This is the time for the workers of Passaic to consider the company union hokum as dished out by Mr. Reinhold of the Forstmann and Huffmann Co. For several years before the strike began the "representative assembly" applesauce had been swallowed by some of the workers of F and H. It had been so well disguised that the average worker simply did not know what he was getting.

When first introduced with fine phrases and lovely declarations of welfare and good faith some workers were inclined to take the bunk union and its face value. But latter when it produced nothing tangible for the workers, when the "representatives" turned into nothing but company succors, most of the workers began to see through it. They have been seeing it more clearly ever since -- especially since the days when its dupes addressed a letter to Mr. Forstmann asking that he kindly permit them to slave for him and give them the necessary protection to scab! Little Tsar Nemo of Riot Act fame was Mr. Forstmanns answer to his faithful company union scabs. The veil was stripped completely off the "industrial democracy" professions of the F and H. Since then real meaning of the "representative assembly" has been as clear as daylight.

It is interesting to note what certain impartial economists and students who have studied the company unions say about them.

In his book "Economics for Citizenship" W. D. Moriarity, professor of Economics and Business Administration at the University of Washington, writes that "many employers want to isolate their men from the American Federation of Labor" and to keep them out of the labor movement. How do they do it? Let the professor tell us:  "They instituted in one form or another shop committees."

Just like Forstmann's "representative assembly".

What is the result? Prof. Moriarity tells us the result: "It gets rid of outside representatives of the national union and isolates the men in each shop from organized consultation or at least from representation at the conferences of each outside forces."

What in plain English means that where the company union committees get started the real union committees are prevented from entering the factory.

Prof. Moriarity goes farther and explains that the company run shop committees have been used by the bosses "to get more and more control over labor."

What are the functions of the dummy type of company unions such as they have at F. and H.? Let the professor explain again: "The shop committee is often made into a 'rubber stamp' committee to meet and listen to suggestions of a smooth welfare worker or some efficiency expert who must get the ........ cooperation of the men to put through planes that have been determined on (by the bosses). Sometimes too, its just a rubber stamp to satisfy the men that they are having something to say about things."

A RUBBER STAMP -- not a real workers union committee -- is what millionaire Forstmann wants in his mills. His "representative assembly" is the ideal RUBBER STAMP.

We workers must decide whether we want to have rubber stamp committees or labor union committees. The first kind will serve Mr. Hoffman the second kind will serve us.

There are lots of other well-known economic writers who have discovered the tricks in the company union. Let us quote just one more. Mr. Earl J. Miller of the University of Illinois: "Many of the councils (company unions) are organized either to avoid dealing with existing unions or to prevent the union organization getting a foothold among the men."

Which means that Mr. Forstmann and Mr. Reinhold have one end in view when they introduced the succor's union -- to head off and prevent REAL ORGANIZATION IN REAL UNIONS.

The vitality of the textile strike which is now in its eighteenth week was shown by the monster demonstration held in support of the strikers Sunday afternoon by the associated societies and Perishes of Passaic and vicinity that have come out openly for the workers in which over 20,000 took active part and another 30,000 lined the walks and crowded roofs and windows along the line of march.

It was the greatest demonstration ever held in Passaic and it was a demonstration that could never have been held without the tremendous power of the textile workers under the leadership of the united front committee in its organizer Albert Weisbord.

The march started at 2:30 in the afternoon and it took over two hours for line to pass. Several brass bands gave their services and a mile of automobiles gave evidence of the far reaching sympathy the strikers have created.

the Parade passed by the forest amend and Huffman mills and marched by the mansions of Julius Forstmann and Col. Johnson, the two bitterest enemies of the workers in the present conflict. It wild up in the first Ward Park where an estimated mass of people of over 35,000 cheered a dozen speakers mostly priests, who drew tremendous enthusiasm when they told the vast gathering that the workers must never go back to work until they can grow as a union

Among the speakers was Rev. John Wroblewsky, who has spoken often before the strikers and who has always urged them to stand by the united front committee and their leader Weisbord. He gave the same advice on Sunday and was loudly applauded and cheered.

Following are sentences by different speakers: "We don't want a company union"; "Don't go back till you have your own union"; "The mill owners drive the workers to organize"; "We must teach you not only the English language here in America but we must teach you that you must have a union"; "We have no time to live after the men work days and the women work nights in the mills"; "The bosses have everything while we have nothing'; "If you get your union you get your mills swept and kept clean if you do not get your union you will be in the same bad way as before"; "Do not listen to anybody except the LEADERS OF YOUR UNION"; "We want to work but we also want something for our work so we can live like decent Americans; when we get together we can win; the union must be permanent and all must belong to the union and it must always be the union of the workers; that a union be as strong as this Parade; and so on. These are sentences uttered by the priests.

G. K......... editor of Catholic .......... told the crowd that "you could not go to Sen. Edge or Edwards with your troubles. They are with the mill owners. You must have a political party of your own and elect workers, not lackeys of the bosses. Your ........... will be helpless unless you have political power to back it."

And the vast masses went wild with enthusiasm. The strikers.........................

The bosses say that "common decency precludes any compromise with those who are responsible for the flood of civic and oral poison that has been poured into this community from 'strike headquarters.'"

If the bosses have any sense of decency they would avoid the word as they would avoid fire.

For when it comes to decency, the mill barons have little to boast of.

Is it decent to pay your workers as low as $10 and $12 a week?

Is it decent to put women to work nights, to put pregnant women to work nights, because their necessity compels them to slave for you at lower wages than other workers?

Is it decent to discharge your workers when they come to you and ask for the abolition of the wage cuts?

Is it decent of you bosses to create such poverty that you are afraid to let congress investigate the conditions in the mills and in the city?

Is it decent of you to have such filthy conditions in the mills that workers faint from the smell of it?

Is it decent to pay your workers so little that they cannot buy milk for their babies?

Is it decent to keep living conditions so low that the death rate becomes 50% higher in your community than in any other part of the state of New Jersey?

Is it decent of you to pay the sheriff and gunmen to beat down the strikers whom you now try to coax back to your hell holes to renew their slavery?

Is it decent to command your mayors and police to club the workers when they ask for a chance to live?

Is it decent to throw gas bombs, and to turn the water hose on the workers in sub-zero weather?

Is it decent of you to close up our halls and institute a reign of terror that shames civilization?

Is it decent of you to refuse to talk the matter over with your workers when prominent men and women such as led the Parade Sunday beg of you to do your share in settling the strike?

We the workers have been decent at all times.

We have asked the most reasonable terms from you and have been ready to settle the strike at all times. We have invited the most through investigation of our work and asked that congress or any other agency find out for itself what we are doing and what we are asking.

Priests and bishops have been at our meetings and participated with us in our work or organization. They all report that we are asking only the fair thing.

The city council of Garfield has endorsed our demands. Prominent committees have endorsed our demands. The entire working class have endorsed our demands.

Forty-seven societies and churches have endorsed our demands.

The greatest demonstration in the history of the textile mill territory led by respected and reputable men in which sixty thousand of our citizens took part endorsed our demands.

All of these think that the United Front Committee and the strikers are decent. Their sense of decency is not outraged by being with us and supporting us. They differ with you fundamentally on your standard of decency. They have great doubts as to the purity of your decency.

You should be the last people on earth to talk about decency. You have not practiced it. You are not practicing it now.

You should be the last one to talk about "civic and oral poison that has been poured into this community."

You have poured in that poison. Now you want to blame it on the workers. You have no sense of shame and no sense of decency.

It may be that the workers will some day refuse to talk with you. It may be that the priests and the councilmen will not consider you decent enough to talk to some day. You are skating on thin ice when you talk about decency.

The people of this community have had a lot of patience with you. It is not so certain that this patience will last forever.

The meeting at Belmont Park is for the children, but one sees many parents among the crowds of children. Most of them are mothers.

Here is a group of them. I hear them talking Polish and approach them. They are excited like children, and talk about recent events.

I ask them about yesterday's picketing.

"Oh, people got clubbed badly. Lots of them. The Cossacks try to hit people on the legs as well as on the heads. But we won't give in. We are strong. You know they have stores here for the strikers. We can get everything there. You cannot imagine how good and clever our strike committee is. They get everything for us. Now they are going to send some of our children away for vacation."

The big Polish woman continued proudly, "Oh, were strong and we'll stick to our fight until the bosses will have to give in. Yes, they are obstinate and bitter. Especially Forstmann, he's still fat. Well, we can wait until he loses his fat, too."

And after this joke they roar with laughter, these stolid Polish mothers. And their faces and eyes are full of resolution and boldness.

A father with a six-year-old son joins us.

"Tell me, what they talk about today, I don't understand a word of English," he says.

I explain the purpose of the meeting to tell the children about relief.

"I see." he says. "Well, you know these committees of ours are awfully clever. They know everything. Just think. Now they want to give vacation to the kids." And he nodded his head with pride and wonder.

"And Weisbord. It a simply hard to talk about him. He takes such care of us. Just think, we are living here, dark people. Nobody thought of us and our misery. The mill owners spit on us. But he thought of us and came to help us build a union. And what a head he's got. You know, he' got more brains in his little toe than all those mill officials put together."

At this point a big Polish woman adds her words, "Yes, our people now say, 'we have two gods, one in the sky. Another here --- Weisbord.'"

The meeting starts and we listen to the speakers on the platform under the tall trees. The man with the six-year-old boy wants me to translate for him. He listens to my snatches of explanation and watches the speakers keenly, and applauds. He knows they are talking good things for the strikers and the strikers children. His face expresses deep, unlimited confidence in the "Committee," the leaders, and an abounding faith in victory.

Stanislawa Piotrowska.

James H. Maurer, President of the Pennsylvania State Federation of Labor, stands strong for the Passaic strikers.

Addressing a mass meeting of union workers in the Harris Theatre, Pittsburgh, May 23, brother Maurer said that the workers of Passaic are "our brothers, fighting the common enemy of the working class. They must be supported. Wherever workers go on strike against the oppression and exploitation of the bosses, there is our fight. Of course we are with them."

In a strong appeal for unity among all the workers, no matter in what kind of they are organized, brother Maurer said: "We cannot stand aside when our class is attacked. The battle of the Passaic textile workers is our battle."

Speakers representing the educational department of the Pennsylvania State Federation of Labor have talked at strike meetings in Passaic and funds are being raised in Pennsylvania to help us in our struggle.

The world stands on tiptoe at the thrilling news of the engagement of Marguerite Bahnsen, daughter of Christian Bahnsen, owner of the Gera Mills and the New Jersey Worsted Mills.

Marguerite will marry a count of course. His name is Hon. Richard Dawney, son of Viscount Dawney of London.

So there is one chance gone fluey for a faithful mill worker to marry the bosses daughter.

This lady and her sister Marie have spent the winter in Europe rolling around in their dad's money that he has squeezed out of the mill workers who are now on strike.

How could these mill barons buy titles for their daughters if the slaves did not work for them night and day? It couldn't be done. These little girlies would have to earn their own living and behave themselves and not run around with rotten dukes and counts.

The union will give more to the workers and less to the decaying aristocracy of foreign countries.

Marguerite can have her count, but, by Heck, we are also going to have our union.

Last Sunday afternoon the Lawrence United Front Committee met at its new headquarters, 81a Common Street and with great enthusiasm elected three delegates to attend the big Amalgamation Conference of Textile Workers Organizations which will meet at Hotel Imperial, New York City on June 5^th and 6^th.

An immediate fund was raised by the organizations present to pay the expenses of the delegates.

It was the feeling of the Committee that all existing textile workers unions should amalgamate their forces.

That there should be one union for the textile industry embracing all skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled into one powerful organization.

An immediate campaign to organize the unorganized.

Conditions in the Lawrence mills are so bad that a strike is liable to break out any moment. because of this, the United Front has repeatedly urged the textile workers of Lawrence to become organized and prepared. Hundreds of workers have heeded the call but there are thousands of workers in Lawrence.

It is felt that this Conference will stimulate the workers to feel the necessity of becoming organized. That it will create a feeling of national solidarity. That it will break down the prejudice that has been existing between [one] union or another and become united into one solid organization to do away with:

Wage cutting, Long hours, Discharge of workers because of old age, Speeding and doubling up, Unemployment, Company unions.

And fight for:

More wages, Less hours, The right to work, The abolition of the speeding and doubling up systems, Sanitary conditions.

Fred E. Beal, Secretary.
United Front Committee of Textile Workers of Lawrence.

For many years we in the Print Works of the Pacific mill have been suffering from the poisoned gases and fumes. The windows of the Print works are shut, the air is thick with fumes that settle on the lungs and ruin the health of the workers.

Time and again we have been demanding that something be done. For several years now some workers have been demanding the Shop Council that a ventilation system be installed.

When the question was first brought up in the Shop Council, it was referred to the grievance committee. From this committee it traveled to the investigation committee. The result was that an investigation was finally made. An important looking person looked at the walls, scribbled something with his pencil, and promptly left. We waited for the ventilation system to be installed. We have now been waiting for years. We are still waiting.

The Shop council is evidently not very much interested in doing anything for the welfare of the workers. The council has been doing nothing but referring everything that we workers demanded to the management. The management is referring it to Dooms Day.

We the workers should not of be fooled any more by these tricks of the bosses. WE MUST HAVE A REAL UNION. --- ONLY THE UNITED FRONT COMMITTEE OF TEXTILE WORKERS WILL BETTER OUR COND1TIONS.

With greetings to the Bulletin and success to the Passaic strikers, I am

A Worker in the Pacific Print Works.

Dear Fellow Workers,

I am a Lawrence worker employed in the Pacific mill. I would like to let you brave Passaic Strikers know some of our grievances. At the present time the mill owners are experimenting on one weaver taking charge of one hundred and three draper looms. This system will put some more weavers in the streets.

Of course the bosses like to [see] the army of unemployed grow bigger so that he can use the unemployed workers as a whip over the heads of those who are employed, to cut some more of their already small wages. This will mean some more profits to the millionaire bosses, more poverty to the workers.

The company union which we have in this mill does not oppose this. They take up petty grievances such as pieces of plaster that are about to fall from the ceiling or ridding the place of roaches.

I hope the day will come when the American Textile workers will learn to organize like the workers in other countries. England for instance, where before you can get a job a worker must show a union card. The union does not allow speed up systems, which put out thousands of workers into the streets. Organized labor dictates, not the bosses.

Pacific Mill Worker.

In the mills here in Lawrence the bosses hit upon a scheme how to make us work without getting any pay. They have here a rule that if you come to work one minuet late you are docked 15 but must work the remaining 14 minuets. If you are late 15 minuets you lose one hour.

Work here begins at 7:15 a. m. and there are always many workers who are late. This slave rule gives the bosses at the end of a year thousands of dollars of unpaid labor. The young workers are those that are hit the hardest by this ruling.

We have been getting the strike Bulletin from Passaic where they tell us about the union and the benefits the workers get through it.

Now if we in Lawrence had a union we would not have such rules or neck-breaking speed systems and maybe get more pay too. I think if the Class conscious workers in Lawrence would take some time and write some of the conditions here to the Bulletin so that everybody can read, it the workers will begin to think, and when they think they organize.

A Lawrence Mill Worker.

I am a worker of the United Piece and Dye Works. My conditions were very bad and had to work long hours, and poor Willie and I couldn't eat or wear clothes just like I wished too. I couldn't get any vacation. I couldn't get any fresh air nor fresh food. I didn't have any strength. I felt ill all the time and worked like a slave there. There was not any enjoyment at all. I come out on strike, and since I came out I get plenty of fresh air and plenty of sunshine. I get clothes and shoes for myself.

I learned a great deal about the bosses. They don't care at all about the workers, for if they did they would give them a living wage and realize that the workers want to be organized into a union, and not a company union either. We are going to stick together and listen to our leader, Weisbord.

I have studied the history of the bosses and I know how they used to treat the slaves in olden times. But now they wouldn't fool them anymore, I know, because, although I am a colored worker I stick together with the white workers because I see that all workers slave alike. The bosses tried all kinds of tricks to break us, but instead they united us. Fellow workers stick together! White or Colored, Italian or Polish.

By a Colored young Worker of Lodi.

We went out on strike 18 weeks ago protesting against wage cuts. We went out on strike because it was no longer possible for us to live with the miserly wages we were getting, and because we were fast becoming slaves for mill owners. Our wages were miserable enough without giving us another wage cut while mill owners profits were exceedingly higher than last year.

The mill owners drew their profits from the following sources:

1. Wage cuts.
2. Employing mothers and aged women for night work.
3. The employment of children who were under the age of 15 years and paying them less than half of the wages and doing the same work as a grown up.
4. By using the speed up system.
5. By keeping the mill in an unsanitary and unsafe condition.

For these reasons we went out on strike and for the same reasons we have been clubbed, beaten and terrorized with riot acts and other means.

These who call themselves 100% Americans say that we are foreigners who don't belong here. I was born and bred in America and I would like to ask these mill owners and 100% Americans where I belong if I don't belong here. Can they dictate where I belong and where I should go?

Then there is another thing I would like to ask these so-called 100% Americans, and that is what would they think of one of our greatest American statesman who on Sept. 30 1859 said: "Capital is stolen labor and its only function is to steal labor." This man was Abraham Lincoln.

A Lodi Worker.

Tuesday, May 24^th, I read the article the bosses put in the newspapers entitled "Our position". In that article they said that they would have nothing to do with the United Front Committee, and that our union was not the kind of a union to have in their mills.

Well, I'd like to say this much to the bosses. The United Front Committee is made up of strikers 100 per cent, and the reason the bosses will not meet the United Front Committee is this. We have learned a whole lot in this strike, we have opened our eyes and the bosses seeing this, they cannot put anything over on the United Front Committee, refuse to meet with us. But they shall meet us in the end, and talk business. The kind of business that we will talk is, "ONE BIG TEXTILE UNION." They must come off their high horses and decide to settle the strike once and for all.

The second point is this: They do not want a union in the mills. They said it was not the right kind of a Union. I know what they want. They want us to have what they call the notorious "Company Union," in other words, A Bosses Fakers Union. We will not have it. It's either "Our Union," or the bosses can close down until they give in. we are ready to fight to a finish for OUR UNION in the Textile Mills.

P. M., A Young Striker.

I am a young striker, 17 years of age, and my mother was forced to go to work for $20 a week for 48 hours, and there are six of us in the family. When I reached the age of 14, I had to quit school and go to work to help my mother keep things going. I also had to work while going to school. I used to work every Saturday on a farm for $1.

When my father left us the ages stood as follows: three sisters of the ages of, 6, 8, 11. And two brothers, 10, 16; so you see that I was forced to quit school.

I went on strike because I worked in several mills and several departments and found out that I was just like a slave. Well, we know that we are going to win and better our conditions after we do win. I believe in all the mills young workers suffer the same, so here is a chance for all.

A Young Striker.

The young workers in the United Piece Dye Works is one of the most exploited workers of any mill. Young boys and girls from the ages of 12 to 16 have to work 11 to 13 hours a day under the most disgraceful conditions and wages ever known.

The following are a few instances why the young workers went out on strike.

The examining room of the U. P. D. W. employs about 100 girls. These girls get from 16 to 18¢ an hour. Their work is to scrub the spots from the silk with benzene. They do this from 10 to 12 hours per day. During this time the room is full of dust. The strong odor of benzene which goes down into the lungs causing consumption at an early age.

Numbers of young boys work in the Boil off Depot. This is one of the worst hell holes of the U P. D W. Here the young workers work for 33 to 35¢ per hour and from 12 to 14 hours a day. There is water continually dripping from the ceiling caused by the steam which fills the room. There are no lockers and they have no lunch hour. They eat their dampened lunch with one hand and handle wet silk and soap suds with the other. At quitting time they take off the wet working clothes and put on their street clothes which by this time are just as wet as the working clothes.

These exploited young workers are now on strike and will never go back until these inhuman conditions are completely wiped out!

A Lodi Young Worker.

The mill owners say that the United Front Committee is pouring a "flood of civic and moral poison" into this community. Look who is helping us. See all those priests. See the citizens in the parade. See Bainbridge Colby. See John Larkin Hughes. See Rabbi Wise. See James P. Walsh. See Senators LaFollete, Wheeler and Borah. See Rev. John Haynes Holmes. See the city councilmen of Garfield. See the whole working class of America.

The bosses seem to think we should be ashamed of this great company that is backing us in pouring "the flood of civic and moral poison" into this community that has been so gently and morally cared for by the mill owners.

If our crime is not too great, we might be forgiven some day, if not forgotten.

Fellow Workers:

After 18 weeks of wonderful fighting we, have made the bosses say that the workers can join a union. But the bosses want to own this union. They want to control it. And if the bosses own the union what good is it? Will a bosses union ever fight the boss? Will a bosses union ever strike for more wages or less hours?

The Textile Workers in the big cotton mill of Manchester. N. H. were forced into a bosses union. And what happened? This bosses union went to the boss and asked the boss to cut their wages 10 per cent. It was this bosses union that gave the bosses in Passaic the idea to cut our wages.

The Textile Workers in the big Pacific Mills in Lawchester, N. H. were forced into a bosses union. And what happened? The bosses not only cut wages 10% but also began to speed up the work. Woolen weavers running two looms, before are now forced to run six! In the cotton mill, weavers are running 120 looms each in some cases! Did the company Union fight this? No, the Company Union kissed the bosses boots and said what a great company the Pacific Mill was.

Right here in Passaic in the Forstmann-Huffmann Co. Plant we have a good example of what a bosses union means. In every room the boss had a sucker or spy. These spies were made "delegates" of the bosses union. They used to go to the boss and report every worker who kicked about his pay or who kicked about the long hours of work or who kicked about the night work for women or who kicked about the rotten stinking conditions in the mill. The Forstmann-Huffmann Co. Union like all of Company unions was a spy union. It was a scab union. It was a sucker union. All the honest workers of Forstmann & Huffmann have this bosses union. That's why the Forstmann-Huffmann workers are such good strikers. They say, with us, "To Hell with the Company union."

We don't want a suckers union. We want a real union, a union of our own. Over 4,000,000 workers in this country have their own union. The textile workers in Paterson have their own union and if the textile workers can win a union in Paterson, we can win union in Passaic.

Without a union of our own we have no safety, no protection. The bosses make ten million promises. But they don't keep one. They will cut wages again. They will fire all the good union fighters. They will crush us ten times worse than before. Only a union of our own will protect us. We will never go back until we have our own union.

Down with the bosses Company Union. Three cheers for the Workers Union!

UNITED FRONT COMMITTEE.

There maybe nothing rotten in Denmark but there is something very rotten in our public schools.

Reports come to us often and regularly of insults by the teachers to the strikers children and mean treatment and boss propaganda in the schools. This we might expect. The teachers on the whole do not know anything about the conditions in the homes or about the conditions in the mills where the parents of the children have to work.

A case has come to the headquarters of the United Front Committee that deserves attention.

Little Helen Wilda, 11 years old, living with her parents and seven other children in the family, was sent by the school nurse to the Memorial School dental office for treatment.

The girl tells this story:

"When I came in the dentist put me in the chair and pulled out two of my good teeth in the lower left jaw. This was not at all necessary. The tooth the nurse said should be pulled and the tooth that ached was on the other side, and he never pulled that. I didn't want him to pull my good teeth. It hurt awfully and I cried."

"Then he asked me for fifty cents and I said I did not have any money for my parents were on strike."

"O, you are that kind, are you, he shouted and grabbed me by the throat and threw me on the floor. He hit me on the arm and these are the marks I have."

This is a simple story, but a powerful one. The girl showed us her throat and arms, blue and black. We saw the marks made by this brute on that helpless girl. We saw the cavities where her sound teeth had been and we also saw the decaying tooth which should have been pulled.

If the citizens let cases like this go without attention, we will have little left of civilization. There is a move on foot to bring this brute lackey of the bosses to time. We shall find out if a school dentist can pull the wrong teeth and clutch the neck and arms of helpless little girls till they are black and blue and get away with it.

It is high time that someone came to the aid of these workers and their children. We are not ashamed of any man or woman who came from other cities or states or countries or other worlds to help cases like this. Are you?

The good people of Passaic and surrounding territory have not been aware of the hellish condition that the brutal bosses have gradually established in these parts.

But the day is at hand for a reckoning and now many of the sincere citizens have cast their lot with the workers, bringing pressure to bear upon the brutal bosses and helping the workers to organize for their own protection.

This is the title appearing over a leading editorial in the current issue of the Journal of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Worker's affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.

This powerful trade union with over 142,000 members knows something about company unions. It has had first hand experience with them and it has found them a lie from beginning to end. So it warns its members and the entire trade union movement of this country against these snaky company committees. This is what it says:

THE COMPANY UNION LIE. The company union lie consists in holding that the company union confers the same benefits upon its members that the trade union does …………….

Members of organized labor --- spokesmen for the trade union --- admit that certain corporations, where trade unions are weak, are in fact rich enough and powerful enough to keep their workers as robots are kept. Their bodies can be consigned to company houses, their brains can be consigned to company experts. Their health can be consigned to company doctors, and their politics can be consigned to company directors. Their babies can be consigned to company hospitals, and their reading to company libraries. They can be born, if you please, INTO A NEW KIND OF SLAVERY, a slavery without slavery's horror or physical pain and suffering, but no less a slavery of mind and spirit.

Then the Electrical Workers Journal quotes Father John A. Ryan of the National Catholic Welfare Council. Father Ryan is a friend of real trade unions, just as the Associated Societies and Parishes of Passaic and Vicinity is a friend of real unionism and the enemy of fake company unions such as the one Julius Forstmann put over on his workers in 1920. This is what Father Ryan says about such sucker organizations as the F & H "representative assembly":

"After more than three centuries there approaches a return to feudalism. The new feudalism is political and industrial. Not improbably it will be more or less benevolent! The lords of industry will realize at least for a considerable number of years that their position and profits will be more secure if they refrain from the cruder and coarser forms of injustice, and permit the dependent classes, both urban and rural, to obtain a moderate share of the products of industry. The masses will probably enjoy a slightly higher degree of economic welfare than has ever been within their reach before. But they will enjoy it at the expense of genuine freedom. The mind of the masses will have become A SLAVE MIND. Possibly this is the kind of society that we want in this country, but, it is not the kind that made and kept America free. It is emphatically not the kind of society that committed the destinies of the country, to the custody of Abraham Lincoln."

The Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Journal then continues with its editorial as follows:

"All of us ought also to see clearly the dire consequences of a widespread placid acceptance of company unionism now. Such a stupid acceptance of company unionism will mean a drag and delay on industry and on political and traditional democracy."

The company union, Passaic workers now understand clearly, is undemocratic, un-American, contrary to the traditions and practices of American labor. It is a complete surrender to the boss.

Our cry must continue: "Down with Forstmann's joke of a union. Up with the real union --- the union of the textile workers!"

Dear Fellow Workers:

Just a few lines to tell you about the hard life of us working ladies in the New Jersey Worsted Spinning Co. About the sanitary conditions in the mill --- they are horrible. The roaches are as big as an animal and we had to put our lunch in the box where they were, with oil, too, and when a person ate it, he ate more wool and oil than food.

Once a wealthy person asked me if we had any lunch hour. Why, when the new night superintendent came in, we wasn't even allowed to eat at all and when he came around we had to hide our bit of sandwich under our dirty apron. Oh, you rich fellows, if I could only speak with you (and Mr. McBride too), I'd tell you what excellent conditions we have in the mills. [Yes, say] they have excellent conditions for the bosses. When their time comes for [lunch] they go into the office and take a good drink and sit down for an hour and then for the hour after. But us poor jackasses, we even have no time to go to the toilet, for the night superintendent that the bosses appointed to be a sucker, he comes to the women's toilet. Maybe a lady just fell down on the cement floor to [rest] herself a [minuet] and he runs in and yell at her, "Come on, go to your machine!" For us poor working people there is no freedom at all.

When my husband brings in $24 a week and we pay $25 a month rent, where is the food and clothing to come from? Unless you hold up somebody, the wife has to go in the mill and slave also. From 2:30 to 12 at night, and get up at seven o'clock to send the children to school and fix dinner and then supper and then again to work. There is no rest at all. If we had an American standard of living, there would be less sickness and more health.

A. J. B.

The Northwestern Christian Advocate comments editorially on the Passaic reign of terror:

It is not a local matter that in Passaic, N. J., in the course of a textile strike, the local police have revived the old Russian outdoor sport of clubbing the people. The attack of the police on the strikers, who were assembled in orderly and legal fashion, clubbing them over the heads, running them down, turning water upon them, is a matter to which the whole country must pay attention. The police did not act as guardians of the law but as partisans of the employers. It is hard to see where the part they played differed from that of the thug, frequently hired by lawless employers to "beat up" the strikers.

One picturesque feature of this lawlessness of the police is a symbol of the real character of the issues at stake. When the police assaulted the crowd with gas and clubs, many veterans of the World War turned over to the strikers the steel helmets and gas masks which they had used in what we fondly termed "The battle [strike] of freedom" in France. It was very fitting that these implements which had done service for freedom in France should be used again as protection from the Cossacks of America. For the battle of the strikers against the police in this instance was actually a battle for American ideals of freedom.

It was only a few years ago that all the billboards of Passaic were plastered with large posters with the slogan: "To Make the World a Decent Place to Live in." It is a good slogan. It did great service a few years ago. It is still needed in America.

We will never make America "a decent place to live in" without the preservation of American rights and free speech and assemblage.

We would not have seen this editorial had not the bosses open shop organ The New York Commercial reprinted it and called it "utter nonsense." We are always glad to see the anti-labor newspapers print such "nonsense" even if they do get nonsensical themselves in commenting upon it.

The workers of Passaic can decide very well whether it is the truth or not.

A statement just issued by the Peoples Reconstruction League of Washington D. C. has some highly significant information for the Passaic textile workers.

You know the textile bosses are always going to Congress and whining that they must have a high Tariff on woolens and worsteds or they will not be able to pay "good wages" to their workers. They weep a lot when they go to Washington about how the high tariff rates, will help the worker, "fill the dinner pail" and create prosperity in the industry.

We workers in Passaic know from experience just what that prosperity looks like. Now we are finding out that the bosses prosperity is not the workers prosperity. The boss hogs it for himself. This is the way the People's Reconstruction League report puts it:

"Wages paid in factories manufacturing textiles and their products were, in 1921, 21:1 per cent of the value of the product; in 1923, however, only 18.4 per cent of their value."

Which simply means that the workers received less proportionately of the value of the textiles made in 1923, under a higher tariff, than they did in 1921 under a lower tariff. And yet, when Forstmann and his crew went to Washington to plead for the higher tariff, they told the Senators and Congressmen that it would mean higher wages for the worker! It has meant just the opposite for the worker It has meant higher profits for the bosses.

Why is this so? Because the workers have had no union with which to take from the bloated mill owners a larger share of the value of the manufactured product.

Tariff or no tariff, the workers will get the lean end of the bacon until when? --- Until a Real Union is built. Until the workers have POWER to take their full share of prosperity.

What do the bosses mean by telling us to go back to work now and talk the matter of settlement over afterward?

Everybody knows that if we went back first, the bosses would do with us just what they pleased. They would certainly not recognize our union any more if we went back first than they would if we stick to the bitter end.

All they want to do is to try to fool us and get a stranglehold on us once more. If they could only get us into their mills, they could browbeat us and fire all the best fighters in the union.

They did that before. They did not even listen to the representatives of the committee. They fired the entire delegation. That was their friendliness at that time. Have they changed since then? Can the leopard change his spots? How have they acted during the strike? Have the failed to use all their opposition to our union? Have they omitted any brutality within their reach? Could they possibly have been more hostile than they have been?

And now they tell us to come back and say the workers will be met with kindness and that they will be treated decently. We do not believe them. They do not deserve our confidence. Their word is no good. They are not reliable. They lie to us and when their lie cannot fool us, they threaten us.

Nothing will save us except power. Power of the union that we build is what we must have. We are not going to build a union for them to enslave us with. Our own Union is our only safeguard. We have it and will keep it

And now the mill owners come and tell us that "they will not recognize any organization as speaking collectively for their employees except that organization, in purpose and method, thoroughly harmonizes with the peculiar conditions in which the industry and the particular mills are subjected."

In other words, the bosses say they will not have a union run by the workers, but only a union run by the bosses themselves.

That is old stuff.

You had a union run by yourself in the Forstmann and Huffmann mills. Why did the workers walk out if that union was such a fine thing for the workers? Why are the Forstmann & Huffmann workers some of the most loyal workers of the United Front Committee? Why have they a greater disgust for the company union than the rest of the workers?

They know what the company union is? They have felt its iron heel. They have experienced the humility of being in a union that has stood for the bosses and only for the bosses. They know that this company union is full of rats and stool pigeons and spies, and that the company uses this union to fool the workers and to keep them in constant terror.

Of all rotten things the company union is the rottenest. It is a perversion. It is a lie. It is a piece of hypocrisy. It is a mantle to cover up the skullduggery of the bosses. It is an instrument of hypnotism to put the workers to sleep. It is a sleight of hand method to rob the workers. It is the trick of the juggler to deceive the slaves. It is the jimmy of the burglar to get into the homes of the workers to rob them. It is the gun of the [footpad] that terrorizes the innocent. It is the slimy, dishonest, hypocritical, treasonable, agency of the bosses whereby the workers may successfully be skinned and kept in utter subjection and helplessness.

What would the bosses say if we should come to them dictate to them what kind of union they must have for themselves? Wouldn’t they think that we were nutty if we should tell them that we will not recognize their organization, but that their organization must suit us?

What a silly and idiotic bunch they are!

And now that the workers have become wise to their underhanded game they get sore and tell us they won't play in our yard.

But we have equally settled that never as long as we breathe the breath of life will we submit to the company union that the bosses want to fool us with. That is settled.

The bosses can rave for all time, and decide that we are not decent enough and that they will not meet with us and recognize our union, but that does not change our position.

We have concluded that life is not worth living under the old conditions in the mills. We have concluded that if we go back without our own union we will be worse than before and to submit to such hell is unthinkable.

No. You may kill us, but you cannot drive us back to the mills without our union.

If you understand that, you may save a lot of valuable time.

There is nothing so abominable as a stupid and prejudiced judge. People expect dignity and a little degree of decency of a court. We have had a lot of the other kind in this strike.

On Monday ten young men, some strikers and some others, were out for a ride. On their way they sang songs and at times shouted, "Hurrah for Weisbord!"

Whereupon a patriotic cop arrested them.

Being dragged before the judge he told them it was a horrible thing for them to sing and make a noise in the night.

Then turning right around he asked them: "Why not yell 'Hurrah for work;' instead of 'Hurrah for Weisbord.?"'

So it was not the noise after all that mattered with the judge. He wanted them to shout the shout of the bosses.

Now what business has the judge to take sides like that? The men were charged with shouting and singing. If they had been singing and shouting for the bosses it would have been all right, and no arrest would have been made.

If the judges think they can get the respect of the people with that kind of stuff they may have to guess several times.

The same judge sentenced one of the party to get a job before noon the same day. That is just as foolish as it can be. Suppose the young man could not find a job by noon, what then? Ten days in jail.

There are millions of workers who would thank the judge if he would find decent jobs for them. With unemployment as it is in every industry the judge takes a long chance when he asks this man to get a job by noon.

This is the kind of judges the workers will get rid of when the time comes. We shall not tolerate them beyond the present term.

Another attempt to break the strike we must be prepared to meet. We are reliably informed that a certain New York strike-breaking agency is about to send some of its choice collection of thugs and ex-convicts to mingle with the strikers and create dissention. They will try to look like workers and talk like workers. They will talk several languages. They may talk American --- the language of violence.

This is an old trick. It has been tried in every strike of any consequence in a final effort to demoralize workers unity.

Several thousand dollars will be spent on this job. The gutters will be raked for professional provocateurs to do it. They will mingle with the workers and try discourage them. They will circulate all sorts of lies. They will try to get workers to return to the mills. They will be paid money by the mills to do this dirty work.

We are ready for these underworld characters. We shall not be tricked or fooled by their stories. We know who they are, and who has sent them here, and who is paying the bill.

We suggest to the mills that they might better save this money for the wages fund for workers on looms and spinning frames after we have returned to the mills WITH OUR UNION.

Money spent on dicks and thugs will not make the wheels turn. It will not make scabs of strikers. It will be wasted.

Suppose we had had a lot of scab women in this strike. Or suppose we had had a lot of women without guts, who would be whimpering every day, "Oh, I'm sick of this old strike. When is it ever going to end?" Suppose we had had women, who would say, every time their old man got clubbed on the picket line, "Serves you right. Why don't you go back to the mill where you belong, then you won't get clubbed," or "It's your fault I can't pay the rent this spring, and the landlord coming after me every day."

Could we win the strike if had women like that around? We couldn't have held out one month, not to speak of four months successfully as we done. No, we haven't any such specimens of women around in this strike. Here, on the contrary, it [is] the women who have been right on the job on the picket line and at the meetings from first to last. Very often, it is Mrs. Striker here who rousts her old man out of bed in the morning to go on the picket line. And in the evening, its just as likely as not that she leaves the kids with him to mind while she runs off to a women's meeting. Well, aren’t they his kids, too? And while he may not say much, while he may look kind of dumbfounded sometimes, he probably is thinking, the old crank, while he scratches his head, "Well, after all, my old woman, she isn't so bad. She seems to have a lot of guts, after all. I guess I knew what I was doing when I picked her."

His wife is his partner now, not some sort of truck-horse or cow who worked like a slave in the kitchen and never knew a thing of what was going on outside. She is his partner who works with him in the mill, and in strike time goes on the picket line with him, gets clubbed with him and works like an equal in everything. And she is the sort of woman that is the very backbone of this strike, who is building up the Union and winning the strike for all the textile workers.
 
 

FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND WORKERS through their elected delegates, expressed their solidarity with the Passaic textile strikers at the "Support the Passaic Strike Conference," held in Passaic, N. J., Saturday, May 29^th.

Through resolutions, .passed unanimously by the delegates, who numbered nearly two hundred, they pledged the support of workers all over the United States to the Textile strikers, --- to defense an relief funds, and to every effort to sustain this workers struggle.

The meeting was an inspiring one. The largest hall in Passaic was packed with delegates, and strikers, who crowded the balconies and aisles to welcome the representatives of sympathetic labor unions, fraternal organizations, relief conferences and other groups who had come to pledge further help.

Alfred Wagenknecht, secretary of relief, was elected chairman of the meeting; and mother Ella Reeves Bloor, and R. S. Kling of the Machinists Union of New Haven Conn., vice chairman. Jacob C. Robinson, of the Pressmen's Union of Detroit and chairman of the Detroit International Workers aid was made secretary. The resolutions committee was composed of Charles W. Ervin, Amalgamated Clothing Workers. R. S. Kling, Machinists Union of New Haven, Conn. Mercer Green Johnson, from the Baltimore Committee for Passaic Strikers Relief. Rebecca Grecht, Workers Party. Abraham Binns, Federated Textile Operatives of New Bedford, Mass. A Wise, of the Joint Board of Cloak, Skirt, Dress and Reefer Makers Union. L. I. G. W. U. of New York, and Louis A. Baum of the Photographic Workers Union of New York.

Albert Weisbord, strike organizer and leader, made the first address. He reviewed the history of the strike --- the wage cuts and brutal disregard of the workers interests that had caused it. In flaming words he painted a picture of the organized campaigns of terror which the bosses have launched against the strikers in an attempt to break the strike as well as the tricky moves by which the bosses have tried to fool the workers. Again and again he was applauded as he drove home to the delegates and to the strikers who knew the story so well, how bitter has been the fight and how courageous the struggle of the workers.

"This successful conference proves that the Passaic textile strike is not a local issue but concerns the workers internationally," he said. "The union smashing campaign of the employers, the wage cutting campaign to which unskilled labor has been especially subjected to, has been going on for years. In wage cutting, the textile workers have suffered most."

"The Passaic strike is a strike for all of unorganized and organized labor. It is a strike to put a stop to union smashing by launching an effort to organize the million textile workers. Organization of the textile workers will inspire the workers in steel, oil, automobiles and other industries to organize. The Passaic strike is a strike to put a stop to wage slashes and if we win back our wage cuts, then other industrial despots will hesitate to cut wages in their industries.

"The lesson of the Passaic strike is that the unorganized [must] be organized. The further lesson is that there must be placed into operation the widest possible united fronts in the labor field so that all of labor may withstand the onslaughts of the capitalists. There must be trade union unity and a compact between all of labor and its sympathizers if the workers in this country are not to be further disorganized and exploited by wage cuts. The Passaic strike is actually your strike and as your strike you must help to win it."

Elizabeth Gurly Flynn spoke for defense. Declaring that the mill owners were determined to take revenge upon the leaders of the strike through the courts. "Weisbord has been framed up and indicted. Jack Rubenstein has been indicted and beaten up in jail so badly that he had to be sent to a hospital. Nearly three hundred workers have been arrested and held under various charges. The mill owners are determined to deprive the workers of the services of their leaders. We must build a defense fund that no striker can serve unjust terms as a punishment. A victory will not be complete until we are assured that they will not be thrown into jail for long terms."

Robert W. Dunn, of the American Civil Liberties Union, spoke upon the abrogation of all constitutional guarantees by the mill owners and their tools, reciting the outrages perpetrated during this and other strikes in New Jersey. "The fight for the civil liberties guaranteed by our constitution must continue," he declared. "These have been denied us in New Jersey. Not only strikers but strikers friends have been arrested, given unfair trials, and unjust sentences."

An appeal for extended relief conferences, for help of all kinds was made by Alfred Wagenknecht, secretary of relief to the delegates present. "Strike relief is not charity," he told them. "Strike relief is a fundamental essential of the struggle of the workers against their exploiters. Strike relief in any battle is forthcoming because the workers knew that they have mutual interests and are part of the gigantic army of workers engaged in, not only a national, but also an international conflict with the employers and imperialists."

"The international character of strike relief is shown by the contributions that went forward from many countries to the textile strikers in Shanghai and Bombay. It is shown by the recent contribution of three million rubles to the striking British miners, by the unions of Soviet Russia. The Passaic strike is no longer a local struggle. Organizations from everywhere have entered into it."

"Workers from all over the world are beginning to concern themselves with strikes in all parts of the world."

"The Passaic strike is your struggle because you are part of the working class." You have responsibilities in this struggle because a defeat will be your loss and in a victory you will also win. You must go out of this conference resolved to broaden your contacts, widen your relief activity, to organize relief conferences in at least 30 cities. If this strike lasts all summer, relief must be forthcoming in a steady stream. The children must receive special attention at once. Milk and nutritious meals for the textile strikers children is the slogan upon which renewed collections must be made."

"We need clothing. We need shoes. Strikers come in every day and ask for a little bit of cloth to make a little girl some bloomers or a little boy a shirt. We give them an old dress to make over. Nothing is lost here."

"Children need shoes. Men and women need shoes so that they can go on the picket lines and to the meetings. And always we need money for food. The response has been wonderful but still we need a wider and greater response." He explained the working of the relief system that does not allow food relief to any family that has any resources at all in the way of savings or credit. He stated that the relief was run almost entirely by the strikers themselves.

"I want you to take back to your organizations the knowledge that the relief work in Passaic is proceeding on a basis both economical and just," he told the delegates.

The delegates spent the morning on a tour of Passaic, which took them past all the mills and the historic places where the brutal clubbings, the use of fire hose and tear bombs, the blackjack and the riot guns have left their indelible marks upon the men, women and children strikers.

Delegates were present from all over the east, including Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, Lawrence, Mass., Katonah, N. Y., New Haven, Conn., New Jersey cities as well as New York City, and other points.

Many delegates spoke at the meeting, pledging the support of their organizations to the strike.

"The Amalgamated Clothing Workers will do everything in their power to keep money and relief pouring in until the Passaic strike is won," declared Charles Ervin of that organization.

''For every dollar you have given you owe another dollar," urged Mercer Greene Johnson of the Baltimore conference. He told how he had lost his position as rector of Trinity Church, Newark, because of his sympathy with the Paterson silk strike of 1919, and concluded that "the years since then have been the best of my life."

R. S. Kling declared that all textile centers are looking toward Passaic as toward a leader, and suggested that a school for speakers be established here to develop leaders among the workers for possible strikes in other centers.

Ben Thomas of the Relief Conference of Philadelphia said that he would take back a message of the "wonderful spirit" of Passaic and urge redoubled support in Philadelphia.

Kate Gitlow spoke for the United Council of Workingclass Housewives and told of the two kitchens already established for strikers children where a thousand children are now fed. "We must feed 10,000 children if the strike continues," she said.

Abraham Binns, a veteran weaver, scarred in many battles, declared that Passaic "had made a good job," and that in twenty years of experience with labor organizations the Passaic strike stood out as a remarkable struggle.

"The Detroit Federation of Labor officially endorsed the strike last Wednesday," said Jacob C. Robinson, vice president of the Pressmen's Union, No. 2. "On the basis of this, I hope to establish a weekly contribution of $500, and send a carload of clothes very soon."

"The textile workers of all New England look to Passaic," was another message brought by A. Bimba Laisve.

Obermeyer of the Amalgamated Food Workers, said that his organization was prepared to send further large donations of food.

The Rev. C. L. Orbach of the local Slavic Committee, A Wise of the International Ladies Garment Workers, Pascal Cosgrove of the Shoe Workers, delegates of the carpenters and the jewelry workers, Young Pioneers of America, Workers Party, businessmen's associations --- all gave their pledges to carry on for relief until the textile strikers win, until their demands for a bare living wage and a union are met by the bosses.

Letters and telegrams sending greetings and assurance of moral and financial support were read to the Conference. These came from various points in the United States, such as Los Angeles, Calif.; Toledo, Ohio; Rochester, N. Y.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Detroit, Mich.; Mattapan, Mass.; New York, N. Y.; Hudson Heights, N. J.; Keene, N. H. and Auburn, Me.

Minutes of the support the Passaic Strike Conference held May 29, 1926 at Kanter's Auditorium, Passaic, New Jersey.

The Support the Passaic Strike Conference was called to order by Alfred Wagenknecht, Chairman of the General Relief Committee of Textile Strikers of Passaic and vicinity.

The Agenda was read and unanimously adopted by the Conference.

Convention call read: 197 delegates present representing 500,000 people. Roll call of delegates upon basis of credentials presented.

Elections: Chairman, Alfred Wagenknecht; Relief Chairman, Vice Chairman, Mother Ella Reeves Bloor, representing the United Front Committee of Lawrence, Mass., and R. S. Kling of the Machinists Union of New Haven Conn., Secretary; Jacob C. Robinson, Local No. 2 of the Pressmen's Union of Detroit and Chairman of the Detroit International Workers Aid. The Resolutions Committee was composed of Charles W. Ervin of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, R. S. Kling, Elm Lodge 420, Machinists Union of New Haven, Conn.; Mercer Greene Johnson from the Baltimore Committee for Passaic Strikers Relief; Rebecca Grecht, Workers Party, District No. 2; Abraham Binns, Federated Textile Operatives of New Bedford, Mass.; A. Wise, of the Joint Board of Cloak, Skirt, Dress and Reefer makers Union J. I. G. W. U. of New York and Louis A. Baum of the Photographic Workers Union of New York.

Conference addressed by Albert Weisbord: Resolution on a United Front in support of the strike was introduced by Weisbord and unanimously adopted.

Address by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on defense of victims of Passaic struggles. Resolution on defense read and unanimously adopted.

Address by Robert Dunn on Civil Liberties. Resolution on civil liberties introduced and passed unanimously.

Address by Alfred Wagenknecht, Chairman of General Relief Committee for Passaic and vicinity. Resolution on Relief read and unanimously adopted by conference.

Letters and telegrams sending greetings and assurance of moral and financial support were read to the Conference. These came from various points in the United States such as Los Angeles, Cal., Toledo, Ohio, Rochester, N. Y., Milwaukee, Wis., Detroit, Mich., Mattapan, Mass., New York, N. Y., Hudson Heights, N. J., Keene N. H., and Auburn, Me.

An invitation was extended the delegates of the conference to visit the bazaar in Paterson arranged by the Paterson Relief Conference for the benefit of the Passaic textile strikers.

The Conference was then opened for general discussion and reports from the various relief conferences and sympathetic organizations were given. Among the delegates reporting were the following: Charles W. Ervin of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union of America, Dr. Mercer Greene Johnston of the Baltimore Relief Committee. Michael Obermeier of the Amalgamated Food Workers, R. S. Kling, Elm Lodge 420 of the Machinist Union of New Haven, Conn., Ben Thomas of the Philadelphia Relief Conference, Abraham Binns of the Federated Textile Operatives of New Bedford, Mass., A. Wise of the Joint Board of Cloak, Skirt, Dress and Reefer Makers Union, J. I. G. W. U., Jacob C. Robinson of the Pressmen's Union of Detroit and Chairman of the Detroit International Workers. A. Bimba, Editor of Laisve, New York, Vito of the Springfield Mass. Relief Conference, Reverend C. I. Orbach of the Associated Slavic Societies, and Parishes of Passaic and vicinity and head of the recent Slavic Peace Committee, Roger Francezon of the Marine and Transport Workers Union, Marion Emerson of the International Workers Aid of New York. Kate Gitlow of the Workingclass Housewives, Pascal Cosgrove of the Shoe Workers Protective Union, Sam Zeldu of International Lace Operatives, Local No. 2. A. Lapidua of Local No. 376, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Sylvia Gudis of the Young Pioneers of District No. 2, New York, Adolph Gersh of Brookwood Labor College, Irving Freiman of the Essex County Relief Conference, Mother Ella Reeves Bloor of the United Front Committee of Lawrence, Mass., and J. O. Bentall, of the International Labor Defense.

This textile center of New Jersey is indeed an industrial hell. Decades of starvation wages, long hours of labor, night work, child labor, spy systems, persecutions, vocational diseases, unsanitary workshops and homes and miserable poverty drive the textile workers to periodic revolts despite the fact that the mass of them are unorganized.

Textile strikes throughout labor history have been historical battles for the right to organize and for a bare living wage. No group of industrial lords are more skilled at turning the blood of their wage slaves into exorbitant profits than are the textile barons. There are one million of these workers who need a union to protect them.

The big Passaic strike of today is one of a series of revolts against the inhuman exploitation of the textile baron. The Passaic textile strike is, however, a more heroic and courageous battle, because of the lessons these poverty stricken workers have learned from previous struggles with the employing class.

The textile strikers of Passaic and vicinity have withstood every form of violence and viciousness that the mill owners could invent. They have braved the brutal police, jails, riot guns and tear gas bombs. Their wives and children have been trampled upon and many strikers and sympathizers jailed. Mounted police, on horse and motorcycle, have ridden through and over strikers peacefully marching along the public highways. The clubs of the arms of the law have broken many strikers heads. This strike has become known the world over for its brutality and abrogation of civil rights to which the strikers have been subjected.

We, the delegates to the Support the Passaic Strike Conference, gathered here today, cannot of course stand shoulder to shoulder with these brave workers in their daily conflicts with the powers of the textile barons. We can, however, in the many cities from which we come, arouse the workers and all sympathizers to the need of such support as they can render.

The longer the struggle, the more need is there for the moral and financial support of the millions of workers and the thousands of workers organizations and sympathizers.

We must support this strike. We must help to win this strike by giving the strikers, their families and children, the bread they need to carry on. Relief funds in the thousands of dollars must continue to pour into Passaic. Money from us and those with whom we come in contact will help to win for the strikers a living wage and a union.

This Conference, therefore, calls upon all labor unions, workers fraternal organizations, and other sympathetic organizations and individuals to join hands in each city, and upon the basis of the broadest possible united front, begin to gather relief funds by organizing relief conferences.

Relief conferences that are functioning today prove that this organized method of gathering relief funds, meets with the widest success. Tag days, house to house collections, shop collections, bazaars, concerts, mass meetings, solicitation of funds from organization treasuries, these are undertakings which a steadily functioning conference makes possible.

This general conference indorses the organization of relief conferences in every city, and advises that a group of organizers be placed in the field at once for this purpose.

A special campaign for children's relief should be inaugurated at once. Thousands of undernourished strikers children must have our aid. Years of starvation wages have resulted in 58 percent of them being underweight and weak from undernourishment. An appalling fact of the night work of mothers and of undernourishment due to low wages, is shown in the mortality of the Passaic textile strikers children, the death rate being 50 percent greater than among other children of New Jersey.

We must help save these children whom the textile barons through their intense system of exploitation are actually murdering. This conference advises the inauguration of a campaign for $100,000 for children's relief. The sums of money collected to be used to purchase milk for the thousands of textile workers little children, many of whom have been deprived of sufficient milk since infancy; to establish additional kitchens where the children may be fed one nutritious meal daily; to give them more playgrounds; to place the most needy in workers camps. We must help strengthen these children for the struggle they will someday have to make against the exploiters, and aiding the strikers children means helping to win this strike.

Finally, this conference calls upon all of labor and all its sympathizers to remain steadily at work gathering relief funds during the whole period of the strike. The textile bosses have decided to fight the strikers to a finish. We declare we shall be in at the finish, but that the finish shall be victory for the workers.

The 19^th week of the struggle begins Monday. We cheer you [Passaic] Textile Strikers, with the promise that this 19^th week finds us as keen to assist as at any period. We are with you for a STRONG UNION and a LIVING WAGE.

The Shop Council or company union chiefs of the Pacific Mill, and 184 Broadway are again carrying out the orders of the bosses. They are paid to mislead the workers and to organize a scab union prepared to stab the workers in the back. The same individuals who are on the bosses plant and production committee, whose business it is to increase production and the huge profits of the owners by introducing speed up systems, doubling up the work, and throwing thousands of workers out of the mills to starve, are also organizing a scab union at 184 Broadway.

The Lawrence workers must know the facts about the clever agents of the bosses who are already offering five dollars a week strike pay in order to allure the workers away from the only organization that is made up of workers and fights the bosses --- the United Front Committee of Textile Workers.

The Thiel Detective Agency of industrial spies organized the Shop Council and plant committee of the Pacific mill. The nest of industrial spies and suckers paid by the Thiel Agency are behind the activities of the individuals of the Pacific plant committee.

Whenever a group of workers begin to organize themselves for better conditions, the paid stools, of the bosses always raise the cry of "Communism, Moscow, and outside agitators." This trick is too old to fool any intelligent workers. Every scab, every spy, every profiteering boss, every exploiter of labor, every crooked labor faker have used that trick since the workers began to organize their unions. In Passaic, the heroic struggle of our 16,000 fellow workers for bread, was also attacked by the bosses and their spies as the work of "Moscow, Communists and extremists." The only ones who scab in Passaic now, who take the bread from the mouths of little children are the members of the Forstmann-Huffmann shop council or company union. That council was organized by the same detective agency that is operating the Pacific shop council and the union at 184 Broadway.

The workers [of] Lawrence shrink from contact with the lowest and most vile creature on two legs, the industrial spy, professional scab and sucker.

The United Front Committee of the Lawrence Textile workers is the only organization affiliated with the United Front Committee of Passaic. The United Front Committee of Lawrence has cleaned out the suckers and company union agents from its ranks. It is the only organization consisting of workers and free from the influence of the bosses and detective agencies. The United Front Committee proceeds to organize the textile workers of Lawrence and unites all textile workers organizations into one solid United Front which will win better conditions of life and higher wages for the textile workers.

In spite of the insidious campaign of intimidation and terrorism carried on by the American legion, and the Thiel Detectives of the Company union in an effort to stop the meeting, hundreds of Lawrence workers turned out to declare their solidarity with Sacco and Vanzetti. Stanley Clark of the International Labor Defense, received a splendid ovation while the audience stood up and cheered Albert Weisbord, leader of the Passaic Strike, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn well known leader of the strike of 1912.

Sacco and Vanzetti, declared the speakers, are innocent. The judges of the Supreme Court know that they are innocent. Their only crime consists of their loyalty to labor. It is for that crime that the bosses of Massachusetts are thirsty for their blood. The Supreme Court has refused them a new trial because they know that the outcome of a new trial can only be the complete liberation of Sacco and Vanzetti. The district attorney and the Supreme Court are afraid to put their state witnesses on the stand. They know that they have been proven perjurers and liers, and that neither Sacco nor Vanzetti were any where near the murder scene at South Braintree. The masters courts have said the last word, "Sacco and Vanzetti must die." It is now up to the workers to say in a mighty voice, "Sacco and Vanzetti must live."

"The Lawrence workers are preparing once again to take their rightful place in the front ranks of American labor," declared the chairman representing the United Front Committee of Textile Workers: "Neither the American Legion, the Thiel agents of the company union, nor the hysterical propaganda of the newspapers will stop the United Front Committee from organizing the textile workers to struggle against poverty, forced unemployment, the speed-up and starvation. Soon you workers may expect new attacks on the United Front Committee by the bosses. Soon you will receive circulars shouting, 'Reds', 'Moscow,' and 'outsiders'. When you hear that, tell these people that you are wise to the tricks of industrial spies and bosses agents!"

Joseph Salerno, local leader, especially amongst the Italian workers, analyzed the Sacco and Vanzetti case as a frame-up and a grave insult to the entire Italian race. The cause of Sacco and Vanzetti is the cause of every worker. The workers of Lawrence especially know that only labor can save these victims of the bosses greed and vengeance. It was the demonstrations and protests of the workers that saves Ettor and Giovanetti in the 1922 frame-up. Lawrence labor must declare Sacco and Vanzetti are dear to the working class. They shall not die.

After working for five years in the Arlington mills from 7:15 to 5, I received as a reward for my good work a button. After giving my best five years to the mill I have as a reward a button. And this is all I possess after five years of toil and sweat. And this is all I now possess after giving five years of my strength and energy to the mill owners. In these five years my mill owners have made more than five millions of clear profit. In these five years the mill owners have invested thousands of dollars in speed up systems which sapped the life out of us workers. In these five years the mill owners have spent many a happy day in Europe. In these five years I have starved many a day. Now I have a button to take care of myself and my family.

Arlington Mill Worker.

We workers did not expect much from the industrial commission appointed several weeks ago by Peter Carr, to find means and ways of bringing new industries into Lawrence to give work to the thousands of workers who are knocking about for work. We know through experience that no help to the workers can come from these quarters. And do you think we were right?

The industria1 commission met. And what do you think they have suggested as a remedy for unemployment? What do you think was the chief subject of discussion at the meeting of this commission? You would never guess. All Through this meeting they were talking and arguing how the 54 hour week can be introduced again in the mills of Lawrence. This is how the city government solves our problems. This is how the bosses want to do away with unemployment. More exploitation, more working hours, more unemployment and more starvation.

Lawrence Worker.

An excerpt from a recent Report on Conditions of Women and Children in Industry.

Statement on 46 cotton mills investigated in New England States.

"Dust and lint abounded in the picker rooms and card rooms. Lint is given off in all the processes up to and including spinning. The dust can be kept down by frequent sweeping, scrubbing and cleaning but in most of the mills visited there was an objectionable and wholly unnecessary amount of both in the atmosphere.

The noise of the machinery is nerve wrecking; the work in many occupations requires close and constant attention and in the spinning and weaving rooms, the air is hot and moist, often to an injurious degree.

Wash rooms for women workers were not common, being found only in thirteen mills. Dressing rooms were rarer still.

It is not pin money nor because they prefer it to the home that women work. They do it to make a living and often enough, a poor living at that. In many cases at the expense of their health."

There are 8,549,511 women in this country engaged in gainful occupations. 1,920,281 are married.

Average weekly wages ranged $16.85 in Rhode Island to $8.80 in Alabama.

What some Forstmann & Hufftmann Workers Think of the BUNK UNION --- (Taken from affidavits signed and sworn to by F & H strikers)

The following are statements made under oath by workers who have "enjoyed" the benevolent tyranny of the F & H company union for nearly 6 years. These workers are the most intelligent, active, independent, and self-respecting ones on the F & H payroll. What they say should be of interest to the Botany and other workers whose bosses are now willing to "concede" the company union in order to break the strike:

"The F & H employees were organized into what is called a "representative assembly" in May 1920. They were organized by Mr. Reinhold, personnel manager of the F & H mills. Mr. R. called a meeting of all employees and asked them to pick out a representative from each room, and forced them to vote.

"Mr. R. passed out slips with check numbers and told them they had to vote. The company paid for the time the employees spent at the meeting. The workers elected 54 representatives to the assembly and Mr. R. chose 54 persons. About two or three times a year the company held a general meeting. At these meetings, the mill provided free meals, cigars, cigarettes and all kinds of refreshments to the representatives."

"During 1925, the representative assembly under the influence of the mill managers, put into effect certain rules with reference to speeding up the work.

(Here he details the several ways in which this was done in the spinning and weaving departments.)

"We were told that grievances as to conditions, wages, etc., could not be brought before the Representative Assembly unless they had first been presented to the authorities (management --- in the form of a "docket committee")

"I know that the workers in the Forstmann & Huffmann plant objected to the speed-up system, the laying off of men, requiring the remaining men to do all the work of the men laid off, the unsanitary conditions and the low wages."

"I have been a member of the shop committee and of the representative assembly for the past three years. At the meetings of the assembly the workers were all afraid to speak concerning conditions. I never in my three years membership in the assembly spoke once at the meetings, because I knew what I said would be taken down and used against me."

"I was injured in the mill and requested one of the elected "representatives" to preset my case before the assembly to see whether any operation was required. The 'rep.' conferred with the doctor and the mill authorities, who decided that this was not the kind of a case to present to the Representative Assembly."

"I was elected a representative in 1923. I attended regularly the meetings of the Representative Assembly and I know of my own knowledge, cases where persons who had complaints to bring before the Representative Assembly were told that they would lose their positions if they would do so."

"The procedure in accordance with the rules of the organization (company union) was that if anyone had grievance or complaint to make to the Assembly, he was first required to take it up with what was known as the Docket Committee, most of whose members were connected with the employment office of the mills. If this committee ruled that a complaint was not to be brought before the "representative assembly", it was not brought. This committee determined before each meeting of the company union what was to be discussed."

"Since 1922 the popularity of the assembly has constantly decreased because the workers felt it was nothing but a company union. Workers have refused to be elected as representatives and on several occasions voted for famous race horses for their 'representative'!

"Before the strike, members of the representative assembly were requested by me and other workers to present grievances as to conditions, wages, etc., before the Assembly. These matters could not be brought before the Representative Assembly until they were first presented to the mill authorities. The members of the shop committee (company union) were all afraid to bring these questions before the mill managers."

The above quotations tell us something about the FAKE UNION at the F & H! How it makes cowards out of workers. How it refuses to take up their just grievances. How it serves as the tool of the management to terrorize and exploit the workers in every department.

More affidavits on this subject will be presented in subsequent issues of the Textile Bulletin.

If you want to get arrested a little, all you have to do is to go to Passaic or Garfield and talk to the strikers and tell them to have their own union and not to bother with the god damn company union.

That is what happened to Benjamin Stolberg, outside agitator from New York, graduate of Harvard '20', Phi Beta Kappa, listed in "Who's Who?" Poet, writer for the Nation and the Times, brought up in the sunshine and culture of America, and at the time he spoke, as nearly a gentleman as a man can be in the neighborhood of the Forstmann and Huffmann mills. He was reared by god fearing parents and school teachers, moral to the degree that he was granted a passport to New Jersey, promised a crown of glory when he goes to heaven.

This product of America's finest university and the lamkin in the valley of infantile innocence burst forth in such language that the ears of the sensitive cops were sent from pole to pole and all around the circumference. These refined servants of the most high bosses have never been used to such blasphemy. They have been standing on their head in the washbowl all since, scrubbing and soaping and rubbing and grabbing and having one helluva time to get the obscene and profane and vulgar impurities out of their lily white ears that never before had come within radio distance of so much as an exaggerated perturbance of a maiden aunt.

Right in the hall, Ben Stolberg the very next day after Decoration day so decorated the pure atmosphere of Garfield that that the police have been wearing cotton and wool in their ears all since for fear of being shocked by another outburst of horrible profanity. He is said to have said the following sentence:

"Organized labor is going to see to it that you come with your own union and not with their goddam company union."

Blasphemy! It soiled the ears of the cops. They grabbed him. Slammed him into the hoosegow. Ran for their life to their washbowl to cleanse their ears. Are there yet according to latest report.

The outrage against these tender [saplings] in the vineyard of the bosses must be avenged. That their immaculate cops should have been soiled to such a degree is a crime unforgivable.

Straightway they told the criminal after they arrested him, "What the hell is America coming to when a goddam s…. of a b….. like you can get up and talk that way? Why, I wouldn't talk like that before my own mother. Your goddam swearing sounds like hell."

What will happen when this arch criminal gets before judge Baker is yet to be learned. Can the judge stand the shock of the testimony? If there is a funeral in New Jersey and a judge is laid to rest, it is another proof that the outside agitators are a menace to the tranquility of humanity and the serenity of the gentle bosses.

The heroic struggle of the Passaic textile strikers now in its 19^th week, calls for the united and continuous support of all labor until victory is assured.

It is a struggle of the intensely exploited workers against the inhuman conditions that oppress them. The fight of these workers is a fight of all the workers in this country.

The Passaic strikers fighting under the banner of the United Front Committee of Textile Workers today constitute a valiant part of the workers vanguard in this country. With their bodies they have borne the blows that have been meant for the entire working class. We must protect these strikers.

The Passaic strike marks a new chapter in the struggle of the worker for a decent living wage. It marks a forward step in the organization of the unorganized so badly needed. It gives a new impetus to the move for unity of labor's ranks not only in the textile industry but everywhere.

The Passaic strikers have raised the slogan of the United Front of the Workers against the united front of the bosses. And we, the delegates in this "Support the Passaic Strike" Conference assembled together, hereby resolve that we shall carry home with us this slogan and see to it that all the means in our power, that a mighty united front of labor is created for the support of the Passaic strikers, and for one union in the textile industry.

Practically every liberty guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States and the State of New Jersey has been denied the 16,000 textile strikers.

Civil safeguards that together make up every keystone of our government have been wiped out in the campaign of lawlessness and terrorization conducted by the mill owners and their irresponsible and un-American agents.

Workers attempting to picket as well as bystanders, have been brutally clubbed and their heads split open by policemen's clubs, even newspaper men and photographers have been driven from the picket lines and their property destroyed. The legal right to picket has been at times completely wiped out and is even now seriously and unconstitutionally restricted.

Strikers and their friends have been arrested and framed up without warrant or cause and barbarously assaulted, both in and out of prison, by the police Cossacks.

The whole administration of justice in Passaic and vicinity has been prostituted to the wishes of the mill owners. Judicial officials have acted as though they were prosecuting agents of the mills in their futile efforts to destroy the unity and solidarity of the textile workers and drive them back to the mills.

The right of peaceful assembly has also been seriously interfered with. Halls have been closed by order of petty local tyrants and in some cases still remain closed through the use threats and intimidation's against hall owners.

In view of these clearly unconstitutional acts and practices, this conference resolves to do all in its power to assist those organizations working to retain, preserve and uphold the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States during this orderly strike of textile workers.

The textile mill owners in their efforts to break this strike of 16,000 workers have conducted a literal reign of terror through the local mayors, police chiefs, sheriffs and other public officials. They have arrested and indicted Albert Weisbord, the organizer of the United Front Conference, Jack Rubenstein, and other strike leaders and picket captains; they have arrested, clubbed and held under false charges, nearly 300 of the active spirits of the struggle. Many of them have been brutally treated by the police at the time of their arrest and during their incarceration. All of them must have strong legal defense and protection against the lawless and vindictive mill owners and their agents in public office.

In addition to the textile strikers arrested when attempting to picket and carry out their legal rights, several other citizens such as Norman Thomas, Esther Lowell, Robert Wolf, Robert Dunn and others have been arrested, thrown into jail, denied fair trials and finally released under outrageously excessive bail in flagrant violation of constitutional guarantees. If indicted, the very best of legal defense will be necessary in order to prevent them being railroaded to prison for their work on behalf of the striking textile workers.

For the defense of the arrested strikers, their leaders and their sympathizers, this conference pledges its complete and wholehearted support. It will cooperate with the United Front Committee of Textile Strikers of Passaic and vicinity, with the International Labor Defense and the American Civil Liberties Union in making this defense work practical and effective. To secure the release of all those under arrest, a strong, permanent and aggressive defense movement must be built up to defend and protect them. The mill owners must not be permitted to send Weisbord and the other valiant members to prison for long terms --- as punishment for their loyalty to the textile workers.

Therefore, we call upon all members to build up simultaneously with the relief work, a united defense movement and we pledge ourselves even after the strike is victoriously won to consider the victory incomplete until we have secured the release of all those who have been the victim of this reign of terror.

"Trade Unionists all over the United States should support men and women who previous to this dispute were not organized, not knowing when they came out, whether they were going to be supported in their fight against tyrants," writes J. Hardwich, secretary, Branch 8 (Philadelphia) the Chartered Society of Amalgamated Lace Operatives of America, in forwarding a contribution from his union.

"We in Branch 8 feel proud of having people in the Ranks of Trade Unionism of the caliber of the Passaic Strikers who by their heroic fight for a living wage have beaten anything in the annals of trade unionism. Stick to your guns, men and women of Passaic, in your gallant fight for justice and fair play and I am confident victory will be yours."

Dear Fellow Workers:

I read in the Passaic Daily News what Sheriff Nimmo said about us poor people being misled. Why, if it wasn't for Sheriff Nimmo and his thugs and the pay they're getting from the bosses we would be back inside the mills with our strong union long ago.

Fellow workers, now is the time for us to open our eyes and see that we stick to our leaders who have almost given their lives for us, and to the other working people who are supporting us with their money to show that they are fighting with us to a finish.

Then when we enter the "Great Heaven" --- the mills, [the] United Front Committee will enter the great gates with its - banner flying strong and peaceful. And the mills then will be sanitary mills. May the great union be strong forever and ever.

A. J. B.

Dear fellow Workers:

Here is a little poem I have written and wish you would have it published in the next Strikers Bulletin.

Win this battle to a victory
Enlightens our path to victory
Is our medal cry
Spirits that can never to broken
Bitter bosses that we must conquer
Options to which they must fail
Revealing the causes of this battle
Down with the Bosses All.

We can't win the strike because scabs work in the mills and they take the bread from our mouths by scabbing. If we did not have scabs, then we will win the strike. I wish the strike will be won because we could have more food to eat and have more clothes. I will help my parents to go on the picket lines so that we will win the strike.

By Mary Kosa

Dear fellow working women:

Just a few words for us women working in those mills nights. I would like to face any of those people, like Dr. McBride who say the conditions are wonderful. Just let me tell him myself or I could face anybody and tell them what a hell-hole it really is. Especially since the night superintendent gave cut orders that we should not even eat by our machines, we had to eat our piece of dry sandwich while he was away looking at other rooms.

Now the fight is on in real earnest! Not that the Passaic Textile Strike has not had its earnest moments. The sound of policemen's clubs on the heads of men, women and children on strike, has been heard all over the world. We have just had our BLOODY FRIDAY! Strikers walking home peacefully from a hall meeting, were assaulted most brutally by a whiskey-maddened police. They're doling out whiskey now to keep up the courage of the arms of the law!

But the fight is on in real earnest now because the BOSSES HAVE ORGANIZED THEIR UNION. Up to now the six big textile mills have followed an alone strike policy. Of course, the same arms of law and order worked for all the mills, yet, up to now each single mill laid claim to "its own workers" and itched to deal with "its workers" singly. One at a time.

NOW THE TEXTILE BOSSES HAVE A UNION! They have decided to UNITE to beat the Textile Strikers, and the first decision made by the NEW TEXTILE BOSSES UNION was that the TEXTILE WORKERS SHALL NEVER HAVE A UNION!

We say that the Textile Strikers SHALL HAVE A UNION to protect themselves and their families and children. HOW DO YOU VOTE?

We also say that the stool workers, oil workers, auto workers, all organized workers SHOULD HAVE A UNION. That's the point by the way. All the bosses know that if the Textile Strikers got THEIR UNION, then the other millions of unorganized workers will want one too.

So, this is a fight for UNIONISM! And in this fight EVERY WORKER MUST TAKE PART.

Now the fight is on in real earnest. Now you must get down to the work of helping to win the Textile Strike in real earnest. You may not get within slugging distance of a Passaic policeman's club, but you can encourage the 16,000 textile strikers in their struggle by AIDING FINANCIALLY. Money from you will be the club with which we, the textile strikers, can use most effectively against the bosses.

1. We are giving relief to 14,500 strikers and dependents.
2. Four food relief stores are functioning to capacity.
3. One clothing store distributes contributed wearing apparel.
4. Five picket line lunch counters serve coffee and sandwiches to strikers on picket duty.
5. Two children' kitchens feed a thousand children daily.
6. Three Physicians take care of the sick and the clubbed strikers.
7. A total of 125 strikers perform all details of the relief work WITHOUT RENUMERATION.

1. Organize a Passaic Strikers Relief Conference in your city AT ONCE.
2. Hold a TAG DAY in your city.
3. Make a HOUSE TO HOUSE COLLECTION in your city.
4. Make a collection in YOUR SHOP.
5. Request your union and fraternal organization to vote a sum of money out of its treasury.
6. Organize a BAZAAR, MASS MEETING, CONCERT or other affairs for the benefit of the Passaic strikers.
7. Send to address below for CONTRIBUTION LISTS and COLLECT EVERYWHERE.

WE MUST SEND HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN TO THE HOMES OF FRIENDS AND ADDITIONAL THOUSANDS TO CAMPS SO WE MAY GIVE THEM HEALTH AND STRENGTH TO WITHSTAND THE MERCILESS EXPLOITATION OF THE TEXTILE BOSSES AND MAKE THEM A POWER IN THE FUTURE RANKS OF ORGANIZED LABOR.

The United Front Committee of Textile Workers and the Textile Strike Bulletin bid all the delegates to the Amalgamation conference a hearty welcome.

You come into the territory of the great conflict between the textile barons and the workers in the mills that has been going on for nineteen weeks and that is still waging strong.

The strikers are stronger than at any other period of the strike, and have determined to win the strike all cost.

You have come to a conference that is of the greatest importance. You are taking up the question of organizing the unorganized in the entire textile industry. The workers in this industry are sorely exploited. They are looking with hopeful eyes to the delegates in this conference to provide some means whereby the work of organization may proceed with all speed so that there may be at least some degree of relief from the suffering that the workers in the textile industry now endure.

This conference will inspire us to even greater efforts and we pledge our hearty cooperation with you in all your plans and efforts in behalf of a union of all the textile workers.

One of the great services of this strike is the thorough exposure of the company union.

Never before has there been such light thrown upon the company union in the textile industry as in this attempt by the bosses to coax the strikers to accept this contraption in instead of their own union.

When the bosses started the campaign to get the workers back and have them join the company union, the workers in the Forstmann and Huffmannn mills came forth with information on the workings of this company union that shot it all to pieces. The thing now looks like a course sand sieve that will not hold enough water to moisten a postage stamp.

Pretty thin of Julius Forstmann to come and offer this hypocritical instrument of the bosses to the workers and expect them to fall for it. He had not figured on the nineteen weeks that the strikers have had in the university of the strike. He did not figure on leadership of this strike. It was a new one on him.

Well by this time the company union is quite fit to be picked up and crumbled into an ash can. The company union might be cremated, if it were not for the brass that is in it with too much slag to melt.

But the workers in Passaic and in the whole textile industry are well through with the company union. It would be hard to resurrect the old corpse again.

Thank you, Mr. Julius Forstmann, for bringing it out so we could have a look at it and forget it.

Now the Lodi police have broken loose --- or rather the Lodi bosses.

It is some time ago that the workers learned the fact that the bosses control every act of the police. So that when the police were lined up long before the picket line came along, the strikers knew that something would happen.

The assault was typical. The chief flew up and declared with much dignity that "law and order" must be preserved, and then he and his Cossacks beat down thirty innocent pickets.

We have heard that formula before. It is framed and hung up on every wall of the castles of the bosses. No well ordered police station is complete without it. No chief and no cop is well educated unless he knows it by heart. No newspaper office controlled by the bosses can get along without it. No cub reporter can hold his job unless he is able to say it forward and backward. No mayor or safety commissioner could draw a cent for their campaign from the bosses if they had not already learned the "law and order" formula in their Sunday school. No sheriff or peanut judge would ever get the backing of the barons if they could not harp on "law and order" like a mendicant before a tenement house.

Well, it is the parrot that parrots this "law and order" stuff, drilled in the parlors of the bosses until it can say it as plainly as "Polly want a cracker."

And the funny part of it is that they think it is a brand new idea and a brainy conception, a wholly original expression that only the greatest mind and the most moral of mortals could possibly invent.

"Law and order!"

Under that guise the whole gang of the bosses and the brainless parrots of the master class try to hide themselves while they club the workers and beat them into pulp. Under that guise they commit the most atrocious crimes and get by with it. Under that guise the police can remove their badges and their numbers so the victim and other witnesses may not be able to prosecute the criminal cop. Under that guise the judge hands out the most outrageous decisions and sentences.

It's a handy cover for the scoundrels and it serves the bosses mightily.

So when the police break loose in their slugging and illegal beatings, the workers know that it is another assault by the brutal bosses who are so naive that they think the workers will ever return without protection for themselves in the form of a union.

No, the workers will seek protection against the brutalities of the bosses. The union is their best protection.

It was good for the 200 delegates to the relief conference to see what the strikers look like. It is almost impossible for the outside world to realize how much energy and enthusiasm is bottled up in the Passaic district until it is actually seen.

These delegates were simply overwhelmed and declared that they had never imagined that there was as much to this strike as they found when they came to the conference.

Others have had the same experience. Speakers have come to help in the strike, to give inspiration. Invariably they have returned fully as much helped by the inspiration the strikers have given them as they have been able to impart to the strikers.

This is a situation in which there is a wonderful process of reciprocity. Labor in America has done a glorious relief work. The feeding of the thousands of strikers every day has meant the success of the strike and will mean full victory in the end.

On the other hand, Labor in America has received in return such tremendous inspiration that it will lift the organized and unorganized masses a to a higher level than any other force during this period.

In fact, the strikers have given full value for every loaf of bread they have received. Both sides have gone forth to give and both sides have given abundantly.

The delegates went home with a new spirit, and from now on there will be more relief than ever. The strikers saw the mighty force behind them and will fight hard to make good.

The conference was a mighty event for the workers of this country. It was the beginning of bigger things to come. If bosses had been present they would have had several sleepless nights since then.
 
 

After seventeen weeks of bitter struggle against all the forces that the fur manufactures could mobilize against the Furriers Union, 12,000 fur workers have come out Victorious.

They have won a 40 hour week and 10¢ increase in wages besides other Trade Demands.

The victory is especially significant because of the militant tactics of the new leadership, under the splendid generalship of Ben Gold, the general manager of the Joint Board.

Like our own Weisbord, brother Gold incurred the hatred and hostility of all the bosses and reactionary leaders, but had the affection and support of the masses in the needle trades.

The Passaic strikers can learn much from the tactics used in the furrier strike, which prove that solidarity and determination always win against all obstacles.

Here in Passaic, let us take new courage and fresh determination and score the next victory for the workers and lay the basis for the union in the textile industry, as powerful and effective as the furriers have built up in the needle trades.

Workers who have no unions are forced to accept wage cuts and long hours, while workers with a union and militant leadership win more wages and shorter hours.

This is the lesson of the fur workers strike.

Fight for your union.

Three women, Elizabeth Roma, Anna Kerstner and Mary Szanto, all of Lanza Ave., Garfield, went out one evening to pay an educational visit to a scab. They took the two children with them, little Nicholas Roma, four years old, and Mary Kerstner, five. They took two men also, as protectors, for anything can develop when you go to visit a scab. They reasoned with the man, who had been working in the Forstmann and Huffmann Mill. They showed him how he was taking the bread out of their children's mouths, and robbing his own children of their future. They got his promise that he would stop scabbing. Then they left peacefully, early in the evening.

Meanwhile, in the neighborhood got wind of the visit and called the police court. The police were waiting on the corner when the group came out. The cops arrested them, and for good measure --- or to give themselves exorcise --- pulled in with them three men who were also standing harmlessly at the corner.

All night the five men remained packed in a cell. The kiddies and their mothers, since no cell was vacant for them, wore away the long hours on chairs in one of the rooms of the court house. With the morning, the babies were hungry. But no food was forthcoming for children or grown people, although it was two o'clock when they were finally released. One bottle of milk was the only breakfast provided for the children.

$1000 bail was fixed for each of the adults on a charge of threatening to kill. Far from be frightened by this ridiculous charge, the women came out ready to round up all the scabs of their neighborhood, and the children will surely grow up into good class conscious fighters, with the early education they got in jail.

"We solemnly pledge our fullest support for the Passaic strike and for one union in the Textile industry."

With this resolution passed unanimously by the delegates to the unity textile conference held Saturday and Sunday in New York, all the independent unions in the country pledge themselves to the move for one solid industrial union.

In speaking of the conference, Organizer Weisbord said: "The unity textile conference that was held in New York City yesterday marks a definite step forward in forming out of the many different unions in the textile industry, one solid industrial union. Definite plans have been made to bring the unions together again to work out a common scheme of action against the employers. All sections of the conference were unanimous and the utmost cordiality prevailed among the delegates of the various unions. Forty-three delegates, representing fifteen unions and textile groupings were present. The resolutions adopted called for the enthusiastic support of the Passaic strike and denounced in no uncertain terms the company union schemes, called for a fight for the abolition of child labor and pledged all the unions present to a persistent campaign for organizing the resistance of the textile workers to the horrible conditions now prevailing.

"Two weeks from now the committee of ten that was elected to map out further plans for a joint campaign to organize the unorganized in the textile industry on a basis of a fight against the mill owners for decent living and working conditions will meet. Albert Weisbord, the leader of the Passaic strike, is a member of this committee, and will be present at all of its meetings.

"The results of this conference may be very far reaching, for if the plans that were made are successful, it will mean that all of the independent textile unions outside of the American Federation of Labor will be banded together for the first time in a close knit organization to fight the mill owners.

"All of the delegates went away from the conference with the feeling that much progress has been made toward unity in the textile industry."

The Resolution on the Passaic strike, adopted unanimously by the delegates is as follows:

"The heroic strike of our fellow workers in Passaic now in its 19^th week, calls for the united and continuous support by all textile unions until victory is assured.

"It is a struggle against the inhuman conditions which are general throughout the textile industry. The fight of our fellow-workers of Passaic is a fight of every textile worker in America.

"The Passaic strikers fighting under the banner of the United Front Committee of Textile Workers today constitute a valiant part of the workers vanguard in this country. With their own bodies they have borne the blows that have been meant for us also.

"The Passaic strike marks a new chapter in the struggle of the workers for a decent living wage. It marks a forward step in the organization of the unorganized so badly needed. It gives a new impetus to the move for unity of labor's ranks in the textile industry.

"The Passaic strikers have raised the slogan of the united front of the workers against the united front of the bosses. And we the delegates assembled together at this unity conference called by the Federated Textile Unions solemnly pledge our fullest support for the Passaic Strike and for one union in the textile industry."

The menace of the "company union" was dealt with in the following resolution, also carried unanimously.

"Whereas in many textile mills there are company unions, known variously as Employees Representation Plans, etc., etc.

"Whereas the purpose of the employers in establishing such organizations is to facilitate the speeding up of the workers, and to prevent the growth of real true unionism in the textile industry.

"Whereas in actual practice these company unions exert a demoralizing effect upon the workers understanding and a destructive effect upon their struggle for better conditions, therefore be it

"Resolved that this conference and the unions here assembled emphatically condemn company unionism as directly harmful to the workers interests, and pledge themselves to carry on an aggressive fight against company unionism and for the establishment of genuine labor unionism in the textile industry."

A resolution on child labor was as follows:

"Whereas in the textile industry there are employed a very large number of child laborers under the age of 16 and

"Whereas the employment of children impairs their health and general development and does not give these children a chance to grow up healthy, and

"Whereas the employment of children to do the tasks of the adult workers for a most miserably low wage tends to lower the standard of living of all the workers in the particular industry, therefore be it

"Resolved that this conference of the textile workers representatives go on record against the employment of children in industry, in particular, the textile industry, to start an energetic campaign for the abolition of child labor."

The fourth resolution passed unanimously by the conference, was on the general condition of the industry. It was as follows:

"The present conditions prevailing throughout the textile industry challenges the attention of all organized labor and especially of the leaders of the organized textile workers in America.

"The most superficial survey of the conditions under which the million textile operatives suffer are general in every branch of the industry.

"The wages paid in this highly protected industry have been notoriously below the subsistence level and on top of this the mill owners have been engaged in a wage slashing campaign in which the already low wages have been reduced from twenty to forty percent in the last two years.

"Unemployment and half-time work has been the rule and the impoverishment of the textile workers has been still further increased by this means and they have been compelled to accept increasingly bad conditions of work from this cause.

"The introduction of the multiple loom system, especially in the cotton mills, the increase in the number of looms in every branch of the industry required the speeding up and efficiency systems introduced in all departments of every branch of the textile industry still further increase the exploitation of the mill workers.

"The use of child labor prevalent in the Southern mills and the intense exploitation of the workers in the mills of the South, many of which are owned and operated by the same companies controlling large corporations in the Northern mills operate to still further reduce the already low standard of living of all the textile workers.

"In most of the mills, systems of fines and docking are prevalent and the textile workers suffer under a multitude of petty abuses. The system of fines and docking filch annually hundreds of thousands of dollars from the pockets of the textile workers.

"Long hours of labor at intense speed, running from forty-eight to seventy hours per week sap the vitality of the textile workers in all textile centers and ruin the health of the women workers.

"Therefore we, the delegates representing our organizations at this Conference of Textile Workers, this 5^th day of June, 1926, pledge ourselves to do all in our power to organize the unorganized textile workers in every branch of the industry, as by this means and by this means alone can these bad conditions be remedied and the whole standard of living in the industry raised and improved. Only by consolidating all the organized forces and carrying on a persistent campaign for organizing the resistance of the workers to these conditions can we expect any permanent improvement and to this end we pledge ourselves and our organizations to give moral, financial and collective support to this program."

When she came in to the office we were all startled. Her face was so gray and lined and sick --- she looked as if she might fall to pieces any moment. She kept twisting her hands together nervously and she seemed very frightened.

Yes, she had been sick, she said. For two weeks she had been "on the bed." Her husband had thought she would die, and if it hadn't been for the neighbors coming in she didn't know how she could have done for the kids. What was her matter? She had been clubbed on "Bloody Friday.

"I was going along the street from Belmont Park Hall. I was going to march, then picket Forstmann-Huffmann on my way home. We were nearly there when I seen a cop go up and hit a woman in front of me. Everybody was hollering and booing after that and the cops began to chase the people. I couldn't run so fast so they caught me and punched me and hit me awful." The big gray eyes dilate with fear and the hands twitch nervously.

"Were you hollering, too?"

"No, I wasn't ever hollering. I just couldn't run fast enough, so they got me and hit me and then took me off to jail. My husband come and got me out because I got small kids, and the next day I was too sick to stay in the court. The judge took one look at me and says, "Go home," and they ain't ever called me to come back."

"What was it made you so sick --- just the beating?"

"Oh lady," and now the gray eyes brimmed over. "All that punching and hitting they gave me --- I've lost my little baby," and the bereft mother burst into tears, "I've got five others, but the youngest is three now, and I wanted a tiny one again."

So "Bloody Friday" still goes on, taking its toll of the workers, of the little children, of the unborn. This mother and other mothers, how can they forget these outrages which the bosses and their henchmen are bringing to them and their children? How can the workers of America forget such scenes, or let these heroic people suffer longer? The struggles must be won once and for all, so that never again in Passaic can a policeman club down and kill the unborn child of a worker.

As the glorious sun burst through the clouds on Sunday, June 6^th, after several rainy days, so did the strikers spirits brighten up and their courage revive at the all day picnic held at Rochelle Park. The committee had talked to the Weather Man the week before, and he had disappointed them. This time Weisbord himself put in a word, and as he has a pull there as well as in Passaic, we got a most perfect day.

Early in the morning in the glowing sunshine the buses started out from Belmont Hall. Trip after trip they made and crowd after crowd of strikers started out to hike, in a long joyful picnic picket-line, and still the crowds kept coming. If there were a thousand people at that picnic Sunday there were twenty thousand, all enjoying the outing and its program to the full.

Sports took up the morning. The winners of the different events were as follows:
25 yard dash: --- Wanda Jackowski and William Scoka.
100 yard dash --- Mamie Sandusky and Louis Obsuth.
Potato race --- Marguerite Toth and Steve Obsuth.
Sack Race --- Mamie Sandusky and Louis Obsuth.
Tug of war --- Joe Toth, John Vanyo, Joe Vanyo, Louis Obsuth, Steve Zakopchan and Prudsoce Brio.

In the afternoon a baseball game came off between the Lodi Independents and the Philadelphia Giants. Free lunch consisting of cake, milk and sandwiches was served to the children. Later, there was a program consisting of singing by the Ukrainian Choir of Passaic, playing by the Silvertone Orchestra, and recitations and songs by the Pioneers of New York.

The climax of the day came at six o'clock when the magic news flew around the grounds that Weisbord was present. He came fresh from the Amalgamation Conference in New York and gave the report of the hopeful outcome of that conference. Dancing on the ground, in the light of the setting sun, wound up the day.

Back went the trucks with their loads, one after another. Sunburned, tired with the pleasant tiredness of a day in the open air, the strikers went back as they had come, singing and cheering. If any had been a bit blue, if any had felt that the strike was lasting long and were getting tired, they came back from the picnic with spirits fresh and courage high. They have girded up their loins and are ready for the fight, once more again. The picnic will long be remembered as one of the happy events of the strike.

In contrast to the plight of the textile workers, the building trades are well organized, and by virtue of their bargaining power, bricklayers receive $12 a day. This may seem to be an excessive wage, but brick laying is a part time industry and the annual earnings of the brick layers are not excessive when it is considered that they and their families must be tided over the idle days as well as work days.

"The terrible industry is also a part time industry but the highest wage in the Passaic mills for the highest skilled workers prior to the cut was only 55 cents an hour. By working full time (48 hours a week prior to the cut, 55 hours a week since the 10 per cent cut), the highest paid wage earner in the Passaic mills would receive only $26. 40; and by working full time every one of the 52 weeks of the year, his annual earnings would be only $1,372.80. At part time the highest paid wage earners receive much less than this, and the lower paid workers still less than they."

W. Jett Lauck

"Sure, I want to learn English," the Hungaria