PINNICK KINNICK HILL: AN AMERICAN STORY

Chapter Five

PINNICK KINNICK HILL 31 The Tizadores and the few men they were able to sneak in tried their best to resume operations in a couple of the furnaces but were unable to complete the task they initiated. They needed more manpower. The company would have to go out of the area to recruit men to break the strike. The Railway Audit and Inspection Company of Philadelphia was hired to furnish strike breakers. Soon they began arriving in the area from various parts of the state and from Kentucky and Tennessee. There was a lot of commotion and name calling as these men began to file into the plant They were all armed; bulges could be seen in their jackets, behind which they hid six-shooters on their belts. The striking men were warned not to interfere physically. They didn’t; instead, they believed that once the men brought in to work in the furnaces got a taste of the salty sweat that would be streaming down their faces, they would throw down their shovels and tell the company to go to hell. This was what the union leaders were counting on. The first morning on the furnace line, three men went down with stomach cramps. One of them was dead before he was brought to the hospital in Clarkston. The two others had it! By the end of five days, half of the original starters had quit. More strike breakers were brought in. Another man died of heat prostration and several more went to their homes to recuperate but never returned. Now the company was ready to negotiate. After several meetings with the union committee, an agreement was signed, with the men’s demands met. The United States was on the verge of joining England, France and Italy in the war already raging in Europe. Zinc was vital to the war effort, and although the company did not mention this, Juan Villanueva had been reading the newspapers and was telling the men not to give in to what the company was offering but to demand one hundred percent of what they wanted. They got it! The strike breakers left town and the men resumed work the next day. Chapter Five W hen the United States entered the war in 1918 against Germany and Austria-Hungary, several young Spanish men enlisted in the army. They were sent to Camp Ripley in Minnesota for training and, as members of the American expeditionary forces, were shipped off to France. Benjamin Menendez, Augustin Fernandez and Francisco Lopez were all born in Spain and were the compelling reason for their parents to uproot their families from Spanish soil and travel to a new land. The boys’ fathers had all seen military service in Spain’s efforts to maintain its hold in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. They did not want to live in Spain when their boys would be old enough to be drafted for military duty. Their sons, however, had been in America long enough to attend school, learn the language and understand why the United States was worth fighting for. PINNICK KINNICK HILL 32 Hundreds of Spanish people were scattered throughout the various states in towns having smelters. They often moved from one place to the other, sometimes moving to find work at a non-striking plant and sometimes in order to be closer to relatives. So when a person died or left town, it wasn’t but a few days before it was known in each of the places colonized by Spaniards. There was a saying that one didn’t have to telephone or telegraph to know what was going on. All you had to do was “tell a Spaniard,” and all the Spaniards would know about it. March of 1918 arrived in its traditional style: roaring like a lion. There was cold rain blowing, turning into sleet; then there was snow. The weather turned colder and colder. And then it came: the Spanish influenza. Almost every family in the county was afflicted. Doctor and Mrs. Applewhyte worked day and night ministering to the sick. Cata de Leon, Victoria Inclan and Andres and Neto Villanueva volunteered to help the overworked doctor. The sick had to be taken care of in their homes. Many were dying. The hospitals were filled to capacity and had no room for more sick people. The undertakers couldn’t handle all the bodies; a temporary morgue was set up in the large hall of the Casa Loma...