Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1926-03-12
10 pASSAIC STRIKE
VARY HEAT0N WORSE

,,.:.:-....-:-s:-.::-'s--:.':'
strike Of the Passaie textile
-. begins its fourth week With
.rysst and most enthusiastic
Inc that has yet been seen.
- ..,set line sings. Girls and boys,
- ~ settled mlddle-aged mothers
-. mn and down in front OF the
ss.ss singing. They sing Hold
= for We are Coming" They
song about the textile union
-. f1sy made up. In front Of the
.14nacin0 mill gates they march
e,asata..y up ana Gown singing
~ few feet stands a policeman
ing a rot club. But the picket
-. owe on in orderly fashion. There
- moo spirit mere.
THsv are striking for right to live
ra.=s IS no great industry where con-
...,=.,. are SO shameful as in the tex
80 industry. Heads of families think
.asmselves lucky if they are making
20 % Plenty of heads of families
- SIS. $3.50, $3.50. Last fall
tsafe was wage cut of 1910. The
workers formed a United Front Com
,5.tee and began to organize. -Four
y,,ks ago they struck. First the
100 workers of the Botony Norsted
Mn came out. The end of the week
.sU the Garfield Worsted Mill and the
isssaic Spinning Company shut. Both
.be,e mills employ about 400 people.
Eexf week the Gere Mill with its l,2OO
,.e.nle closed down. And now the
MINERS in Huffman Mills
have Joined the others who have
naked out and at last the big plant
+, crippled. In the course of this
strike the policemen's clubs have been
busy. A parade was formed of the
strikers. Twelve hundred strong they
marched from the town of Passaic
through the neighboring towns of
Clifton and Garfield where some of the
mills are situated. The Akerman
Bridge joins Garfield and Clifton. The
strikers marched along TO the bridge.
They were orderly, they were quiet.
Il was the sort of parade where
mothers go along and push their baby
carriages and where the children JOIN
their parents. The police tried TO
stop them from going across the
bridge. The strikers persisted in go
ing on. The fifty policemen rushed
the crowd clubbing. Nevertheless the
next day they marched into Clifton
again. The whole complexion of the
strike now changed. The strikers
who had only been protesting against
the wake cut now put forward these
demands.
/. 1870 increase over old wage
scale.
2. Return of money taken from
them by wage cut.
3. Time and a half overtime.
1. A 40-hour week.
5. Decent sanitary working con-
ditions.
6. No discrimination against union
workers.
7. Recognition of the Union.
If you want to see what this strike
is about in human terms go the rounds
with a relief visitor. AS we went into
the first house, the relief worker
said:
Mind the stairs. They're broken"
The hall was as dark as a mouse hole.
The stink was so dense you could have
cut it into chunks. Broken stairs,
tunnel-like halls, opening on the hu-
man burrows. A flicker of a match
showed the filth of ages underfoot.
They housed cattle and dogs better.
Cattle and dogs are valuable. We
went into a flat almost as dark as the
hallway. In little room was a htch-
en- which gave on an air-shaft. The
bedroom in back of it was pitch black.
The front room alone had light. A
woman with a baby in her arms and
two babies clinging to her skirts
welcomed US.
You will excuse my mother if she
don't get up. She's to stay in bed
most of the time. She has open sores
on her legs" Her story came trick
ling out little by little. She had no
husband. She had four children I'M
der ten years of age. Her father and
mother lived in the back room and she
and her children lived in the front
room.
you see, fathers the janitor here,
SO we get our rent free. Sometimes
We get some odd jobs to do. We don't
get them often"
We'll, I've got job for week as
night watchman," said the father
stoutly. He was an old man of kind
~ aspect, a man who is pleasant to
meet. He was not very old, but the
mills had lain him aside. They had
used up his youth and tossed him out:
And now he was lucky to have roof
over his head, even in a tenement of