walking along together around the Raleigh Hotel, with big double sandwich signs that cover their whole front and backs, and they have their backs toward the camera. The big sandwich sign reads as follows: "Labor trouble at the Raleigh. Union waiters locked out. Imported colored scabs." The next one reads: "A colored scab has taken my place. The Raleigh Hotel has locked me out. Do not patronize it." Here is another photograph that shows the usual crowd walking around the Twelfth Street entrance of the Raleigh Hotel. It shows two pickets walking together, both of them having double cards on their hats, front and back, with signs on them calling attention to the strike. Right behind them are two more pickets with double cards on their hats, calling attention to the strike, and just behind them are two more pickets. Thus in this picture there are six pickets right together, walking in one direction on the Twelfth Street side. There are no persons at all between any of those six pickets, except a newsboy with an arm full of papers. There is a lady and man meeting the six, and then down there at the entrance you can see a crowd of people standing at the entrance. That shows the extensiveness of the strike. Then here is another photograph showing two pickets standing in front of the dining-room window of the Raleigh Hotel on the Twelfth Street side. One has double cards on his hat and the other has one on his hat. There is another picket with a sandwich sign calling attention to the strike. The big one reads, "Why patronize the Raleigh?" That is as much as I can make out. Here is another one showing a picket without any sandwich, except a scroll around his neck, standing in front of the main revolving door of the Raleigh Hotel. He is handing out strike cards to the patrons of the hotel as they come out. Here is another photograph showing a picket standing in front of the Raleigh Hotel dining-room windows with the usual big sandwich sign in front. Here is another photograph showing a picket standing in front of the Raleigh entrance on the ladies' side, if I am not mistaken. He has a big sandwich sign on, and is handing out cards. You can see him handing them out from the attitude in which he is shown. Then, here are two pickets standing in front of another entrance of the Raleigh Hotel. One has a big sandwich sign in front and another one has a sign on his hat. Here is another photograph showing two men walking around the corner of the Raleigh Hotel, both with sandwich signs in front, and one with a big sandwich sign behind. The one in front reads, "Do you prefer imported colored scabs to white waiters? If you do not, why patronize the Raleigh." The other reads, "The Government supports organized labor. The Raleigh is against it. Why patronize the Raleigh?" Here is another photograph that faces the pickets out toward the camera with a placard both in front of the picket shown and also behind his hat. The front one reads, "Colored scabs at the Raleigh. Union waiters locked out." This picket has his cigarette in one hand, and I would like for you to look at his facial expression. Here is another picket standing in front of the buffet there at the Raleigh with a double sandwich sign in front and back. I would like for you to look at his facial expression. Here is a picture that I want you to note in the light of some testimony that I will later introduce from the Washington news papers. I want you to note the two pickets standing against the wall, right against the entrance, and I want you to note their attitude. It shows that they are there in the strike for a particular purpose. They have no sandwich placards on them. Right in front of the main entrance is a lady picket standing with a big sandwich sign in front and cards in her hands, showing that she has been handing them to people going in and coming out. Here are four men standing together. Two of these are pickets and have placards on their backs, and their pockets are shown full of propaganda. They are standing there talking to a soldier, and are not walking back_and forth. They are standing there carrying on a conversation. Here is another photograph showing a picket with a large placard calling attention to the strike. Here [exhibiting] are two more photographs showing pickets who seem to be new men, and here is another photograph. I want you to look at this man's facial expression. He has a placard in front. Mr. WHEELER. He looks like a deacon. Mr. BLANTON. Here are three pickets standing together in front of a window of the Raleigh Hotel, and they have signs on. Here are two standing in front of the main entrance handing out their dope to the patrons of the hotel. Here is one with three different placards on, and here is another one with two placards. Here is another one with a placard on his hat. Here is a picture that you should see: This shows three different men with placards on, standing apparently talking in front of a dining-room window. One of them is lighting his cigar. Here is another picket standing in front of the Raleigh Hotel window; here is another picket leaning against the dining-room window, and here is another photograph showing two pickets walking from the entrance, with four ladies walking behind. Here is another photograph showing a picket standing in front of the main entrance of the Raleigh Hotel smoking his cigarette. He has some placards on. Here is another one standing right in front of the Raleigh Hotel with cards in both hands, besides the placard that he has on. Here is a photograph of a lady picket who has a sandwich sign on, and here is another photograph of two pickets standing right at the rail entrance to the Raleigh Hotel. Here is another picket with a placard, standing in front of the entrance. Here is another picket with a sandwich sign on his back and another in front, and with cards in his hand. He is talking with three men at the corner of the Raleigh Hotel. Here is another picket who is a blind man standing in front with a big sandwich sign on. standing directly in front of the Raleigh Hotel dining-room windows, with a sandwich sign covering his whole front. Here is another photograph of two pickets standing in front of the Raleigh Hotel entrance, and here [exhibiting] is still another picket standing at the hotel entrance. Here is another picture, and I want you to notice particularly the facial expression of this man. He has propaganda cards in his hands, and with strike signs on him. Here is a picket standing with a big sandwich sign covering his entire back, and he is talking with another man on the corner. All of these numerous photographs are different, no two of them being alike. Mr. WHEELER. Was Mr. Weston, the manager of the Raleigh Hotel, compelled to recognize the union? Mr. BLANTON. No; he miraculously withstood it. I am just coming to that. I personally importuned him not to give in to them. Mr. WHEELER. I have another question in mind: Do you know whether there was a reduction in the receipts of the hotel during that period or not? Mr. BLANTON. I will go into that. There was a certain convention that always meets here in Washington about that time, composed of men who belonged to a certain union. They wrote a letter to Mr. Weston, a copy of which I have seen, or, rather, I have seen the original and he gave me a copy, but I have lost it. I would like for you to see that letter, and if I can find it, I will give it to the reporter for insertion in the record. This letter called attention to the strike and called attention to the fact that they had always stopped at the Raleigh Hotel when they held their convention here. I have forgotten what this union was, but it was a big one. They wrote Mr. Weston that if he expected them to stop at the Raleigh Hotel that time, he must settle this strike proposition. Of course, that meant that he must give in to their demands. I do not know whether the Members of Congress remember it or not, but just before the special session was called, after this strike was at its height, I received a communication, and I think my colleagues who had been here some time also received them, from one of the union organizations here calling attention to the fact that this strike had been going on; that the hotel was unfair to union labor, and asking us not to patronize it when we came to Washington. That shows how propaganda will work against such a business. I told Mr. Weston that as one Member of Congress I did not believe in that kind of business, and that I hoped that in the interest of decent government and of law and order he would not permit those men to coerce him. He said that he did not think there was any danger at all of that. I asked, "Are you prepared financially to stand it?" and I was very glad to learn that the Raleigh was financially very strong. There is no question at all, however, but what the hotel suffered loss. You can not bring that pernicious sort of influence upon a citizen's business without affecting it injuriously. I will say, gentlemen, that there are mighty few members of a legislative body, when this influence is brought to bear on them, who will stand up against it. They do not like that sort of fight. They do not like to fight an organization such as this. During the last campaign unions sent two walking delegates into every town in my district. They not only sent them to the towns, but they went among the people in the country. They told the farmers on the farms that I was against the man who worked with his hands. Yet I am working for the best interests of all workingmen. I do not call organized workers scabs as unions do unorganized workers. Mr. SPROUL. If these had been white men, they would have called them scabs just the same. Mr. BLANTON. Yes; and they would have violated the law just the same as when they were calling these Negro waiters scabs. Now, let me read a clipping from the Washington Evening Star of Thursday, April 10, 1919, and in this connection I want you to bear in mind the advertisement I read awhile ago calling for men with loud voices as barkers at $25 per week. Remember that advertisement in connection with this statement I will read from the Washington Star of the date I mentioned: TICKET IS FINED $25 ON WOMAN'S CHARGE-MRS. ROUSE RESENTED REMARKS AS SHE WAS LEAVING HOTEL RALEIGH. Hugh R. Truelove, a newcomer to Washington, making his home at 929 E Street, and employed, he says, by the striking waiters as one of the pickets of that organization fighting the Hotel Raleigh, arrested April 7, and charged with making indecent and threatening remarks to patrons of the hotel, was tried and convicted in the District of Columbia branch of the police court to-day and sentenced by Judge John P. McMahon to pay a fine of $25. The complainant in the case was Mrs. Ethel Rouse, a member of the College Women's Community at Luthersville, Md., who testified that she in company with her husband and two girls associated with her in the community work went to the Hotel Raleigh for lunch and when leaving the hotel Truelove insulted her and her party by remarking: "Decent people no longer patronize the Hotel Raleigh. If you were decent you would not patronize the hotel." Truelove in his defense said that he was employed by the striking waiters at $25 a week to stand at the main entrance of the hotel and make certain stereotyped remarks to all patrons of the hotel entering or leaving the building, among those set remarks being the one he was charged with applying to Mrs. Rouse and her friends. Judge McMahon read the defendant a lecture before sentencing him to pay a fine. You will note he is one of these paid barkers that was employed under this advertisement that you saw in the paper. I would like for Mr. Gude, who is a business man of Washington, to be heard next. Mr. SPROUL. I think the chairman asked you a question you did not answer. Did they finally unionize the Raleigh Hotel and this other hotel you speak about? Mr. BLANTON. No. Mr. SPROUL. They did not unionize them? Mr. BLANTON. No, sir. Mr. WALLACE. I would like to ask Mr. BLANTON (interposing). Mr. Gude is waiting to be heard, and I will put him on, and then I will let you ask me some questions, and I will be glad to anwser them. Mr. WHEELER. Mr. Blanton, I would like to ask you a question. Mr. Weston never told you the effect that had on his business? Mr. BLANTON. Of course, he told me the hotel could stand it and would stand it, because he believed it would have been ruinous for him to have met that contract. I did not have to ask him whether or not it injured his business, because I have been representing business matters ever since I was 18 years old, and I will soon be 49, and I know what will ruin a man's business and what will not, and this is one of the things that will ruin almost any man in business. The CHAIRMAN. Did you ever see such actions as were being taken by these waiters? I want to inquire whether it was possible for them to demand those things. Mr. BLANTON. I put their demanded contract in the record, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. I was just wondering that if a man had to do all those things, how he could possibly do it. Mr. BLANTON. I do not know. The CHAIRMAN. I have been at a table where they would turn their back on you and would not wait on you. Mr. BLANTON. The gentleman has been up against what I have been up against, too, and I will tell you that is possibly the reason why the distinguished head of all unions, Mr. Samuel Gompers, when he got 53203-21- -2 married and went off on a bridal trip and wanted everything pleasant, he went to a nonunion hotel and put up. Mr. WALLACE. I want to explain that fully to your satisfaction and I do not think it is relevant to the case. Mr. BLANTON. I do not blame the organizations over the land for getting after him about it, but I might incidentally remark that since the Raleigh Hotel has been put on the unfair list for working nonunion waiters the other big man in the labor councils, Mr. Lewis, who is scheduled now to succeed Mr. Gompers, when he comes to Washington, he wants to put up where he can get the best service, - and he and his friends, lots of them, put up at the Raleigh and still put up there, and you ought not to get after him about it because he wants good service; the best he can get. The committee may be interested in knowing the outcome of the Hotel Raleigh strike. Congress met in special session on May 19, 1919, and shortly after it met from the floor I called attention to the facts connected with the Raleigh Hotel strike, and I denounced it as a disgrace to the Nation to have that kind of proceeding in the National Capital; and my extended remarks appear in the Record of May 24, 1919, on page 224, under the heading "Government must require unions to purge themselves of socialism, bolshevism, and anarchy. Mr. SPROUL. I object to that going into the record. Mr. BLANTON. I am not going to put that in the record. I was just calling attention to what stopped the strike. Mr. SPROUL. I beg your pardon. I thought you were putting it into the record. Mr. BLANTON. Immediately after my remarks, the next day, the pickets were taken off and there was no more picketing of the Raleigh Hotel. Mr. WHEELER. The strike had not been settled and was not settled at all. Mr. BLANTON. No; it had not been, and was not settled. Mr. SPROUL. It has not been settled yet as far as the union is concerned, I understood you to say the other day that they are still working nonunion help? Mr. BLANTON. They are working the same nonunion help in that hotel that they put on when the strike occurred. I do not know that the remarks I made had anything to do with the taking off of the pickets, but my threat of action by Congress, I presume, caused it, because they were taken off the next day. Mr. SPROUL. Was that the only strike that was on in the District at that time where there was picketing going on, or was this florists' strike and the other going on at the same time? Mr. BLANTON. I think not. I think probably there was either at that time, or soon before or soon thereafter, a tailor strike on against the tailor shops with picketing, but I am not sure of the exact date. STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM F. GUDE, WASHINGTON, D. C. Mr. BLANTON. Mr. Gude, state your name. Mr. GUDE. William F. Gude. Mr. BLANTON. You are a business man of Washington? |