The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-04-20

ly burst in on the office, arrested AL
bert Weisbord, and proceeded to make
raid. Get out Of here and stay
out" they yelled at me, and fearing
lest land on my Bar, I fastened to
get some friends and walked in the
direction Of the Rptany Mills, in Gar
field. g
Not Pleasant Picture.
Garfield did not present a very pleas
ant picture. l thought Even an abun
lance Of sunshine does not improve
his picture of sbrdidness. And the
actory buildings look like their own
ers-so cold, so chomely, so severe"
At this point met one of the Botany
strikers returning from a Belmont
Park meeting, an earnest, hard-work
ng Hungarian who mad been in this
free country for 26 years and had
finally managed ito earn, before the
wage cut, the enormous wage of $21
week-and he had to support a wife
and three children on that! He told
a story of struggling to pay S1S a
month for a few rooms and, in addi
ton, the. difficulty Of keeping up with
the cost of living, which did not go
down at the time of the wage cut, as
the bosses maintained.
He said: my Oldest girl, she seven
zen years old. want her go school
more, not work in factory, but what
an poor worker do? l make S110O
asst year; that's not enough to keep
up my family" He continued to talk
as we walked along together of the
speed-up system at the mills, how the
bosses would make the workers quit
early, thus losing several hours each
day. 1t occurred, not because of lack
Of work, but simply because they so
lesired. a.
Company Makes No Repairs.
| next visited the home of worker
who had been employed as helper in
he spinning room. He was living in
What he believed to be a company
house, altho he said if he took any
COMPLAINTS to the boss-to the man
Tho got the fent-he was told the
ompany did not own the house-tha'
was mistaken. He therefore had to
make all repairs himself, do all paint
.lg, ETC., and the owner could never
e found and everybody was always
passing the BUCK" This worker had
made, when he. had work, from $40 to
500 week-with wife and four chill
dren to support. He told me: My
four children have to sleep in one bed.
but what else can do? That's why
we strike-so maybe we can live
little better"
In the same building l visited an
other striker who had been employed
as machinist's helper. The COM
pany considered him well off," for
had he not earned the enormous sum
of $1240 last year, and didn't he have
three rooms to live in, with only one
child? But the company didn't know
land didn't carei to know that OF
these three rooms only one had suf-
ficient amount of light. The two win
dows in the kitchen furnished most of
the light for the other rooms, which
got practically no light from the out
side and presented a most dreary as
pect. Furthermore, out Of these "enor-
nous" wages this worker had been
forced to pay very heavy doctor bills
for his child's operation and wife's i'll
ness, due to lack of attention and care
at the time of the child's birth.
This worker told me: ut is impos-
sible to save penny; my wife wears
the same dresses she had seven years
ago, before she was married. And If
we try to put away IS one week then
the next week somebody gets sick and
the doctor takes it from u.s."
Dye House Workers Pay Small.
From the worker upstairs l got the |
same kind of a story. She had beer
working in the dye house. Her pa,
envelope showed she had earned aboui
s340 for four months work and after
making this great sum she had beer
laid off. One could see what a con
scious effort she was making to keel
her tiny hall room clean; she con
fessed she had hardly any bedclothes
left and didn't know what she would do
about 1t. And this worker had given
her best years to the textile industry
and gotten nothing In return but Ill
ness and poverty. VIZ
But in spite OF all this the strikers
were not Respondent They said: We
know we must stick together. We
must not let the policemen's beatings
scare us, but have to keep on picket.
ing, striking-until we win out" When
mentioned the name of Albert Weis
bord their faces frightened. They
said: HE is our best friend. He is
fighting for us-with us-so we can
get more bread; so we can bring up
our children little better"
Strikers Must Win.
left Passaic feeling that so long
rs these striking workers continue to
ling their Solidarity Forever in
such lusty fashion; so long as they
A. ~. .-..bod D., tf.n $500. ol.s.