The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-03-02
Rules Committee Hears Story Of
 Strike Children Thirteen Little Children Appear With Pallor of Textile Industry in
 Faces
Concessions Offered By Mill Owners Declared Trivial by Strikers Committee.
fSpecial from United Press. l,

Especial from United Press.)
 Washington, March 2-The story of Lawrence, was told, today, to the rules committee of the House, by men, women and children who have endur- ed the industrial warfare in the Mas- sachusetts mill town
 There were score of them Thir- teen were little children with the pal Tor of the textile mills upon them and the drawn, haggard faces of youth grown old before its time There were young women with scenes of terror still staring in their eyes, the cries of stricken sisters and brothers ring ing in their ears, and on their lips a tale that blanched the faces of the calm, dispassionate lawmakers.
 There were men. the small, wiry men of factory-bred people, rather dazed by the sudden change from mill ltfa-policed Lawrence to the green, sodded and quiet capital.
 Chairman Wilson, robust examiner. and Victor Berger. the Socialist from Milwaukee, escorted the strikers dele- gation from its hotel to the big, white marble office-bui1ding, where the rules committee had borrowed for the day the room of the Stanley Steel Com. mittee.
 There, where few weeks ago Car negie, Hill, Gary. Schwab and the other millionaire masters of steel talked calmly of millions and billions, the victims of Lawrence, with tense faces and set lips told of children pourlngotheir youth and life into the maw of'the mills for s4 a week. Where Carnegie told of a billion dollars made Tn steel, 21 year old Josephine Liss told of her experiences with the glis- tening steel bayonets of Massachu> setts militia
 My bill proposes to investigate the attitude of the American Woolen Go. to it's employees at Lawrence, Mass such an investigation is surely as jus tified as the investig gation of the steel trust the sugar trust or the money trust. The average wages the wool trust have esta blished are even below those of the steel trust and the sugar trust.
 Tn the textile industry, there is the spectacle of women and children la bor- Inventive genius has made it possible for capital to employ women and children where formerly the wo k of men was necessary. It is a vel known fact that, under this system family usually are not greater than the earnings of the head of family formerly were. Yet, in spite of this fact, women and children labor is constantly increasing and no act or explanation seems to seriously check it. Competition and greed on one hand and competition and hunger on the other combine to increase it.
 Samuel Lfpson, a 29-year-old -He- brew member of the strike committee. wos the first witness. He said he had been in this country nine years.
 'I struck" he said, because I could not make a living for my wife skilled workman and my averag ge wages were $9 and $1O a week. But there was so much slack time in Law renee that some times got only 8 or $4 and we all had to live on that We don't eat meat every day. We can't afford it. When we have short wages we have to live on bread and water
 Lipson said that when the Massa- chusetts law cut the hours of labor in the mills from 56 to 54 hours week. the wages of the operatives were cut down and the machines 'speeded un'' to force the same amount of work in the shorter time. This caused the strike. When the original demand was made on the company Lipson said the men were told they "could either go back to work or get out.'
 About 200 spectators filed the com mittee room when Chairman Wilson opened the hearings. Samuel Gompers, ident Golden of the Industrial Work CTS, were present.
 Accompanying the strikers and the strike children were Commissioner of Police C. F. Lynch, City Solicitor D. L. Murphy, Representative Clark Car Artney and other officials of Law renee.
 While Wilson outlined the facts re- garding the holding up of the chill dren who were being sent from the strike-ridden city, the Children of tee headed by Representative Berger f1ocked into the room. The children representing eight different natiorali- ties and dressed in their poor, Sun day best'', sat at a table with Joseph inc Lss at one end of the room, dazed by the bigness of the occasion;
 ger as the slim, stunted little ones fined up Just in front of them sat ntt'e 10-year-oId "Bob'' Henry, dr., son of the chairman of the committee When the children were asked to stand to have picture taken, Repre- sentative Aimes, Rep., Mass.), inter- rupted.
 "1here are two delegations from . Lawrence" he suggested. Do you want both in this picture?'' "Yes, we do,'' said Berger. "I think the city marshal of Lawrence should be in the picture with the children +'It is not the purpose of my bill to urge an investigation of the conditions in Lawrence on the constitutions a! point of the brutal interference with women and children," Berger expla in- ed to the committee. Pres dent Taft and the attorney general have prom $oly nP hof oV~f ( however.
 "Nor is it my purpose to urge an in- vestigation of the wanton Xxi ling of a woman by the police and the militia and the holding, without bail, for this murder, of strike leader who had nothing to do with it. That can be left, for the present, to the State au thorities
 LAWRENCE STRIKE COMMITTEE WILL RECOMMEND NON ACCEPTANCE OF SCHEDULE.