The Pretzel-Painters' Union had emerged victoriously from their last strike. The Pretzel eating population of the city had refused to eat Pretzels that were not glazed by the expert hand of a capable expert in the art of pretzel painting—the beer-drinking population refused to drink beer in saloons where dull pretzels were offered and capital had to yield to labor. Organized labor was triumphant. The pretzel painters who had worked fourteen hours a day for ten dollars a week before the strike, won a ten-hour day, an increase of two dollars a week, as well as official recognition of their Union.
The Union consisted of twenty members, all of whom, except one, were officials of the organization. The officials numbered a president, two vice presidents, a recording secretary and a financial secretary, a treasurer, three controllers, a house committee of five, an organizer and three trustees. The total income of the Union from dues never amounted to more than three dollars a week, but this was supplemented by the income from the yearly Pretzel-Painters' concert and ball every winter, and from the picnic every summer.
After the strike was won the members felt the necessity of solidarity more than ever. This feeling brought them together twice every week to discuss Union matters and matters of private concern. But after a while, when they had exhausted all possible subjects and the Union was running smoothly, the organizer had difficulty getting even the legal quorum together once every second week. The organizer knew from experience what such negligence caused.
The collection of dues had already diminished perceptibly. Some of the members were in arrears with five and six weeks. Fifteen cents a week is comparatively easy to pay, but when the sum is over a dollar and the pay is twelve dollars a week—it's a different story! The Pretzel-Painters' Local was in great danger.
The organizer began to feel that non-union pretzel-painters were shining the beer drinkers' delicacy. He called meeting after meeting and described passionately to the four or five old men present the great fight between Labor and Capital in general and the battle their own Union had won; the high price paid for what they already had gained through solid organization, but it was all in vain; the others did not come. They owed too much for dues and fines.
Finally the organizer hit upon a great idea. "The Pretzel-Painters' Union has to be reorganized," he wrote to all the members.
It was a new thing, that word "reorganized." It was something worth while finding out about. "We must reorganize or our organization goes to pieces," he wrote to them. That Wednesday evening was a gala evening. The financial secretary had never taken in so much money at once; twenty-six dollars in one evening! They all paid up to the minute; because it was explained in the letter that only members with paid-up dues had a vote in the reorganization of the mighty Pretzel-Painters' Union.
The Pretzel-Painters' Union was not without its inner dissensions. There was a group of Galician Jews and a group of Russian Jews always fighting one another; and both groups fought whatever the group of Roumanian Jews proposed. There were also two old Portuguese Jews; and whatever they wanted carried through was sure to be defeated by the above-mentioned three groups.
But the Russian group was always the deciding factor. By themselves alone they were the majority of the organization.
After the secretary had announced that everybody was present and paid up to the minute, the chairman, Mr. Bindzel, opened the meeting and asked the organizer to explain the cry of distress.