The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-11
Strike for Four Loaves of Bread
Unexpected Result of Fifty Four Hour Law-Queson of Wages At Fore In Lawrence Strike-Waking Up
 of Unorganized Foreign Workers
By LEWIS E. PALMER

Exclusive Service The Survey Press Bureau.)
 Ten thousand singing. cheering men and women, boys and girls marching and
 counter marching through snow and slush for two hours-a procession of the nations of the world never equaled in the great est show on earth"-surged through the streets of Lawrence, Mass, on ThursdaY' January 19. There you saw native born Americans, Russians and Syrians, Ger mans and Armenans, English and Bel gians, Irish and Poles. Portuguese and Austrians and Scotch. You listened to inc ouavering notes of the Marselsise from trudging group of French women and YOU heard the strain caught up by hundreds of other marchers. Strang; songs and strange shouts and strange un-
 at home men and women, ten thousand of them; striking because their pay en- velopes had been cut -four loaves of bread"
 The trouble came among the unskilled non-English speaking men and women
 ..out of the clear sky" the manufacturers say, after a two hour cut in the time and wages accompanying the new "fifty-four hour law" which went into effect on January i. The strike leaders say that the operators made an attempt, several days before the law went into operation to learn if their wages were to be cut along with their hours; but the mill own CTS were not inclined, apparently, to di- vulge the secret to all their employees until Friday, January 12. when the trou- | be started with the opening of the | locked pay envelopes. The disturbance | quickly spread until four thousand strik- | ing men and women were marching l through the streets of the mill district | which spreads for a mile along the Mer- rimac river. Strikers were new to Law renee. The police were unable to cope | with the difficulties. As a matter of fact 1 the actual violence on the first day and | throughout the following week could be controlled by an efficient police force l half the size of that in Lawrence.
 The Boston reporters did their best to 1 manufacture daily stories about out
 breaks. The newspaper photographers
 were everywhere and perhaps the best | one of their own number being "repelled
 at the point of a bayonet' by citizen soldier who was trying hard to "see red. ' | Textile workers of Lawrence. aside from | a comparatively few English speaking | operators. are largely unorganized. Up | to January 20 the strikers were leadei- | less, but in the afternoon of that day,
 Joseph B. Ettor. member of the execu- 1 tive council of the Industrial Workers of
 
 | mary cause of the strike, the two hour
 cut in the weekly pay envelopes. was | shortly after Ettor assumed command,
 merged into series of demands upon | the mill owners. These included a 15 per 1 cent increase in wages, the abolition or the premium and bonus systems and
 double pay for overtime. In less than | a week ten thousand men. women and working girls had becqme ac.iSesy ide nti- l fled with the strike. fae prhca made arrests on the slightf provefafip. and 1 the severest senten e6 russiNf Were dealt out. Judge Maaenev sad ilese | men, mostly foreigner refhaIa dc not
 mean to be offenders. 1sy dc fot re elze | the gravity of their ellersef ard do not | know the laws. Thefeiore tie oiiN way we can teach them ls ee1 put the | severest sentence.".
 l If these foreigners 10 not fnrW the 1 laws who is responsi. Wha haxe the l mill owners been elHg AHieri- anize 1000 empc Nlw hey
 , ave drawn from aysttcfe of