Ships were tied up in the harbors. Huge stacks of merchandise lay piled on ships and in dock warehouses. Employers were losing millions of dollars every day. Leaders of the Industrial Association decided they would move the goods themselves. Well, not exactly themselves, but with the help of an army of strikebreakers they had hired.

They knew they could count on the cooperation of the police. Thanks to the generosity of the Industrial Association, the police were well stocked with the latest antiriot gear. A rivalry developed between salesmen representing two tear gas manufacturers. To scientifically determine which product was best, the police obligingly allowed the salesmen to come along to the picket lines to try their wares on real live longshoremen.

One particularly enthusiastic salesman, Joseph Roush, was rewarded by the police for his services; they named him a “special officer” of the department. Roush described to his boss in a letter the reason why: “I might mention that during one of the riots, I shot a long-range projectile into the group, a shell hitting one man and causing a fracture of the skull, from which he has since died. As he was a Communist, I have had no feeling in the matter and I am sorry that I did not get more.” (The twenty-six-year-old longshoreman Roush hit, James Engle, was not a Communist nor did he die. He recovered from his injury and continued on strike.)