FDR, New Deals, and the Limits of Power 215and shotguns to break up a strike by workers of the Kohler Company, in
Kohler, Wisconsin. The owner blamed Communists and “outside agitators” for
the strike, while the workers refused to yield, and labor conflict between work-
ers and the Kohler Company continued, often violently, into the 1960s.
Meanwhile, on the West coast, Longshoremen led by Harry Bridges were
engaged in one of the most famous class conflicts of that era, in U.S. history
in fact. Dockworkers had planned on striking in March, but agreed to a
request from FDR to postpone it and try to negotiate a solution without a
strike or possible violence. Their 6-week effort at talks failed and on May
9th, Longshoremen and Teamsters refused to move cargo from ships. The
docks were shut down. By early July, the shippers were losing $100,000 a day
but still not willing to give raises and improve work conditions for the dock
workers, so the owners, with the support of the mayor and San Francisco
police, decided to forcibly “open the port.” They attacked strikers with clubs,
tear gas, and guns, and the dockworkers threw bricks and railroad spikes back
at them—within hours one striker was dead and many others injured. A
couple days later, on July 5th, forever known as “Bloody Thursday,” police
fired into a crowd of 5000 and killed 2 workers and shot over a hundred oth-
FIGuRE 4-13 Confrontation between police and strikers at the San Francisco
general strike, 1934