214 ChaPter^4
$10 million in dairy products due to the protests and class resentment in
Wisconsin was higher than ever. While FDR had to confront all these labor
protests immediately upon becoming president, events in the following year
would be even more difficult. Throughout 1934, one of the biggest strike
waves in U.S. history hit—with workers in countless industries from coast-to-
coast attacking the shortcomings of the New Deal and demanding that
Roosevelt do more to help the “common man,” the person who more than
anyone voted him into office.
From April to June 1934, workers at Auto-Lite, an auto parts company in
Ohio, struck for union recognition and higher wages. By late May they held
rallies that attracted up to 6000 supporters. Eventually, the sheriff called out
local police and officers from nearby municipalities. The Auto-Lite private
forces used tear gas on the protestors and attacked them with fire hoses, iron
bars, and gunfire. The crowd was virtually unarmed, as it had to collect bricks
and stones to throw at the police and through factory windows, and hand-to-
hand fighting ensued. National Guardsmen then came in as reinforcements,
with machine guns, but the strikers refused to retreat and the class war con-
tinued, with the Guard firing on the crowd of strikers, killing 2 and wounding
over a dozen. Finally, the bosses feared that the “Battle of Toledo” had gone
too far; their factories were shut down, and thereby not producing goods and
making money, and the violence was escalating to alarming levels, raising fears
of radicalism like the Wobblies and other groups in the late 1800s had. Auto-
Lite finally relented, recognized the union, gave workers a pay raise, and
agreed to rehire all the workers they had fired because they feared a renewal
of union violence. Direct action by the working class, not New Deal support
or laws, made success possible for labor in Toledo.
As the Toledo strike raged, Teamsters in Minneapolis, Minnesota who had
been refused recognition by city officials went on strike. On May 21st and 22d,
over 20,000 strikers and supporters began to protest throughout the city, and
local police attacked the strikers and the city seemed to give in. Within weeks,
however, it had still refused to acknowledge the union, so the strike resumed.
Heavily armed police with scab workers behind them attacked the strikers,
fired into a crowd, and killed 2 and wounded 65—many shot in the back.
Again, the stakes had become too high and the threat of radical politics too
great, so Minneapolis gave in on May 25th, recognizing the union and meeting
their wage and workplace demands. Not long thereafter, in July, two workers
died and 40 others were injured when the National Guard used tear gas, rifles,