The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1916-11-24
SICKENING STORY OF INDUSTRIAL
SLAVERY IN new YORK STATE
IN THE CENTER OF THE GREATEST STATE. IN
GREE AMERICA"
BY DANTE BARTON

BY DANT
Right in the heart of Central New
York, prosperous and boasting Of its
wealth, there is now an example Of
cruelty, incompetence and lawlessness
against striking workers, on the part
of big and wealthy industrial cor
poration, which rivals the things done
in Colorado by the Rockefeller in
terests, or on the Mesaba Range or
in Pittsburgh by the Steel Trust. Just
outside Of Utica, in the little town of
New York Mills, 270O Polish men and
women, industrious and peaceful, are
being thrown out of company houses,
terrorized and assaulted by armed
thugs and guards, their children sick
ened and in many instances killed by
the diseases of exposure; themselves
and their families subjected to starva-
ton and sickness. These things are
being perpetrated against them by
their employer, the New York Mills
Corporation (of which A. D. Juillard
of New York City is the responsible
presidenD, because they have struck
for a 10 per cent increase Of wages
that are too low, by any standard, for
decent living.
These statements are made after
personal investigation by the writer
Not only have these striking weav-
ers and spinners received smaller
wages in this exceptionally profitable
year than any family can live upon
with merited comfort, but they have
been forced to live in company houses,
many of them in bad repair, most Of
them oyercrowded, and many of them
infected by indescribably filthy
priyies set within a few feet of the
kitchen and living-room doors. In one
such company house a very poor
widow was living with five small
children, ranging in age from two to
ten years. This woman was a worker
in the mills. Her wages before the
strike had been 81 a week, from which
the company deducted 81 week for
house rental Every three months
$1.40 was charged her for water Not
as far as ten feet from the door Of
the room in which the Widows babies
slept was privy, with a broken door,
as foul and horrible as anything Of
that foul kind condemned and done
away with in Pittsburgh by the Pitts
burgh Survey Myriad flies, flown in
from the filthy clubhouse, were in the
room. The visit was at night, and the
ceiling and walls were black with the
flies
One of the same law-yioIating
privies was maintained by the COM
panies in the back yard of the miser-
able cottage that is now being used
as a hospital for the very sick chill
dren of the workers. The warning
sign, "Infantile Paralysis" is posted
on the front door In the adjoining
house children lived, and were playing
in the yards Of the "hospital' and the
house with no fence between. Con
slider that widow and her children in
the house by the company privy; con
slider that hospital with its company
privy) for the children of workers
who had dared to stand together in
the demand for a decent living-and
consider then this fact of irony: That
a short time ago A. D. Juillard, presi-
dent of the company that thus eX-
poses the lives of little children, gave
a hospital boat to the City of New
York for the use of little children.
That ironical charity and philan-
thropy came out OF the same back
ground of industrial injustice from
which sprang the organized demands
and strike of the workers.
There are thirty-three large and
fairly large textile plants in Utica and
its surroundings, and there are sixty
two such plants, including the very
small ones A considerable majority
of The 2700 men and women workers
i'm the plants of the New York Mills
corporation, of the Oneida Bleacbery
Company Ia subsidiary corporation
and one of the Westcott-Campbell
Company had been organized into a
local union OF the United Textile
! Workers Of America, affiliated with
the American Federation Of Labor
The power of the union organization
enabled the employees of those COM
panies to formulate and present de
mands affecting their work and
wages that the unorganized workers
in the other plants of the Utica dis
trict We're powerless even to voice
In the lean years preceding the
recent factory activity there had been
several cuts in wages. The two or
three later increases made had not
brought back wages to the earlier