Hell on the Hoof

Few U. S. citizens ever see as many as 1,000 cattle at one time. Fewer still have ever heard 75,000 bellowing.

One hot day last week over 40,000 cattle were unloaded in Chicago's stock yards. Half of them belonged to the Federal Government--emaciated beasts shipped from drought-stricken farms where neither food nor water was left for them (see above). As they were driven down the chutes from the cars some wobbled weakly. They were shot and their skinny carcasses dragged away for conversion into tallow and fertilizer.

When the hot and breathless night closed down 75,000 suffering animals jammed the pens which had been rebuilt after Chicago's stock yard fire two months ago. All night long the unhappy beasts lowed. Then the sun rose again. It was the dawn of the hottest day in Chicago's history: official temperature, 104DEG, stock yard temperature, 110DEG. But no one went to feed the cattle, no one gave them water, no one hurried them to the mercy of the slaughterhouse. The 800 livestock handlers of Union Stock Yards & Transit Co.-- "the cowboys of the stock yards"--were in the street instead of in the pens, pacing slowly back & forth, bearing placards: THIS PLACE UNFAIR TO ORGANIZED LABOR.

Seventy-five thousand unorganized cattle bellowed an anguished protest. A few coatless clerks of the stock yards and commission houses, a few foremen and superintendents in shirt sleeves--in all, perhaps, 200 men--went down into the pens to water 75,000 thirsty cattle. The Government dared not hire men to care for its 50,000 head for fear of being accused of strikebreaking. So all day the foremen and white collar workers labored alone. The thirsty beasts balked at being driven from pen to pen, at being sorted out by inexperienced hands. All day long the air above the yards was filled with an unending din--the bellowing of parched, tortured cattle.

Next day the commission brokers by special permission of the union sold the few thousand head which were privately owned. More Government cattle were shipped to fresh pastures, others turned over to packers for slaughter. A train of Pullman cars was shunted into the yards to house strikebreakers. And 400 scabs, mostly boys from droughty farms eager to earn an honest penny at the risk of a broken pate, watered and fed the cattle, drove them under sheds and viaducts that offered some protection from the blazing sun. In a few days the yards were more than half empty. Thereafter Chicago's stock yard strike settled down into an ordinary labor struggle.

For the Government, trying to save the cattle of drought-stricken farmers, the partial loss of the great Chicago stock yards as a shipping point was serious. For the packing houses it was less serious. Even in ordinary times the packers buy some hogs direct from concentration points in the cattle country. Shipments of "direct" cattle, private and Government owned, continued and soon began to increase. Chicago's commission men, who normally receive the bulk of the cattle and over half the hogs on consignment at the stock yards, virtually shut up shop. Their own livestock handlers would have struck in sympathy with the stock yards' handlers had not the Live Stock Exchange, of which all commission men are members, made that unnecessary by suspending all trading.

The 800 handlers normally employed by the Union Stock Yards to feed, water, unload, load, drive and weigh cattle struck originally last November for better wages and hours. That strike was quickly settled when it was agreed to submit all questions in dispute to an arbitrator. Federal Judge Philip L. Sullivan was suggested by the union and accepted by the company. On June 1 he rendered a decision: A 10% to 25% wage increase retroactive for 13 weeks, a 40-hour work week and the stipulation that those terms were to be binding on both parties until June 1935. Six weeks after the decision the union declared that the company was not fulfilling the settlement terms, made additional new demands, threatening a strike if they were not granted in 48 hours. The company offered to go before Judge Sullivan and abide by his decision if it had not lived up to its contract, but refused to listen to new demands.

"The men have lost confidence in Judge Sullivan," said a union leader. Thus the strike began. Last week two Federal mediators were trying to patch up the dispute. Chief danger was that the livestock handlers might persuade the Amalgamated Meat Cutters & Butcher Workmen to strike in sympathy, thus closing the huge packing houses and threatening a meat famine.

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