The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-07-23
By VERN SMITH.

tOIISu III CIlS Hills VI luS AIucl lSaii
Wooden Co., Pacific Mills, Arlington
Mills, Atlantic, Pemberton, Everett,
Kuhnhardt, Duck, and IS other mill
companies. Wages were around
$11O6. Commissioner of Labor
Chas. P. Neil, in his report of 1911,
stated, however, that in the years
average $4,000 were getting less
than 81 a week. The price of living
had begun to rise. The II hour day
prevailed. Half the workers were
women ard children. The companies
had instituted what in the South is
called stretch out" system;
doubling the number of looms per
worker, in some cases, increasing
them in all cases. At the turn of
the year, most of the mills ar
bitrarily cut wages, the first notice
of it many workers had was when
the envelopes of women and children
showed short pay.
Conditions Like Gastonia.
Take it all around, Lawrence, was
just about like the South today:
same low wages, same speed up,
same long day, same wage-cuts, same
despotic control by the bosses. The
main difference was a greater con-
centration of mills in one city, and
the fact that the workers were of
many nationalities and dialects in
Lawrence, instead of all being of old
American stock, as in the South.
On Jan. 10, 1912, in Lawrence, a
meeting of 1000 Italian and Polish
weavers was held, in a hall, and
voted to strike. The next day the
spinning department of the Airing
ton mill struck. This mill was owned
by Whitman, front for ]. Pierpont
Morgan-as the Manville-Jenckes
Co. in Gastonia, also has on its
board one Mr.. Graustein, the head
of the International Paper and
Power Co., with Morgan money back
of him, too. Both Whitman and
Graustein were great for buying up
the press.
Mass Picketing.
On the 18th, strike started in
enc department of the Everett mill,
which by that time had a few pic
lsets from the Arlington mill outside
CT it. The strikers crowded from
department. to department, turned
off the power, called everybody out,
left the Everett mill empty, charged
in masses into the Wood, Washing
ton and Aver mills of the American
Wooden trust, shut them down, and
swept over most of the rest of the
mill territory.
Then they organized strike COM
inittee with representation from
every mill and nationality, built up
relief and publicity machinery.
The chairman and one main or
ganizcr Of the strike committee was
Joe Ettor, of the General Executive
Board of the i. w. W. He had been
called into Lawrence by telegram
from Angelo Rocco, chairman of the
June 10th meeting.
The strike with mass picketing
lasted nine weeks. The bosses made
use of militia and mill owners gun
men against the strikers; streams
of cold water were played on the pic
kets from fire hose, shots were fired
at the strikers, and there were many
arrests. In one batch, 36 strikers
we're tried without jury, without be-
ing permitted counsel, and most of
them were sentenced to year apiece
by Judge Mahoney. One child
striker, Johnny Ramie, was bayonet-
ted to death by the militia.
The whole strike was one terrific
battle, and ended with substantial
victory, Sunday, March II, with in
creases of from to 25 per cent,
mostly for the lower paid workers,
time and half for overtime, modifi-
cation of the premium system, and
he promise of no discrimination.
Paid Provocateurs.
Provocative actions by labor spies
and company detectives were prom
inent in the strike. On Jan. 10, the
Boston American came out with a
story that the police had found dyna-
mite planted under a mill bridge by
the strikers. This was an unusually
bad break for this paper to make,
for its story finding the dynamite
was being sold on the street before
the hour set by the police for find
ing the dynamite.
After that, there was nothing left
to do but to hunt up "goat" who
would admit planting the explosive
TO discredit the strikers, and save
the mill owners, the real instigators
Of the plant. A school committee
man named Breen, who was also an
undertaken and church member I'M
der Father Reilly, the mill owners
catholic priest, pleaded guilty and
was fined $500.
Wood Arrested.
But then, a division grew up be-
tween District Attorney Pellieter and
some political rivals under the thumb
of President Wood of the American
Wooden Trust, and Pellieter arrested
Wood, Woods close friend Atteaux
who was president of the Atteaux
Mill Supply Co., and one d. J. Col
Inns, for planting the dynamite. He