Philip Murray

Philip Murray was the head of the steelworkers’ union and a central participant in the 1946 steel dispute, one of the largest strikes in American history. The book presents him chiefly through a high-stakes negotiation with Harry S. Truman: Murray accepted the President’s compromise offer, but the employers rejected it, and the strike began.

Identity and Role

Murray’s position as head of the steelworkers’ union made him a principal representative of labor in negotiations that threatened to halt production across the country. His role in the account is concrete and public: he advanced the union’s wage demand, met with the President, and made a decision about whether to accept a proposed settlement. The narrative offers little biographical detail beyond this labor leadership, keeping its focus on the bargaining and its consequences.

The White House Negotiations

The union sought a wage increase of 19½ cents an hour, while the steel companies, represented by Benjamin Fairless, offered 15 cents. On January 12, after a long session at the White House, Truman announced that Murray had agreed to postpone a strike for one week. The pause bought time for further negotiation but did not resolve the disagreement.

At another White House meeting on January 17, with no agreement reached, Truman proposed an increase of 18½ cents an hour. Both sides were given until noon the next day to consider the offer. Murray accepted it; Fairless did not. That contrast is central to the episode: the union leader agreed to the President’s compromise, but the employers’ refusal left the impending walkout unaverted.

The Strike and Its Scale

On January 19, 1946, 800,000 steelworkers walked off the job at more than 1,000 mills. The book describes it as the biggest strike in history. It unfolded amid a wider wave of labor stoppages, including a strike by some 200,000 meatpackers and walkouts affecting glass, telephone, and electrical workers. The scale of the steel strike made the breakdown of negotiations a national crisis rather than a dispute confined to one industry.

Truman’s Later Anger and Murray’s Narrative Role

Murray also appeared in a private, unsent speech Truman drafted during the later railroad crisis. Writing on a small, ruled tablet, Truman attacked labor leaders and included Murray among those he accused of acting with Communist allies. The book characterizes the draft as intemperate and notes that its claims about union leaders’ pay were inaccurate; it was not a speech Truman intended to deliver. This episode reveals the intensity of Truman’s frustration with successive strikes, but it is evidence of the President’s anger, not an independent account of Murray’s beliefs or conduct. Across the book’s treatment, Murray remains defined by the January negotiations: he accepted a compromise, while the employers’ rejection helped bring the largest strike in history into being.