THE PRICE OF MEAT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22718, 2 November 1935, Page 27

THE PRICE OF MEAT

There's no place like Hamtramck, the largest Polish area of Detroit, Michigan, when the price of meat soars. The housewives of that district decided the price was too high, and that something should be dora- about it. Among them was Mrs Mary Zuk, 30-year-old wife of an unemployed factory worker, who decided that something would he done. She organised the women in the neighbourhood and declared a boycott against all butcher shops until meat prices should be reduced 20 per cent. The butchers were enraged. Would-be purchasers of meat were met by determined pickets of Mrs Zuk's Committee for Action Against the High Cost of Living, who sought gently, or otherwise, to dissuade them from entering the stores. There was some violence. Venturesome husbands of women unconnected with the boycott movement were seized by militant pickets when they emerged from meat shops. Their clothing was torn, their faces scratched, their hair pulled. The Hamtramck butchers were powerless. Finally they decided to close up shop for at least two weeks, and by that time conditions luckily had improved.