and they resolved that if the devil
was at fault, then, well,
they'd make a revolution --
they would not accept defeat.
This was the Great Depression.
They ground out steel in fiercest heat.
And in Monroe in this depression
there were three such men
who could look the devil in the eye
and then spit on him.
In June of 1920 while
the left squabbled over what to do,
under John Keracher's leadership,
those in Michigan formed into
a Proletarian Party
which rejected all the rot
that the socialists bickered over,
and while they had got
inspired by the Bolsheviks,
they were not prepared to bow
before a foreign master.
Yet they saw clearly how
it had been these people
who were the vanguard in the strikes
and in organizing unions,
and though they would have liked
to have sparked a revolution,
they also spoke clearly
of our American Revolution.
And it was they who would be
the forgers of the ferment
in this little town.
They helped organize the W.P.A.
crews working all around
Monroe into an organization
of several hundred men.
And one man named Andy Geddes,
who was a Proletarian,
put together a whole series
of classes and groups to build
a movement there to lead the way
and to be a shield
for all the working people
who would face oppressive heat.
And Andy Geddes taught them
that they should not accept defeat.
But in all his labors,
though he planted many seeds,
he was but one man among many.
And yet, by his deeds,
he helped create a spirit
that would help to make them know
that they should stand and fight
when Little Steel came to Monroe.
Walter Hancock, John Popescu,
and Andy Geddes -- these three
from Monroe gave fire
to the fight that was to be:
this was the Proletarian Party --
their local active Monroe cadre.
This was the Great Depression --
and the fight was set to be.
Hospitality
A small town is a rumor mill,
and when 'scandal' is brewing, even more --
especially when there are those
who have an interest in making sure
that they fester and grow to their ends --
and when you mix in bigotry,
the devil finds a welcome
that can become malignancy.
And thrust down in the middle
of all that pent up steam
was Leonidas MacDonald --
the scapegoat of all the schemes.
He had a car, or at least,
it belonged to the U.S.W.A.,
and he needed it for his work;
but as he returned one day
from a trek that he had made
to Toledo to the union hall,
along Telegraph just north of Erie,
in the midst of the road, a stalled
car was set with two men
working under the raised hood.
Leonidas stopped to try to help,
but they had meant no good.
As he stepped out of his car,
three men appeared from the woods
and grabbed and held MacDonald,
while the other two who stood
by the stalled car came back
and smashed the windows in his car
and then set in on fire,
and then hit him with the bar
in the stomach and across the back,
and then one man let loose
a fist to his jaw. They dragged him
to a tree and made a noose,
and fastened it around his neck
and tied his hands and feet,
and then left him lying bloody there
along that country street.
He walked to town that evening,
and as he walked, a car
kept going passed and hurling
beer bottles at him from afar.
When he got back to the hotel,
he was told his room was gone
and that there was no other,
and that he must move on.
So a local steel worker
took MacDonald to stay at his place,
and the next day he was fired,
and that night, they laced
his house with round of gunfire.
Then when Sunday came around,
while he was gone to church that day,
they burned it to the ground.
In his yard were Ku Klux crosses,
and in the grass were burned
the words 'Nigger' and 'communist,'
which his actions had so earned.
The Leonidas took a room
at the swank City Hotel
and walked down Front Street
to a meeting that was attended well.
But as he went back that night
toward his hotel room, then
they pulled him into an alley
and beat him once again.
Yet MacDonald would not give up
as would have a lesser man;
his courage was an inspiration.
And then the strike began.
STRIKE!
When workers sat up picket lines,
the town took sides in the dispute.
And the national media all rushed in
to feed and reap the fruit.
S.W.O.C. sent in more men to help
and each day the tension would grow.
Support was organized by several groups
for the strike throughout Monroe.
The W.P.A. crews were to lend
much moral and physical aid,
and workers at other local plants
joined in support and stayed
night and day along the picket line,
and helped with food and such,
but the strike dragged on and on and on
until tempers were too much.
The reporters sat around the bars
and tried to drink them dry,
and manufactured stories
that could only come from being high.
On one warm night while one of them
was collapsed against the wall
of the Postal Telegraph office,
a colleague heeded to the call
and had the operator send his story
to his paper in New York one way,
and then leave out underlined words
and send it off the next day
to the paper in Chicago
of the man lying in a stupor.
Then he helped him to his feet
and dragged him off out the door.
THE VIGILANTES
And those who knew this rotten strike
had been cooked up in Moscow,
or were equally as lucid
in their reasoning, allowed
the strike to go on a short time,
but then would not be denied,
and set about to break the strike.
There's not much that wasn't tried.
They seem to have received much support
from Mayor Knaggs and Joe Barley.
One man put a lathe upon
a flat-bed truck, and he
turned out make-shift ball bats
which were distributed
to vigilantes from the court house steps,
and, what's more, it is said
that city funds bought the lumber
used to make them. At least,
it is true the city organized
them officially as auxilliary police.
And the club-weilding vigilantes,
with their official sanction, attacked
a demonstration of strikers and supporters,
and drove them violently back
across Loranger Square in front
of the county court house where
they rally had been being held,
and beat them severely there.
Then they were loaded onto trucks
and taken, clubs in hand, to the mill
down at the end of Elm Street,
so they could get their fill.
THE BATTLE OF THE RAISIN MARSH
The battle raged all over town,
but when the vigilantes appeared
riding out toward the plant
equipped with riot gear,
the strikers were ready for them --
they, too, had clubs and sticks,
and a battle raged for hours;
and the vigilantes took their licks!
One of the strikers, Walter Hancock,
was walking the picket line
when the police and vigilantes attacked
and smashed his picket sign.
One vigilante came after him
with a heavy cable made of steel
and Hancock took off toward the marsh
surrounding the plant; on his heels
was the pursuing vigilante.
Once they were out of sight and sound
of the others, Hancock stopped
in his tracks, and turned around.
He abruptely grabbed his pursurer
and took the cable away
and began using it on him.
He brought him down that day
with several blows from the cable,
and there he let him lay.
He didn't move and for all that is known,
he may be there yet today!
The Battle of the Marsh had been sparked
by attempts to bring in rats
and scabs across the picket lines,
but they failed in doing that.
They all retreated back to town --
the police, vigilantes, scabs, and rats;
the strikers had carried the day --
idle, the steel mill sat.
ON A RAIL
And the strike went on for days and weeks
through both May and June.
The vigilantes did not go back
to the steel plant, but at noon
one day, a group of them seized hold
of Leonidas crossing Loranger Square
as he was walking toward First Street
to the telegraph office there.
At the door of the Postal Telegraph,
across the street from the library,
they grabbed him and began beating
and kicking him mercilessly.
They dragged and carried and pushed him
all the way down that block,
and turned south on Monroe Street,
where they pelted him with bricks and rocks.
MacDonald ran through traffic
to get away from their frenzied spree,
and he rushed into the Post Office,
since it was federal property.
Supposedly, he would be safe there,
but they went in and brought him out,
and the mob beat and dragged him,
amidst their shrieks and shouts,
for ten blocks south down Monroe Street
to the city limits where
they threw him, bloody, on the roadside,
and left him lying there,
nearly unconscious, with warnings
that he and all his kind
not ever return to their fair town
to cause trouble, or they'd find
even harsher treatment
from the good people of the town,
and they stood hurling epitaphs
at him until the sun went down.
Underneath the cover of darkness,
his broken form crawled away,
and stumbled along in a trail of blood
until a Teamster whose driveway
he collapsed into in a moment of fortune
came to his rescue.
He took him to a Toledo hospital.
He was still there when the strike was through.
EPILOGUE
The old town ain't the same no more
-- the Raisin flows its murky course
and dumps into Lake Erie
-- it still passes Custer's horse.
The old paper mills are idled
-- the marsh has been cleared away
-- downtown has been 'rejuvenated;'
old landmarks seen better days.
The new is replacing all the old,
and sometimes for the best;
but then there are exceptions
to every rule -- for the rest,
it just ain't the same no more
-- the town really has become
a part of megalopolis
-- it really had to come.
The old Family Theatre's torn down
and the Monroe sits empty near
-- the faces are all changing,
but the bells of St Mary's still ring clear.
All the workers won that year
was all too quickly lost.
They got their union recognized,
but quickly paid the cost;
for Newton Steel closed its doors
and left them high and dry
-- what's left of it is now a part
of the Ford plant which by and by
moved in -- they make bumpers there.
The train does not pass through
the town or passed the telegraph
-- it's not there anymore. Nor do
many remember how it was.
Oft is told the tale as true
that the last time Custer went away,
he told them not to do
anything until he got back
-- and that's just what was done
-- until about ten years ago,
they realized he wasn't going to come.
They have all gone now,
the men who wrote this tale;
but if you pay attention,
there's no way you can fail
to see the fruits of their labor
-- they made us what we are.
This was the Great Depression.
And it has left its scars.
The world is changing with the time
-- and that's lawful, they say,
for if we are to subdue the earth,
it can be no other way.
But if you travel about Michigan
-- Flint, Detroit, the little towns --
you can hear them crying out
"Don't Walk Out! Sit Down!"
And down along the Raisin,
it's not the same anymore, you feel;
but you can still hear stories
about the strike at Newton Steel.
Go to Winter 1998 issue of POeTRY
Go to beginning of POeTRY