The men cheered Mr. W.
"But," he continued, "on one condition, by reducing your prices fifteen per cent. Times are hard. I have had enormous expenses. The holy days are approaching. I have no doubt that all of you are good Jews and would not want to shame your faith, so I hope that all is agreeable to you and you can start to-morrow under the new condition."
Naturally the men refused and assembled in the halls of their union. The leaders of that organisation could not believe that Mr. W. had said what the men reported, though they knew the gentleman very well, and they went to the manufacturer to get an explanation. I was then the Secretary of a Tailor's Union. The result of the conference was that Mr. W. repeated what he had said to his men and added that he saw that this was the best opportunity to cut wages.
"They are all Jews—they will need money for the holy days, so they have to submit. It's my best chance."
It so happened that the men kept well together and did not return to work. They struck. Winter set in very early that cursed year, but the men and women stood hunger and cold rather than submit to such conditions. Weeks and weeks passed and Mr. W. made no effort to settle with his men. We knew he had plenty of work. We knew he was sending work to be done in the country places at ridiculously low prices. Still we knew that there was work he could not send out. None of the men returned to work; none of the other tailors worked there. We watched, and one day we got hold of a newly arrived immigrant with a letter in his hand.
"Where are you going?" one of the pickets asked him, and innocently the man showed his letter. A letter from the charity organisation to the manufacturer in which he was told that the man had just come over, "and will, let us hope, prove to be of the right kind."
The original is in the safe of Local 209 of the United Garment Workers of America.
And then we learned that daily the institution sent men to break the strike, to help the manufacturer who contributed a certain sum yearly to charity because it costs less to do this than to use a strike-breakers' agency. With the help of these institutions the men were beaten. For thirty weeks through the cruel winter of 1913 they remained on strike. When the temperature descended to thirty below zero men, women and children stood naked and hungry. Illness killed them by the dozen. Some of the young girls went on the streets, and the charity institution sent the incoming and ignorant immigrants to the manufacturer, who worked them SIXTEEN hours a day for five dollars or six dollars a week.
"Men, what are you doing?" I asked the managers of the institution. "You are supposed to help the poor, the suffering, and not the manufacturers."