THE STRIKE OF THE
JERSEY SILK WORKERS
For seven weeks the 27,000 workers in the silk mills and dye houses of
Paterson, N. J., have been on strike for improved conditions and against
a proposed change in method that will, they declare, alter the character
of the industry.
The strike began with the broad silk weavers as a protest against the
introduction of the three and four loom system. They were soon joined by
the ribbon weavers and the dye house men, whose demands are for an
eight-hour day and a minimum wage of $12 a week. The dye house men have
been laboring in two shifts of twelve hours each. Their work is often
carried on under unhealthful conditions of dampness, high temperature
and poor ventilation.
All the strikers joined the branch of the Industrial Workers of the
World which conducted the Lawrence strike. This is one factor which has
caused tension in a situation, in which statutes dating back to colonial
days have been brought to bear on a modern industrial struggle till a
Supreme Court judge denounced the lengths to which the police have gone.
Back of the police incidents and the spreading of the revolutionary
doctrines of the Industrial Socialists is a profound economic change
involved in the introduction of the four loom system. This is not merely
the substitution of machines for skilled men due to invention, but the
supplanting of high-grade textile manufacture by low-grade output
because of the greater profits in the cheap goods. It is as if a
vineyard were giving way to a hay farm—a change which seriously affects
the working population of Paterson.
In order to make the situation clear it is necessary to take a brief
look at the history of the silk industry in this country. Twenty years
or so ago the competition between Pennsylvania and New Jersey for the
manufacture of cheap silks was keen, but within a few years the battle
was over. Induced, it is said, by real estate companies, the manufacture
of cheap silk on a large scale migrated to Pennsylvania. Great factories
were built and leased on easy terms, and these were equipped with
automatic looms, four of which could be operated by one girl or boy.
There the wives and children of the coal miners furnished a cheap labor
supply.
Since this migration the best grade of silk has been made in Paterson,
and there has been no competition to speak of that the Paterson
manufacturers needed to fear. Yet they have been making only moderate
profits while the Pennsylvania manufacturers of cheap silk have been
making fortunes. Under the system of multiple looms, the business of
Pennsylvania, has expanded 97 per cent in the last six years; under the
one and two loom systems of Paterson its business has expanded only 22
per cent in the same time. Therefore the Paterson manufacturers propose
to compete in the manufacture of cheaper silks and consequently decided
to introduce the multiple loom system. To them this is only a natural
economic development, and the opposition of the workers they feel is
irrational, as opposed to progress. This view is made apparent in a
statement issued by the silk manufacturers’ association:
“As regards the three and four loom system, it is applicable only in
the case of the very simplest grade of broad silks and as a matter of
fact has for a long time been worked successfully and on a very large
scale in other localities. Paterson cannot be excluded from this same
privilege. No fight against improved machinery has ever been
successful.”
The beginning of the change came in one of the big Paterson mills about
a year ago and the strike of last spring[1] was at first against the
four loom system. The strike became general, however, and this demand
was completely lost sight of before the strike came to an end. Since
then nine or ten other mills have installed the four loom system and a
score have begun to require the weavers to tend three looms instead of
two.
Footnote 1:
See THE SURVEY of March 16, 1912.
The strikers claim that the new system will cause unemployment, as did
the installation of the two loom system together with other improvements
in the mechanical equipment of the loom some years ago, and that the
logical consequence will be the employment of unskilled women and
children in place of the skilled weaver, and a forcing down of the level
of wages until the Paterson average of $11.69, as given in the federal
report for the year 1908, becomes as low as the Pennsylvania average of
$6.56. As the percentage of women employed in Paterson mills has
increased in the last few years and as the average of wages given out by
the manufacturers this year is under $10, there is basis for these
fears. Nor do the manufacturers deny these possibilities; they claim
that the loss of skill is an inevitable accompaniment of improved
processes, and the replacing of men by women and children is only in
line with the development in all the textile trades.
Some of the claims of the strikers are thus summarized by the _Paterson
Evening News_:
“The best information obtainable appears to show that the alleged
mechanical advantages of the new system have not proved themselves
sufficient to offset the additional strain to which the care of three
or four looms subjects the weavers; that the premium wages first paid
as an inducement to users of the system have been pared down; that at
present a day’s work under the system is proportionately less well
paid than a day’s work at two looms; and, finally, that the wages of
two loom workers have been depressed with the scaling down of the
piece-rate paid to the three and four loom workers.”
In spite of the fact that it is only the large manufacturers who propose
to install the new system, the strike is general. The multiple looms,
which are large and equipped with automatic devices, can only be
installed in large mills. By this system cheap silks alone can be made;
the smaller mills must use the Jacquard or other small looms fitted to
the making of the fancy grades of silk for which Paterson is famous. The
small manufacturer, therefore, does not fear the installation of the new
system in the large mills; but he does feel strongly that he has a
grievance toward the workers in his mills who struck sympathetically for
a wrong not their own.
But it is a very real fear that the entire industry will be undermined
that has made the workers stand together, regardless of individual
grievances.
While the desire to keep up with industrial progress and to realize
large profits is the reason for the importing of the four loom system
into Paterson; the desire to save their present standard of living and
prevent their industry from coming into the hands of women and children
like the other textile trades is the reason for the workers’ opposition.
Today Pennsylvania and New Jersey present different phases of the
industry, and New Jersey has had a higher wage standard; tomorrow with
the triumph of the four loom system they may tend to an equalization of
conditions.
The outstanding features in the strike now in its seventh week are lack
of violence and disorder, the refusal of the employers to meet or confer
with the strikers, aggressive repression by the police and the city
government and the efforts of citizens to bring about a settlement.
Although practically all the workers in the major industry of the city
are on strike, there has been little disorderly conduct attributable to
the strikers. There have been reports of the breaking of a window by a
stone in a house occupied by a boss dyer and at least one attempt was
made to damage a house by means of a bomb, but responsibility for these
acts has not been fixed.
CITY OFFICIALS ADOPT
REPRESSIVE MEASURES
In striking contrast to the order maintained by the rank and file of the
strikers, there have been actions on the part of the city officials that
leading newspapers outside of the strike district have not hesitated to
characterize as anarchical. Soon after the strike began and it became
known that it was to be conducted under the auspices of the I. W. W.,
the police began to arrest strike leaders and others who addressed
meetings of strikers, regardless of whether they had yet been guilty of
any illegal act. Several of them were held in jail for a time and then
so great was the outcry raised that for a period of two or three weeks
these tactics were abandoned.
On Sunday, March 30, however, the police resumed their former tactics.
William D. Haywood, the leader of the strike, had announced that he
would speak at an open air meeting, and a large crowd gathered to hear
him. As Haywood was going to the meeting place to speak he was
approached by members of the police force. They told him that the chief
of police had issued an order forbidding any out-door meeting. According
to all reports, including testimony given by the police authorities
themselves, Haywood acquiesced at once and passed the word to the
assemblage that the meeting would take place in Haledon, an independent
borough just outside the city limits of Paterson. Accordingly, Haywood
started to walk down the street in the direction of Haledon and he was
followed by the crowd. Just before he reached the city limits, a patrol
wagon bore down upon him. Together with Lessig, another strike leader,
he was arrested, taken before the Recorder’s Court, charged with
disorderly conduct and unlawful assemblage under the English act of
1635. After being held in jail in lieu of $5,000 bail, both were found
guilty of unlawful assemblage and were sentenced by the recorder to six
months’ imprisonment.
A writ of _certiorari_ was immediately sought by Haywood’s attorneys and
a hearing on this appeal was held by Supreme Court Justice Minturn. When
the evidence, most of it furnished by the police department, was in,
Justice Minturn ordered the release of Haywood and Lessig. He was unable
to find that there had been any unlawful assemblage. The evidence tended
rather to show that Haywood was co-operating with the authorities in an
endeavor to carry out their orders. At the time of this resumption of
their activity the police began also to arrest pickets. From twenty to
one hundred a day were taken to headquarters. After Judge Minturn’s
decision, all those held in jail were discharged. Since then, while the
arrest of pickets has gone steadily on, Recorder Carroll has refused to
hold them.
Throughout the strike to date the manufacturers have consistently
refused to meet with a committee of strikers or to discuss terms with
them in any way. At one time a delegation of clergymen endeavored to get
them to meet a committee of strikers in order to discuss grievances.
This suggestion was instantly voted down. Last week, when a public
meeting of citizens was held to consider whether or not the strike could
be brought to an end, the manufacturers, through their representative,
stated their position in just two propositions: First, the employers
will refuse to meet any committee of strikers “dominated as they are by
the I. W. W.”; second, they will meet any of their individual employes
“who are not dominated by the I. W. W.”
All along there has been a lively public interest in the strike.
Ministers and public-spirited citizens have at different times
endeavored to ascertain the underlying causes and to co-operate in
restoring harmonious relations. These efforts reached their most formal
stage when last week at the call of the president of the Board of
Aldermen a public meeting was held in the high school auditorium on
Wednesday evening to which employers, strikers, church organizations,
the board of trade, organizations of bankers and professional men, and
the general public were invited. Representatives of the strikers
explained their grievances, a single representative of the employers
stated their position as just quoted, and the ministerial association
came forward with a proposal for a legislative investigation. Finally, a
committee of the Board of Aldermen proposed in a series of resolutions
that a committee of fifteen be appointed to discuss a basis upon which
the strike could be settled, the committee to consist of five
representatives of the strikers, five representatives of employers and
five men to be appointed from the membership of the Board of Aldermen.
The resolution was passed by the unanimous vote of an audience
two-thirds of which were strikers. The strikers appointed their
committee. But the employers, in line with their official policy which
has been against any meeting with any body of men even to discuss a
settlement, refused to do so.
“A MAN’S
FRIENDS”
“I don’t believe there is a man in the country who will not put himself
or some one he loves above the whole nation if he is put to a hard
enough test.”
These words, spoken by one of the principal characters, contain the
essence of a new play, A Man’s Friends, written by Ernest Poole and
recently presented in New York. Without moralizing on the need for a
wider social consciousness, Mr. Poole seeks to show the limits of the
average man’s circle of human loyalty and how far his loyalty to the
whole people’s welfare is inhibited by his devotion to his own “crowd.”
The play aims to point out that, however much our attention has been
focused on graft in its great anti-social consequences, a larger factor
in thwarting social progress is our restricted loyalty to groups which
are less than the whole people.
A district attorney fights a political machine which, through bribery,
has defeated a new building code. He convicts the bribed alderman but
cannot obtain from him any information as to the “men higher up.” At
last he discovers that his own son-in-law was the go-between in the
matter of the bribe. The intense loyalty of wife to husband is shown by
his daughter who says to her father: “Your life and principles are
nothing now—promise me you’ll keep Hal out of jail,” and by the wife of
the guilty alderman who declares “it is not a question of right and
wrong—it’s what I think of Nick.”
The play brings out the loyalty to one’s circle of intimates, shown in
the refusal of the convicted alderman to divulge incriminating
information; and the loyalty to a political coterie whose watchword is
“You might as well be dead as a squealer,” and concerning whom the
district attorney says: “It is the unwritten law of your system to
perjure yourself to save a friend.” He further remarks to the boss, “You
won’t help those not in your crowd—and your crowd is too small, even
though you can call a hundred thousand people in New York by their first
names.”
One element in the play is the definite human appraisal of just what
graft and disloyalty to public welfare involve. It flashes out when the
boss after telling how he had given a few dollars to a “down and outer”
is silenced by the district attorney’s daughter who points out that he
owns the gambling place in which the derelict lost his money. It is
again emphasized when the district attorney says to those who appeal for
leniency toward the men responsible for the defeat of the building code,
“All right let’s be human,” and then refers to the 149 factory girls who
lost their lives in a factory fire which the building code would have
prevented. “People vote,” he says at another time, “with the man who
laughs, but the laugh is too expensive.”
How the district attorney shows his own human qualities in the end by
saving his son-in-law from prison, but in a way to render important
service to the 9,000,000 people of the state, is the climax of the
piece.
The play is intended to show how the absorption of the average man in
his own affairs and in the interests of his small group of friends is
responsible for popular indifference which often makes the conscientious
public servant lonely and disheartened. The district attorney, as
candidate for governor, has returned from a campaign trip. “There are
one million men out for the graft and nine million who don’t care,” he
says. His daughter replies: “That does not seem like you, father.”
“Well,” he adds, “you ought to have seen them all along the line of my
trip; big meetings, cheering, too, plenty of enthusiasm. But the minute
I left each town I felt it all suddenly die right out. Every man jack of
them back to his business, his job and his friends—the things he really
cares about—and I felt as though I had carried on the cheers of each
town. Each town throwing it all at my head and shouting ‘Go on, be a
hero, save the country—only for God’s sake leave us alone, we have not
time, we are busy.’”
BRIEUX’S “DAMAGED
GOODS” PRESENTED
“I didn’t know” bids fair to become an obsolete phrase in connection
with the nature of the social evil, if the ripples started by the
production of Brieux’s Damaged Goods in New York this spring extend as
far as its sponsors intend. The Committee of the Sociological Fund of
the _Medical Review of Reviews_ believe that syphilis should no longer
be regarded as a mysterious disease, whose ravages are to be shunned but
its causes ignored.
Bernard Shaw’s preface to the Brieux play, with its warning against the
usual treatment of the subject as taboo and its appeal for publicity and
legal assistance in coping with the evil, was read by a clergyman well
known for his human contact with every-day social conditions. The drama
itself was simply staged and given a sympathetic reading by a strong
cast. Almost every bearing of the menace on family and social life is
brought out in a way well calculated to meet prejudice due to
indifference, ignorance or tradition, and to create a conviction that
here is a scourge to be conquered by publicity.
Those who saw the play had come with various mental attitudes. Some were
even vaguely questioning whether they had come to see a play or hear a
sermon. Not a few of the theatrical critics have dubbed it the latter,
but to many parents this very quality made it seem peculiarly profitable
for young men who are breaking loose from home life. By some it was even
felt that the educational value of the piece would justify its being
given a special performance at some holiday season, and that prevention
through knowledge would thus be promoted.
NEW YORK CHARITIES
AND THE LAW MAKERS
Convinced that the state charitable and correctional institutions are
facing a serious crisis, New York social workers are protesting against
certain of the recommendations of Governor Sulzer’s Committee of Inquiry
which they fear the Legislature may act upon. This committee, which was
appointed by the governor to examine into the administration of the
state’s departments in the furtherance of economy, has made
recommendations, relative to state charities and corrections, ranging
from the repeal of the act establishing the state industrial farm colony
for tramps to the refusal of large part of the sums asked for repairs on
state institutions. The Prison Farm for Women, Letchworth Village and
the State Training School for Boys are among the institutions that would
be most seriously affected. The Committee of inquiry also recommended
that the State Probation Commission, a non-salaried body, be merged with
the Prison Commission.
All told, there are fourteen state hospitals for the insane and sixteen
state charitable institutions with a total of 42,000 patients and
inmates. The Committee of Inquiry, partly on the alleged ground that the
state has little control over the expenditures of these institutions,
has made sweeping recommendations for retrenchment on projects to which
the state has already committed itself by legislation. Social workers
who dispute the findings of the commission point out that it had but a
few weeks in which to gain an understanding of the workings and
relations of the state institutions to various supervisory and
administrative state bodies and that its statements as to excessive cost
of housing the inmates are apparently made without a comparison of the
situation in other states.
The Committee of Inquiry recommends that the state charitable
institutions in some way ought to be consolidated, This, social workers
urge, could not be done except by putting together state wards of
entirely different types since the only institutions having a capacity
of less than 300 are the State Women’s Relief Home, an institution for
aged veterans and their wives; the Thomas Indian School; the State
School for Blind: the State Hospital for Crippled Children, and
Letchworth Village for the Feeble-minded.
For many years the state has been gradually building up a group of
institutions for the care of the insane and feeble-minded, the
epileptic, and delinquent cases requiring reformatory treatment. The
insane are increasing at the rate of about one thousand a year. There is
an accumulation at the present time of 5,000 patients in excess of the
certified capacity of the fourteen state hospitals. To delay
appropriations for new state hospitals already started, it is claimed,
is only to put off what must be eventually done.
For the feeble-minded and epileptic New York has provided four
institutions in the central and western part of the state which care
altogether for about 4,000 inmates and one, Letchworth Village in the
southeastern part of the state, which as yet has less than 100 inmates.
This, when completed, will serve New York city and vicinity where more
than half the population of the state centers.
The next largest group of institutions is the reformatories of which
there are two for women, one at Bedford and one at Albion; one for girls
at Hudson; and two for boys, of which the State Agricultural and
Industrial School at Industry is known the country over as a model of
its kind. This institution for caring for boys outside the metropolitan
district, social Workers urge, should be paralleled without further
delay as suggested by the Committee of Inquiry by one in Westchester
County for the boys of New York City and its vicinity.
The state has also undertaken to round out its reformatory and penal
system by providing a state farm for women over thirty years of age, the
age up to which they may be received in reformatories, and the state
industrial farm colony for tramps. These institutions are planned to
care for offenders who now cause much expense to localities. Both of
these institutions were established after long study of the subject by
organizations and individuals expert in dealing with dependents and
delinquents but the committee recommends the abandonment of the second
and further investigation as to the desirability of the first.
After discussing the situation at a meeting held in New York on April 3,
a committee consisting of Henry Morgenthau; Homer Folks, secretary of
the State Charities Aid Association; John A. Kingsbury, general agent of
the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor; the
Right Rev. N. G. R. McMahon, supervisor of Catholic Charities, and Mrs.
John M. Glenn, was appointed to confer with the governor who has given
the committee assurance that he is considering the situation as a whole
and will not make separate judgments on each institution by itself.
A similar meeting was held in Buffalo. At this delegates were also
selected who have interviewed the governor in behalf of the important
humanitarian projects undertaken by the state in the last ten years
which are now threatened.
[Illustration:
SLEEPING IN THE LAVATORY AT BEDFORD
]
BEDFORD REFORMATORY
NOW FACING A CRISIS
It was not much more than a year ago that, in connection with the
founding of the Bureau of Social Hygiene, the New York magistrates began
to make extensive use of Bedford Reformatory for women as a means of
saving the young prostitute. And yet the reformatory is already facing a
crisis through overcrowding.
The Committee on Criminal Courts of the New York Charity Organization
Society has appealed to the public to write, urging an appropriation of
$700,000 for this institution, to the leaders of the Legislature: James
J. Frawley, chairman Finance Committee of the Senate; Alfred E. Smith,
speaker of the Assembly; Robert F. Wagner, majority leader of the
Senate; Aaron J. Levy, majority leader of the Assembly. This the
committee believes to be a conservative and economical estimate of what
will be needed to put up new cottages and other buildings to accommodate
present inmates, and to provide for reasonable growth in the next few
years.
The letter sent out by the committee reads in part as follows:
“Twelve years ago the state authorities established Bedford Reformatory
to care for women between the ages of sixteen and thirty, to try and
save some, at least, of the young girls who were otherwise destined to a
life of shame and degradation. What Bedford means to the community, the
extraordinary work it is doing and has done is set forth in the enclosed
article by Ida M. Tarbell.[2] That article is a challenge and a call to
every man and woman in the state.
Footnote 2:
Miss Tarbell’s article which appeared in the _American Magazine_ was
reprinted as a pamphlet by the committee.
“Bedford Reformatory now faces a crisis.”
“Today there are 178 more girls there than the place will hold. They are
sleeping on cots in the hallways, in parlors, in the gymnasium, in the
lavatories, in the linen room, everywhere they can put a bed. Two girls
in a room is the rule instead of the exception, notwithstanding the
moral dangers of this.”
“Chief Magistrate McAdoo and Chief Magistrate Kempner and their
associates in New York and Brooklyn have been asked not to commit any
more girls to the institution and the stream has stopped for a moment.
But the magistrates are now at their wits’ ends. What are they to do
with first offenders? The young girl who is just embarking on this kind
of career—shall they fine her and force her to work all the harder at
her unlawful calling to earn the money with which to pay the fine? All
are agreed that this is objectionable. Fines neither deter nor reform.
Shall they send her then to the work-house to mingle in close
confinement with the hardened offender, there to become embittered and
to have a prostitute’s life fastened more firmly than ever upon her?
They must do this or discharge her to walk the streets again.”