The Connecticut labor press., 1919-10-11
GOT LAVIT'S BOOK FROM MAN WITH BLACKJACK Davison Gives More Details About the Machinists Fight
 in Bridgeport.
DRUCCED WHISKEY BOTTLE
Brass Knuckles, the Beautiful Strange Woman and the Dis
 guised Elevator Boy.


 gave a number of details about his re- cent fight in Bridgeport with Sam Iavit. In the course of his remarks he said:
 "In Bridgeport, Conn.,, you can go into a restaurant and ask the waitress, Are YOU a member of the Union? She will say, Yes You can ask to see her book. She will show you pald-up iournevman's card in the International Association of Machinists. You can go to the shyster lawyers of Bridgeport and they carry machinists' books. l met two actors on strike; one of them | helped out of bad situation i'll North Carolina a few years ago. lie sad, 1 have a book in the Machinists' organ iation.' I asked him how he got that book. He said that one came hs way and he took it. That is one part ot program to put inside of our organlza- ton so that people who have no con- nection with the machinery trade may be driven out of It.
 The cost and accounting department of the American Graphophone Com Dany, composed of women and men who do nothing but make up pay-roIis and do nothing but purely clerlcal WorK' all have memberships Ill the lnterna-
 
 ooinq to send a circular out and cancer every book from Lodge 90 until we get this mess strengthened out. One thous- and four hundred and forty-elght books from Lodge 30 in Bridgeport, and out of that number issued by that lodge more than one thousand are Ill the hands of people who never were i'll machine shop in their lives, and the real machinists of the city are not members of the organization, but are now Delng organized through 2 regular committee which has plan of seeing that every man is working at the machinery 1n- dustry. I found that a group ot trelght handlers who had been organized held machinists' cards in their pockets. That is the situation we are up agalnst'
 We know the inside working of that plan, and we 'copped' it i'll the bud. We knew the workings of the l. w. w. and w. l. l. U and that group which came into Bridgeport for the purpose of disrupting our organization. And was bounded all over the city because 1 dared tc stand as one man fer the principles of the International Assocla- ton of Machinists. 1 say this to you and I have no fear of regrettlng it, We are now developing in the city of Bridgeport a real organization of ma chinists, a real machinists' movement. The business agent has been expelled, and I want to tell you how 1 got 1t. One of his henchmen whom he employ ed to hit me with black jack depended upon whom he saw last; and 1 paid him to pick his pockets, and he brought me the book If I don't have any sup port but that of myself 1 am going to be clear i'll my own conscience, and lt have to go back in the machine shop l can do so, and 1 could go back with determination that my own conscience IS clear m upholding the obligation that l took That is my position in the Bridge port situation. Whether l come through with it or whether l don't 1 am going to try, and if 1 go down with it l am going to have the satisfaction that trimmed that l. w. w. movement to prevent them from trimming lot of our members.
 At one of the meetings in Bridge port men were standing III the railways with brass knuckles on to get an or ganizer of ours who is physically in bad shape He was put into Bridgeport to do a special line of work, and a big at the door with pair of brass knuckles on to get him as he went out of the doorway. I walked up to this gentle man and said, What are you going to do with those things on your hands ? He said, I am going to get that fellow over there I said, You will not do that; that fellow is physically in bad shape; try that on me; try it on me and we will have it settled here,' 1 said; Get away from that door. In less than two hours time the hall was crowded with a bunch of East Side gangsters from New York City, and the question arose in my mind, Who is paying them? The whole idea was to get me and the Secretary of the State Federation of Labor of Connecticut. They put a woman in there They have got to bait their trap with something different. She got rooms in the hotel and got $2O every day she was there. I have a she was in Bridgeport. There were two bottels of whiskey produced. One was drugged, and the other was good whis key. We'll, 1 got the proprietor of the hotel to give the elevator boy a weeks vacation, and he put on a little fellow who is a good loyal member of this organization. The woman got him to open the bottles. We had a line on this woman from the day she left New York City, where she was getting her money, and matters of that kind
 That bunch of gangsters that come there depend altogether on who pays them the most money as to what they are going to do. We went to the police department and exposed another pro- position. Then the gangsters came around We walked into the hal1-450 men in the hall. l never in my experi- ence in the labor movement, wherever there were 45O men together, found but that the ajority of those men wanted to see square deal. 1 recognized that when 1 went into the hall and 1 got up and pulled a tirade of abuse and told them that now is the time to get me- but it didn't work.
 There were possibly 35 to 50 uni ] formed policemen standing about the door. l was wondering why they were there. He said, Don't any of you start l anything, because there are $ to 40 men l out here with clubs to beat you into | submission
 T found out next day that he had | requested police protection. He was l abusing the men on the police force, and ]! having 5 men to protect him, with a ] bunch of gangsters, against me. I 1 wouldn't have done anything to them; | I was carrying out the laws of our or garizatiOn But 1t has gone broadcast |