Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1914-11-12
WOMAN ORGANIZER
COMES FROM GREAT
SOUTHERN STRIKE
Sara Conboy, Striking Fig
ure in Labor Convention,
Has 50 Little Girls Named
After Her.

Down around Lawrence, Mass, are bs
little girls named after Mrs. Sara A. Con-
boy general organizer of the United Tex
tile Workers of America, who Is attending
the big American Federation of Labor
convention in this city.
Mrs. Conboy is in town to advertise the
big strike of textile workers in the Fulton
Cotton Mills, Atlanta, Ga, which has
been in progress since May 1. II there is
repetition in history, it is assured many
little Southern girls yet to be born In
the tent colony OF the strikers will be
named after this fighting organizer, who
withal, is as tender with the white
slaves Of the mills" as she calls them, as
their own mothers are.
Sara Conhoy Is a name to conjure with
wherever the textile industry extends
Sara Conboy Is to the textile workers
OF the country what Mother Jones is to
the American labor movement,
Inspiration is in her work. She knows
what the inside OF textile mill looks like.
Many years of her life she spent beside
the whirring loom watching the havoc
She was born in Boston. Early she
became a member of ''the union" She
took to its propaganda like the proverbial
duck to the proverbial water She occu-
pied almost every office the union had to
give until she was called into the inter-
national field as general organizer years
ago with the American Federation OF
vlnlN
they thought of the character and ability
of Sara Conboy, as everybody in the labor
world calls her.
President Gompers, of the American
Federation of Labor, has promised to
let her address the convention on the
subject nearest her heart-the strike OF
her beloved men, women and children in
the cotton mills of the South.
After her address the strike will as
sumo a national interest because of her
ability to tell the story, and the fact
that the revolt Is the first big textile
strike in the history of the South.
This remarkable woman sat for an
hour IN the Hanover Hotel with her
dinner waiting to tell the story of her
''kIddlcs of the mills"
Deep emotion was I'm her voice, her
eyes were misty as she told of their
gray, colorless lives In powerful Ian
1uences because of combining drudgery In
the big industry.
one example she gave Is that OF s.
year-old oliver Lee, of Atlanta, Ga, a
blind boy. whose affliction 10 directly
traceable TO the toll his mother under
went I'm the mill, The story OF 7-year-
old Esther May Smith, who earned 30
cents a week made her hiss her condem-
nation forth, but when she told of how
little AIllt Nunnally, a 10-year-old worker.
entered her ONCE one day and placed
his arms around her saying, MRS. Con-
boy, I love you," the lines I'm her face
softened and she quietly murmuTed;
To-day we can control with love, but
tomorrow hell with all it's imps OF hate
may be In the saddle"
Mrs. Conboy will be a conspicuous
figure in the big labor parade Friday
night with the textile workers OF this
city.
During and after the convention ses-
sions. she will make a campaign through
out the town among the various unions
to obtain aid for the "tent colony" OF
textile strikers in the Sunny South.
There are many interesting women at
this convention, but none who grips
more strongly than the "Divine Sara OF
the Mills"