Strikers and Company First at Portsmouth
Article taken from The Lima News, May 28, 1936
Union and company officials concentrated efforts on avoiding any violence at the strike-bound Wheeling Steel Corp. plant today as a special squad of detectives investigated an atack on the home of a steel plant employee.
Mrs. Oscar Cropper, wife of the employee, reported to police that shotgun slugs, fired from an automobile, shattered a window in her house. She said she and her daughter were showered with glass, but not hurt.
Both factions in the strike, which has closed the plant here and made 5,500 employees idle, denied responsibility for the attack. One man has been severely beaten in the course of the srtike and a score of others slightly injured. Both sides continue to hold firm as R. M. Pillington, federal labor conciliator, sought to arrange a conference to bring company and union officials together.
Nearly 200 office workers and company police have remained inside the plant ince the strike was called Friday by the Amalgamated Association of iron, Steel and tin workers.
The assocition claimed that the company had refused to bargain with the union under the terms of the national labor relations act.
Al Bridwell, former Scioto county sheriff who is serving as a special deputy at the plant, pleaded innocent yesterday when arraigned ona charge of shooting with intent t wound. He was bound over to the grand jury.
Bernard McCardle, striker, charged that Bridwell and guards under him first at a group of strikers from a company train.