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 repression 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 out-door 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 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 strikers. The 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.
“A MAN’S
FRIENDS”
“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 focused 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.