Corinth Main Street ca. 1921

The 1921 Paper Strike was the single most important event in the long history of the relstionship between the Hudson River Mill and the town of Corinth. The Hudson River Mill effectively served as the epicenter of the 1921 Paper Strike, due in equal measure to its role as International Paper's most productive facility and to the strength and influence of it local unions. The unique political conditions that were present in Corinth in 1921 also contributed to the critical role that Hudson River Mill workers played in the long conflict. While the Strike marked the beginning of a long decline for organized labor throughout the pulp and paper industry, it also transformed social, political and economic relations in the community for nearly two generations.

Wage contracts that the unions secured with International Paper during the World War I years resulted in consistent gains in wages and improved working conditions for paperworkers. The Hudson River Mill locals were among a group within the Internationals that believed these gains should continue, in spite of the indications in the last quarter of 1920 that the American economy was heading into recession. Encouraged by IBPM President Jeremiah Carey, a vocal group of paperworkers succeeded in convincing a joint IBPM-IBPSPMW wage conference in January 1921 to seek wage increases of a much as ten percent for IBPSPMW members.

Maurice Jones, 1921

A month after the wage conference, the Corinth Republican party nominated Maurice T. Jones to run for the joint Village position of President and Chief of Police. Jones at the time was President of the Corinth Allied Trades Assembly, a consortium of local unnnions that included the Paper Makers, Pulp-Sulphite Workers, Firemen, Oilers, Carpenters and Machinists. He was among dozens of Hudson River Mill paperworkers at a February labor rally in Glens Falls who had heard speakers tell attendees that manufacturers across the country were embarking on the "American Plan" of industrial operations that sought to weaken the union movement by abandoning wage contracts and installing the open shop. It is likely that the memory of the 1910 Strike and Corinth's ten-week occupation by the National Guard influenced the nomination of Jones as Village President and several other paperworkers to fill Village Trustee posts. Republicans within the IBPM and IBPSPMW locals, it seems, were prepared to take control Corinth's municipal government in the event of a strike over the 1921 contract. A week after the Jones nomination by Republicans, his election was assured when Democrats failed to select a candidate to oppose him.

Paper manufacturers stunned the union leadership in late March by responding to their 1921 contract proposal with a demand for a thirty-percent wage cut, the elimination of overtime pay, and the exclusion of outdoor common laborers from the contract. Citing the plummeting price of newsprint and a widening recession as justification, the proposal by the paper manufacturers essentially sought to return wages to the 1919 wage scale. IBPM and IBPSPMW voted almost unanimously to reject the proposal and to go on strike. By mid-May, 23,000 paper workers had left the mills, almost one-third of these employed by International Paper.

In a strategy intended to make political capital out of the drastic wages cuts asked for by the paper manufacturers, particularly in view of the record 1920 profits reported by International Paper in mid-April, 1921, IBPM and IBPSPMW leadership refused to negotiate the issues in dispute. Unable to gain a speedy resolution of the strike or to persuade other paper companies to follow its lead in attempted negotiations with the unions, International Paper broke with other manufactures and developed a singular policy. In June the Company announced that it would restart it mills on July 5th on a non-union basis.

Home of Mill Superintendent Charles Walker

By the time that International Paper announced its new open shop policy in mid-June, paperworkers at the Hudson River Mill in had already begun to feel the economic effects of the strike. While some strikers had secured part-time and or seasonal work since May 1, Local No. 4 had already distributed $1,000 in strike benefits, and John Burke had sent the local its first of what would become a weekly $500 IBPSPMW relief check. Some of Corinth's neediest strikers, however, found short-term relief in a rather unusual hiring plan through which they obtained employment as watchmen at the Hudson River Mill. As many as 112 of the Mill's 623 strikers may have secured at least one week of employment under the rogue program which was most certainly approved by Mill Superintendent Charles Walker.

Aerial view of Hudson River Mill, 1920's

The planned July 5th reopening of the Mill failed to attract a single worker. The following week Saratoga County Sheriff's Deputies and New York State Troopers were deployed to Corinth, and word spread that the Army National Guard had been placed on alert for service at the Hudson River Mill. It quickly became evident that the Corinth Mill would be the first among International Paper's plants to be reopened. Strikers and Corinth citizens had the opportunity to execute their plan for responding to the Company's initiative when on July 21st a crowd of one thousand people stopped a train carrying men and building supplies headed for the Mill. The battle that ensued between strikers, citizens, and the men on board was eventually broken up by mounted, club-wielding New York State Troopers and Saratoga County Deputies who moved aggressively to disburse the crowd, allowing the train to return to Saratoga.