THE STRIKE OF THE
JERSEY SILK WORKERS

For seven weeks the 27,000 workers in the silk mills and dye houses of Paterson, N. J., have been on strike for improved conditions and against a proposed change in method that will, they declare, alter the character of the industry.

The strike began with the broad silk weavers as a protest against the introduction of the three and four loom system. They were soon joined by the ribbon weavers and the dye house men, whose demands are for an eight-hour day and a minimum wage of $12 a week. The dyehouse men have been laboring in two shifts of twelve hours each. Their work is often carried on under unhealthful conditions of dampness, high temperature and poor ventilation.

All the strikers joined the branch of the Industrial Workers of the World which conducted the Lawrence strike. This is one factor which has caused tension in a situation, in which statutes dating back to colonial days have been brought to bear on a modern industrial struggle till a Supreme Court judge denounced the lengths to which the police have gone.

Back of the police incidents and the spreading of the revolutionary doctrines of the Industrial Socialists is a profound economic change involved in the introduction of the four-loom system. This is not merely the substitution of machines for skilled men due to invention, but the supplanting of high-grade textile manufacture by low-grade output because of the greater profits in the cheap goods. It is as if a vineyard were giving way to a hay farm-a change which seriously affects the working population of Paterson.

In order to make the situation clear it is necessary to take a brief look at the history of the silk industry in this country. Twenty years or so ago the competition between Pennsylvania and New Jersey for the manufacture of cheap silks was keen, but within a few years the battle was over. Induced, it is said, by real estate companies, the manufacture of cheap silk on a large scale migrated to Pennsylvania. Great factories were built and leased on easy terms, and these were equipped with automatic looms, four of which could be operated by one girl or boy. There the wives and children of the coal miners furnished a cheap labor supply.

April 19, 1913.

Since this migration the best grade of silk has been made in Paterson, and there has been no competition to speak of that the Paterson manufacturers needed to fear. Yet they have been making only moderate profits while the Pennsylvania manufacturers of cheap silk have been making fortunes. Under the system of multiple looms, the business of Pennsylvania, has expanded 97 per cent in the last six years; under the one and two loom systems of Paterson its business has expanded only 22 per cent in the same time. Therefore the Paterson manufacturers propose to compete in the manufacture of cheaper silks and consequently decided to introduce the multiple loom system. To them this

is only a natural economic development, and the opposition of the workers they feel is irrational, as opposed to progress. This view is made apparent in a statement issued by the silk manufacturers' association:

"As regards the three and four loom system, it is applicable only in the case of the very simplest grade of broad silks and as a matter of fact has for a long time been worked successfully and on a very large scale in other localities. Paterson cannot be excluded from this same privilege. No fight against improved machinery has ever been successful."

The beginning of the change came in one of the big Paterson mills about a year ago and the strike of last spring' was at first against the fourloom system. The strike became general, however, and this demand was completely lost sight of before the strike came to an end. Since then nine or ten other mills have installed the four loom system and a score have begun to require the weavers to tend three looms instead of two.

The strikers claim that the new system will cause unemployment, as did the installation of the two loom system together with other improvements in the mechanical equipment of the loom some years ago, and that the logical consequence will be the employment of unskilled women and children in place of the skilled weaver, and a forcing down of the level of wages until the Paterson average of $11.69, as given in the federal report for the year 1908, becomes as low as the Pennsylvania average of $6.56. As the percentage of women employed in Pat'See THE SURVEY of March 16, 1912.

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erson mills has increased in the last few years and as the average of wages given out by the manufacturers this year is under $10, there is basis for these fears. Nor do the manufacturers deny these possibilities; they claim that the loss of skill is an inevitable accompaniment of improved processes, and the replacing of men. by women and children is only in line with the development in all the textile trades.

Some of the claims of the strikers are thus summarized by the Paterson Evening News:

"The best information obtainable appears to show that the alleged mechanical advantages of the new system have not proved themselves sufficient to offset the additional strain to which the care of three or four looms subjects the weavers; that the premium wages first paid as an inducement to users of the system have been pared down; that at present a day's work under the system is proportionately less well paid than a day's work at two looms; and, finally, that the wages of two-loom workers have been depressed with the scaling down of the piecerate paid to the three and four loom workers."

In spite of the fact that it is only the large manufacturers who propose to install the new system, the strike is general. The multiple looms, which are large and equipped with automatic devices, can only be installed in large mills. By this system cheap silks alone can be made; the smaller mills must use the Jacquard or other small looms fitted to the making of the fancy grades of silk for which Paterson is famous. The small manufacturer, therefore, does not fear the installation of the new system in the large mills; but he does feel strongly that he has a grievance toward the workers in his mills who struck sympathetically for a wrong not their own.

But it is a very real fear that the entire industry will be undermined that has made the workers stand together, regardless of individual grievances.

While the desire to keep up with industrial progress and to realize large profits is the reason for the importing of the four loom system into Paterson; the desire to save their present standard of living and prevent their industry from coming into the hands of women and children like the other textile trades is the reason for the workers' opposition. Today Pennsylvania and New Jersey present different phases of the industry, and New Jersey has had a higher wage standard; tomorrow with the triumph of the four loom system they may tend to an equalization of conditions.

The outstanding features in the strike now in its seventh week are lack of violence and disorder, the refusal of the employers to meet or confer with the strikers, aggressive repres

sion by the police and the city government and the efforts of citizens to bring about a settlement. Although practically all the workers in the major industry of the city are on strike, there has been little disorderly conduct attributable to the strikers. There have been reports of the breaking of a window by a stone in a house occupied by a boss dyer and at least one attempt was made to damage a house by means of a bomb, but responsibility for these acts has not been fixed.

CITY OFFICIALS ADOPT
REPRESSIVE MEASURES

In striking contrast to the order maintained by the rank and file of the strikers, there have been actions on the part of the city officials that leading newspapers outside of the strike district have not hesitated to characterize as anarchical. Soon after the strike began and it became known that it was to be conducted under the auspices of the I. W. W., the police began to arrest strike leaders and others who addressed

meetings of strikers, regardless of whether they had yet been guilty of any illegal act. Several of them were held in jail for a time and then so great was the outcry raised that for a period of two or three weeks these tactics were abandoned.

On Sunday, March 30, however, the police resumed their former tactics. William D. Haywood, the leader of the strike, had announced that he would speak at an open air meeting, and a large crowd gathered to hear him. As Haywood was going to the meeting place to speak he was approached by members of the police force. They told him that the chief of police had issued an order forbidding any outdoor meeting. According to all reports, including testimony given by the police authorities themselves, Haywood acquiesced at once and passed the word to the assemblage that the meeting would take place in Haledon, an independent borough just outside the city limits of Paterson. Accordingly, Haywood started to walk down the street in the direction of Haledon and he was followed by the crowd. Just before he reached the city limits, a patrol wagon bore down upon him. Together with Lessig, another strike leader, he was arrested, taken before the Recorder's Court, charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful assemblage under the English act of 1635. After being held in jail in lieu of $5,000 bail, both were found guilty of unlawful assemblage and were sentenced by the recorder to six months' imprisonment.

A writ of certiorari was immediately sought by Haywood's attorneys and a hearing on this appeal was held by Supreme Court Justice Minturn. When the evidence, most of it furnished by the police department, was in, Justice Minturn

1913

ordered the release of Haywood and Lessig. He was unable to find that there had been any unlawful assemblage. The evidence tended rather to show that Haywood was co-operating with the authorities in an endeavor to carry out their orders. At the time of this resumption of their activity the police began also to arrest pickets. From twenty to one hundred a day were taken to headquarters. After Judge Minturn's decision, all those held in jail were discharged. Since then, while the arrest of pickets has gone steadily on, Recorder Carroll has refused to hold them.

Throughout the strike to date the manufacturers have consistently refused to meet with a committee of strikers or to discuss terms with them in any way. At one time a delegation of clergymen endeavored to get them to meet a committee of strikers in order to discuss grievances. This suggestion was instantly voted down. Last week, when a public meeting of citizens was held to consider whether or not the strike could be brought to an end, the manufacturers, through their representative, stated their position in just two propositions: First, the employers will refuse to meet any committee of strikers "dominated as they are by the I. W. W."; second, they will meet any of their individual employes "who are not dominated by the I. W. W."

All along there has been a lively public interest in the strike. Ministers and public-spirited citizens have at different times endeavored to ascertain the underlying causes and to co-operate in restoring harmonious relations. These efforts reached their most formal stage when last week at the call of the president of the Board of Aldermen a public meeting was held in the high school auditorium on Wednesday evening to which employers, strikers, church organizations, the board of trade, organizations of bankers and professional men, and the general public were invited. Representatives of the strikers explained their grievances, a single representative of the employers stated their position as just quoted, and the ministerial association came forward with a proposal for a legislative investigation. Finally, a committee of the Board of Aldermen proposed in a series of resolutions that a committee of fifteen be appointed to discuss a basis upon which the strike could be settled, the committee to consist of five representatives of the strikers, five representatives of employers and five men to be appointed from the membership of the Board of Aldermen. The resolution was passed by the unanimous vote of an audience two-thirds of which were strikThe strikers appointed their committee. But the employers, in line with their official policy which has been against any meeting with any body of men even to discuss a settlement, refused to do so.

ers.

"A MAN'S FRIENDS"

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"I don't believe there is a man in the country who will not put himself or some one he loves above the whole nation if he is put to a hard enough test."

These words, spoken by one of the principal characters, contain the essence of a new play, A Man's Friends, written by Ernest Poole and recently presented in New York. Without moralizing on the need for a wider social consciousness, Mr. Poole seeks to show the limits of the average man's circle of human loyalty and how far his loyalty to the whole people's welfare is inhibited by his devotion to his own "crowd." The play aims to point out that, however much our attention has been focussed on graft in its great anti-social consequences, a larger factor in thwarting social progress is our restricted loyalty to groups which are less than the whole people.

A district attorney fights a political machine which, through bribery, has defeated a new building code. He convicts the bribed alderman but cannot obtain from him any information as to the "men higher up." At last he discovers that his own son-in-law was the go-between in the matter of the bribe. The intense loyalty of wife to husband is shown by his daughter who says to her father: "Your life and principles are nothing now-promise me you'll keep Hal out of jail," and by the wife of the guilty alderman who declares "it is not a question of right and wrong-it's what I think of Nick.”

The play brings out the loyalty to one's circle of intimates, shown in the refusal of the convicted alderman to divulge incriminating information; and the loyalty to a political coterie whose watchword is "You might as well be dead as a squealer," and concerning whom the district attorney says: "It is the unwritten law of your system to perjure yourself to save a friend." He further remarks to the boss, "You won't help those not in your crowd-and your crowd is too small, even though you can call a hundred thousand people in New York by their first names."

One element in the play is the definite human appraisal of just what graft and disloyalty to public welfare involve. It flashes out when the boss after telling how he had given a few dollars to a "down and outer" is silenced by the district attorney's daughter who points out that he owns the gambling place in which the derelict lost his money. It is again emphasized when the district attorney says to those who appeal for leniency toward the men responsible for the defeat of the building code, "All right let's be human," and then refers to the 149 factory girls who lost their lives in a factory fire which

the building code would have prevented. "People vote," he says at another time, "with the man who laughs, but the laugh is too expensive."

How the district attorney shows his own human qualities in the end by saving his sonin-law from prison, but in a way to render important service to the 9,000,000 people of the state, is the climax of the piece.

The play is intended to show how the absorption of the average man in his own affairs and in the interests of his small group of friends is responsible for popular indifference which often makes the conscientious public servant lonely and disheartened. The district attorney, as candidate for governor, has returned from a campaign trip. "There are one million men out for the graft and nine million who don't care," he says. His daughter replies: "That does not seem like you, father." "Well," he adds, "you ought to have seen them all along the line of my trip; big meetings, cheering, too, plenty of enthusiasm. But the minute I left each town I felt it all suddenly die right out. Every man jack of them back to his business, his job and his friends-the things he really cares about-and I felt as though I had carried on the cheers of each town. Each town throwing it all at my head and shouting 'Go on, be a hero, save the country-only for God's sake leave us alone, we have not time, we are busy.'"

BRIEUX'S "DAMAGED GOODS" PRESENTED

"I didn't know" bids fair to become an obsolete phrase in connection with the nature of the social evil, if the ripples started by the production of Brieux's Damaged Goods in New York this spring extend as far as its sponsors intend. The Committee of the Sociological Fund of the Medical Review of Reviews believe that syphilis should no longer be regarded as a mysterious disease, whose ravages are to be shunned but its causes ignored.

Bernard Shaw's preface to the Brieux play, with its warning against the usual treatment of the subject as taboo and its appeal for publicity and legal assistance in coping with the evil, was read by a clergyman well known for his human contact with every-day social conditions. The drama itself was simply staged and given a sympathetic reading by a strong cast. Almost every bearing of the menace on family and social life is brought out in a way well calculated to meet prejudice due to indifference, ignorance or tradition, and to create a conviction that here is a Scourge to be conquered by publicity.

Those who saw the play had come with various mental attitudes. Some were even vaguely questioning whether they had come to see a play or hear a sermon. Not a few of the theatrical critics have dubbed it the latter, but to many

parents this very quality made it seem peculiarly profitable for young men who are breaking loose from home life. By some it was even felt that the educational value of the piece would justify its being given a special performance at some holiday season, and that prevention through knowledge would thus be promoted.

NEW YORK CHARITIES
AND THE LAW MAKERS

Convinced that the state charitable and correctional institutions are facing a serious crisis, New York social workers are protesting against certain of the recommendations of Governor Sulzer's Committee of Inquiry which they fear the Legislature may act upon. This committee, which was appointed by the governor to examine into the administration of the state's departments in the furtherance of economy, has made recommendations, relative to state charities and corrections, ranging from the repeal of the act establishing the state industrial farm colony for tramps to the refusal of a large part of the sums asked for repairs on state institutions. The Prison Farm for Women, Letchworth Village and the State Training School for Boys are among the institutions that would be most seriously affected. The Committee of Inquiry also recommended that the State Probation Commission, a non-salaried body, be merged with the Prison Commission.

All told, there are fourteen state hospitals for the insane and sixteen state charitable institutions with a total of 42,000 patients and inmates. The Committee of Inquiry, partly on the alleged ground that the state has little control over the expenditures of these institutions, has made sweeping recommendations for retrenchment on projects to which the state has already committed itself by legislation. Social workers who dispute the findings of the commission point out that it had but a few weeks in which to gain an understanding of the workings and relations of the state institutions to various supervisory and administrative state bodies and that its statements as to excessive cost of housing the inmates are apparently made without a comparison of the situation in other states.

The Committee of Inquiry recommends that the state charitable institutions in some way ought to be consolidated. This, social workers urge, could not be done except by putting together state wards of entirely different types since the only institutions having a capacity of less than 300 are the State Women's Relief Home, an institution for aged veterans and their wives; the Thomas Indian School; the State School for Blind; the State Hospital for Crippled Children, and Letchworth Village for the Feeble-minded.

For many years the state has been gradually

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building up a group of institutions for the care of the insane and feeble-minded, the epileptic, and delinquent cases requiring reformatory treatment. The insane are increasing at the rate of about one thousand a year. There is an accumulation at the present time of 5,000 patients in excess of the certified capacity of the fourteen state hospitals. To delay appropriations for new state hospitals already started, it is claimed, is only to put off what must be eventually done.

For the feeble-minded and epileptic New York has provided four institutions in the central and western part of the state which care altogether for about 4,000 inmates and one, Letchworth Village in the southeastern part of the state, which as yet has less than 100 inmates. This, when completed, will serve New York city and vicinity where more than half the population of the state centers.

The next largest group of institutions is the reformatories of which there are two for women, one at Bedford and one at Albion; one for girls at Hudson; and two for boys, of which the State Agricultural and Industrial School at Industry is known the country over as a model of its kind. This institution for caring for boys outside the metropolitan district, social workers urge, should be paralleled without further delay as suggested by the Committee of Inquiry by one in Westchester County for the boys of New York City and its vicinity.

The state has also undertaken to round out its reformatory and penal system by providing a state farm for women over thirty years of age, the age up to which they may be received in reformatories, and the state industrial farm colony for tramps. These institutions are planned to care for offenders who now cause much expense to localities. Both of these institutions were established after long study of the subject by organizations and individuals expert in dealing with dependents and delinquents but the committee recommends the abandonment of the second and further investigation as to the desirability of the first.

After discussing the situation at a meeting held in New York on April 3, a committee consisting of Henry Morgenthau; Homer Folks, secretary of the State Charities Aid Associa-tion; John A. Kingsbury, general agent of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor; the Right Rev. N. G. R. McMahon, supervisor of Catholic Charities, and Mrs. John M. Glenn, was appointed to confer with the governor who has given the committee assurance that he is considering the situation as a whole and will not make separate judgments on each institution by itself.

SLEEPING IN THE LAVATORY AT BEDFORD

viewed the governor in behalf of the important humanitarian projects undertaken by the state in the last ten years which are now threatened. BEDFORD REFORMATORY NOW FACING A CRISIS

It was not much more than a year ago that, in connection with the founding of the Bureau of Social Hygiene, the New York magistrates began to make extensive use of Bedford Reformatory for women as a means of saving the young prostitute. And yet the reformatory is already facing a crisis through overcrowding.

The Committee on Criminal Courts of the New York Charity Organization Society has appealed to the public to write, urging an appropriation of $700,000 for this institution, to the leaders of the Legislature: James J. Frawley, chairman Finance Committee of the Senate; Alfred E. Smith, speaker of the Assembly; Robert F. Wagner, majority leader of the Senate; Aaron J. Levy, majority leader of the Assembly. This the committee believes to be a conservative and economical estimate of what will be needed to put up new cottages and other buildings to accommodate present inmates, and to provide for reasonable growth in the next few years.

The letter sent out by the committee reads in part as follows:

"Twelve years ago the state authorities established Bedford Reformatory to care for women