A History of Organized Felony and Folly - The Clarence Darrow ...

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A History of Organized Felony and Folly In May, 1920, strikes were called in about 100 factories, and about 10,000 workers were thrown out of employment many of them against their will. The usual violence followed and consisted mainly of assaults on non-union workers, although in one instance an official of an employing corpora- tion was attacked. While a partial list of the acts of violence has been compiled, it is too long to insert here. The strike was called off on September 15, 1920, when the union officials recommended that the men return to work. It subsequently developed that the union officials were making accusations against one another, and in November or Decem- ber the treasurer and the financial secretary were arrested at the instance of the business agent on accusations of em- bezzling about $15,000. Joseph A. Haines, the financial secretary, was tried and the case dismissed. On November 28, 1921, Haines ended his life by firing a bullet through his head. Early in May, 1922, the body of Stephen Solderits, machinist and brother of Frank Solderits, who was one of the "general wage committee" that signed the demands on the employers August 30, 1919, was found floating in the Ohio river with a bullet hole in the head. On investigation, it developed that Stephen Solderits had been one of a gang of payroll bandits who held up the paymaster of the J. H. Day Co., on April 22. From the confession of Mike and Frank Solderits, brothers of Stephen, it developed that he was killed by William Kirchoff, paymaster of the J. H. Day Co. Part of the confession of Mike Solderits follows: "One of the bullets fired by Kirchoff, the paymaster, hit Stephen in the temple. Stephen was driving. I took the wheel, and we drove to 2633 Yost avenue, Frank's home. We WTapped Stephen in a blanket and carried him into the house. He died in 15 minutes. We wanted to keep mother in ignorance of what had happened. We took all his clothing off so that the body could not be identified. But we did not like to dispose of it naked, so we put a pair of pants on him. Early Sunday moniing we put the body in a machine and went to 44 —
A History of Organized Felony and Folly the Chesapeake & Ohio bridge, where we threw the body into the river." Mike Solderits also told about going to a hardware store and buying three window weights and wire with which the body was to be sunk. How a good unionist enforced his demands appears from the confession of the other brother, Frank Solderits, who told the detectives that he, his tvv'o brothers, and another bandit had also held up William Emerich, paymaster of the J. A. Fay & Egan Co. on October 18, 1921, and the Max Wocher Co. on February 4, 1922. The first robbery netted $5,000 and the second $1,325. Mike and Frank Solderits each received sentences of 20 years in Oliio penitentiary on their pleas of guilty to robbery of the paymaster of the J. H. Day Co. It v.as partly on the testimony of the two surviving Solderits brothers that Jacob Reichert, business agent of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, was convicted of assault with intent to kill two non-union workmen who refused to join the striking garment workers. Reichert was sentenced on June 1, 1922, to 15 years—the extreme penalty for the crime—in Ohio penitentiary. Both the Solderits, union machinists, testified that Reichert employed them to slug non-union workers. For the benefit of readers, who, hav'ing followed the record thus far, might be led to believe that the Solderits brothers were acting, not as simple highwaymen in holding up paymasters, but as unionists using extra-judicial measures to enforce upon recalcitrant employers the union check-off system, it is fair to state that there is no evidence warranting the belief. Union Butchers at Work Oklahoma City enjoys the distinction of having de\ised the policemen's union—an experiment that was later followed by Boston, where it failed wretchedly. But there was 45
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