The Sherman Service Company of Chicago was hired by Illinois Steel Company during a strike. An operative was told by the official who was instructing him in the performance of his duties, "[t]here is enough ammunition stored in the plant of the Illinois Steel Company at South Chicago to shoot down every striker like a dog. It was done twenty years ago, it will be done this time. The minute any of them start toward the gate, they will be shot like dogs." An account of a subsequent raid on Sherman Service offices in the
Chicago Herald (November 2): [Illinois' State Attorney Maclay] Hoyne charges that the Sherman Service, which describes itself as "Industrial Conciliators," was employed by various companies against which strikes had been called, and that its operatives committed sabotage, assaulted persons, attempted to stir up class and race prejudice, and so foment disorder that strikebreakers and troops would be thought necessary. No evidence that the employing companies connived at these methods has been obtained. Mr. Hoyne said H. V. Phillips, advisory director for the Sherman company, "gave instructions, not only verbally, but over the telephone and in writing, to commit violence." "There is no doubt in my mind that the Sherman Service was engaged in stirring up riots," said Mr. Hoyne. "Its operatives destroyed or advocated the destruction of property, aroused antagonism between different groups of strikers, and employed
sluggers—all the time professing to be engaged in conciliating troublemakers." Mr. Hoyne said complaint had first been made to him by Ed. Nockles, secretary of the Chicago Federation of Labor, who had as a witness Charles Stern, formerly Operative No. 300 for the Sherman Service... Mr. Hoyne said Phillips "was particularly active in arranging for the use of sluggers, breaking of windows, cutting of auto tires, burning of buildings and stirring up racial hatred and prejudice." "I believe there is ample evidence," Mr. Hoyne said, "to convict Phillips and a number of other officers and employes of the agency of a number of crimes..." The indictment was subsequently quashed. After the raids, Sherman Service Company placed advertisements in its own defense which stated, in part: Sherman Service has recently been attacked by the radical element of labor, who are opposed to the Americanization of industrial forces of this country and to the maximum and uninterrupted production which is so essential to the continuity of national progress. Our successful activities along constructive lines in harmonizing the relationship between employer and employee wherever we serve, and in developing a spirit of whole-hearted co-operation, is the greatest stumbling block which the recent-day agitator is forced to overcome—consequently the attack. ==Government service==