The World’s Columbian Exposition, which was held in Chicago in the year 1893, offered the Jews an opportunity to participate in the great event in diversified ways. What they did and what they exhibited as artists, scientists, manufacturers and merchants does not belong to the subject of this work, which is mostly concerned with Jewish matters. But the Jews participated, as such, in the World’s Parliament of Religions which was held in Chicago at that time. Among the separate denominational congresses which constituted that Parliament was also a Congress of Jewish Women, the first of its kind ever held. This congress resulted in the organization of the National Council of Jewish Women, “to further united efforts in behalf of Judaism by supplying means of study; by an organic union to bring about closer relations among Jewish women; to furnish a medium of interchange of thought and a means of communication and of prosecuting work of common interest; to further united efforts in the work of social betterment through religion, philanthropy and education.” Hannah G. Solomon and Sadie American, respectively chairman and secretary of the congress, were elected president and secretary of the council. In 1896 the word “National” was eliminated from the name, on account of the entrance of sections from Canada. The council now consists of more than sixty sections and is doing noble work in pursuance of its program. Miss American still retains the office of secretary, while Mrs. Solomon was succeeded as president by Mrs. Marion L. Misch, of Providence, R. I.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE LABOR MOVEMENT AND NEW LITERARY ACTIVITIES.
Difficulty of securing data for the history of the Labor Movement among Jewish immigrants—John R. Commons’ characterization of a Jewish labor union—A constantly changing army of followers under the same leaders—The movement under the control of the radical press—The leaders as journalists and literary men—They popularize the press and teach the rudiments of politics—The voter—The “Heften”—Neo-Hebrew periodicals—The Yiddish stylists—The plight of the Hebraists.
Any attempt to give even the merest outline of the history of the labor movement among the immigrant Jews in the United States would lead into a maze of unreliable figures, exaggerations, and conflicting statements, not only between opponents, but also among those most friendly to their cause. The Russian Jew, in America, like the Russian himself at home, has not yet learned to divorce trade unionism from politics; his labor organizations are either organized and managed by Socialistic agitators and politicians, and in the end split from within on account of the continuous wars among the adherents of various schools of Socialistic principles and tactics; or, if it is not Socialistic, and would not permit the machinery of its organization to be used for the benefit of the party—or, rather, of one of the Socialistic parties—it is opposed, and sometimes ruined, by open attacks or by neglect. And so it comes that as long as a labor union is typically Jewish, i. e., as long as it differs from the American trade union in its being much more political and being more interested in a general struggle against capital or against the present order of society, it leads a precarious existence. The small number of labor unions whose members are exclusively Jewish immigrants, which are strictly trade unions and permit their members to have their own political views or preferences, are usually affiliated with American central labor bodies, and belong to the history of the labor movement of the country rather than to one which deals with the Jews as a separate entity.
But the radicalism of the laborer as such, and the radicalism of the union which he enters and upholds, is like the radicalism of the immigrant in general and like his dwelling in tenement houses: a passing phase which seems permanent because new arrivals take up the place of those who are continually dropping out from the ranks on account of their improved material and educational condition. Isaac A. Hourwich (b. in Wilna, 1860; a. 1892), the economist and statistician, in his attempt to review the labor movement among the Jews in this country, could do no better than to quote the following characterization from the pen of a recognized specialist on the subject:
The Jew’s conception of a labor organization is that of a tradesman rather than that of a workman. In the clothing manufacture, whenever any real abuse arises among the Jewish workmen, they all come together and form a giant union, and at once engage in a strike. They bring in 95 per cent. of the trade. They are energetic and determined. They demand the entire and complete elimination of the abuse. The demand is almost always unanimous, and is made with enthusiasm and bitterness. They stay out a long time, even under the greatest of suffering. During a strike large numbers of them are to be found with almost nothing to live upon and their families suffering, still insisting, on the streets and in their halls, that the great cause must be won. But when once the strike is settled, either in favor of or against the cause, they are contented, and that usually ends the union, since they do not see any practical use for a union when there is no cause to fight for. Consequently the membership of a Jewish union is wholly uncertain. The secretary’s books will show 60,000 members in one month and not 5,000 within three months later. If, perchance, a local branch has a steady thousand members, and if they are indeed paying members, it is likely that they are not the same members as in the year before.[46]
This is, with the modifications pertaining to time and place, the history of practically every trades-union organization among the Jewish immigrants from the Slavic countries. From the first union of Jewish tailors, which was organized in New York in 1877, through the time of the first comprehensive strike of workers in the clothing trade in that city in 1890, the still larger one in 1894; down to the great waist makers’ strike in 1909 and the great strikes in New York, Chicago and Cleveland in 1910 and 1911, the leadership has remained almost the same for about a quarter century. Abraham Cahan (b. in Podberezhye, near Wilna, 1860; a. 1882), who was the first to deliver Socialist speeches in Yiddish in the United States, is still practically at the head of that movement among his countrymen. Morris Hillquit (b. in Riga, Russia, 1870; a. 1887) began his activity as a Socialist leader among the immigrants before he was of age, and is now a recognized leader of the Socialists of the country, being also the author of a History of Socialism in the United States. Joseph Barondess (b. in Kamenetz-Podolsk, 1867; a. 1885), the leader of the second great cloak makers’ strike, who is now a communal worker and a leader among the Zionists, is still looked upon as a representative of the Jewish working classes in New York. The same conditions prevail in other large cities; only there the movement began somewhat later, and the local leaders seldom attained lasting prominence even locally; for the movement is more than anything else a newspaper movement, and those who control the Yiddish Socialist press in New York are masters of the situation in every center of population where there is a Socialist movement among the Jewish immigrants.
As the radical press is the means by which the unstable and mostly temporary labor organizations are held in control, it has played a much more important part in the entire Jewish labor movement than the general labor press has played in the much stronger and more lasting American labor movement. This is again on account of its political radicalism, which appeals to a wide circle of readers, who may be neither trade union laborers nor even Socialists. In its latest phase of development the Jewish radical press becomes a sensational afternoon paper, only with a stronger tinge of “red” than the journal of the same type printed in the vernacular. This preponderance of the literary side of the movement had the results which were to be expected: it produced better writers than labor leaders, more talented literary artists than organizers or disciplinarians. And while most of the radical periodicals also succumbed sooner or later, they had a more lasting effect on the development of the immigrant than the extremist labor organizations. This is also a reflex of Russian conditions, where the labor movement is entirely in the hands of the “intelligencia” or learned classes, though for an entirely different reason, the laborers themselves being mostly illiterate. Here every Jewish labor leader is a journalist or an author, often both; and they belong more properly to the chapters treating of Jewish literature in America.