40,000 GIRLS ON STRIKE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2928, 27 April 1910, Page 73

40,000 GIRLS ON STRIKE.

Bt Wxlhelminj Sherkiej Cablegrams have told us but little of one of the most dramatic upheavals that characterise the woman movement of our. day. New York City has known of it well, so has Philadelphia; but America in general has been curiously uninformed or misinformed concerning certain actions of some of its poorest.- and its wealthiest women. Recent files of the Woman & Journal from Boston yield a comprehensive survey of an episode,, unique in its kind, and portentous of vast consequences, About November last the Ladies’ Waist-i makers’ Union of New York began to receive accessions from several big shops. The Triangle Waist Company heard that some of its workers had joined the hitherto weak union, and, interviewing tha . girls, expressed a kindly desire to aid them in the matter. Deceived by this friendly tone 150 Jewish and Italian girls stated their membership. Next they wera informed—still in kindly semblance- —tha#i owing to some uncertainty in sleeve patterns their work would temporarily Unsuspectingly they walked out. but within a few hours read in the newspapers the firm’s urgent advertisement for waistworkers. They picketed the shop, vtelling all seeming applicants that the shop was on strike. This was their legal resource, according to New .-'York civic regulations. But the company hired thugs to intimidate the girls, and for three or,;, four weeks those young creatures were assailed and beaten, and in the subsequent tumults arrested. Not once was a thiig interfered with by the police. r With a single exception every girl was fined from Idol to lOdol by the police magistrate. The exception was the rich and socially influential Miss Mary Dreier, ‘ who, as president of the Women’s Trade Union League of New York, assisted the pickets;:* On the way to the Magistrate’s Court the arresting policeman recognised her. “ Why, didn’t you tell me you'was a rich lady? I’d never have arrested you in the world!” he exclaimed, and although she was quite, as guilty as the others he refused to take her before the magistrate. We behold a mass meeting in Cooper’s Hall, .scene of so much current hisn tory. Miss Clara Lemlich, a waist-worked by day and a medical student by night,' tells that she is tired of talk: the time) has come for action. “ Do you mean faith?” asks the chairman. “Will you take the old Jewish oath?” Two thousand! hands are held aloft and 2000 youthful voices pray; “If I turn traitor to_ the cause I now pledge may this hand wither and drop off at the wrist from this arm I now. raise!” A mass meeting poured forth from Lip* zin Theatre, and preceded a march of 2000 strikers, bearing banners inscribed : “ This is the protest of 40,000 workwomen,’ “ Police are for our protection, not for our abuse,” and “ Picketing is the rights of every working woman.” Miss Dreier and the other leaders of this procession presented to the mayor petitions asking him to stop the persecutions, intimidations, and insults of the police in their manifest connivance with the employers. Forty-seven college women took other methods to aid the strikers. Clearly understanding the law, they joined the picketers, and instructed their sisters in legal resistance to the abuse thrust upon them. • > When the strike spread to Philadelphia college girls and society women crowded to a mass meeting held for consideration of the conditions of the shirtwaist-makers. The ushers, in cap and gown,, were members of the College Equal Suffrage League, and the leading speakers emphasised the need for adult enfranchisement. Professor, Prances Potter compared the modern trade unions with the guilds of the fourteenth century, and spoke of the. domestic changes which have taken women frorndhe wash tub and the spinning wheel to ‘ the public laundry and the factory. “ They, need the vote,” she insisted, “ for their own protection , ,^hey. r all*, need it. We stand together Tm > Thus, too. spoke the Rev. 'Anna Howard Shaw at a huge meeting-in thA New York Hippodrome. “ Your cause is our cause, and our cause is your cause, because we are all women, and every woman needs everv other woman’s support and help.” Miss Glasgow, Miss Mary. Johnston, and

other notable literary women expressed ' themselves similarly in Richmond, Virginia. Mice Glasgow told of such occurrences as women must needs observe in European travel—a woman in Holland harnessed alongside a horse to drag a canal boat, or ploughing,, with a cow for a yokefellow ! She was greatly impressed by the shirtwaist, girls' strike, and she restated the current commentary: " Oh! those girls haven't got a vote, you know." Concluding her speech she said : " But, leaving all else out of the question, the great good that has come out of a woman movement encircling the earth is that women -will learn to know each other and to sympathise with each other as never before; to realise each other's needs and dependencies Out of this will be born a aex loyalty which' women have hitherto never felt, bub which more than anything else in future will contribute to their development and growth in the right direction." 'Mrs- Belmont, an immensely rich New York woman, went to a police court between night and morning to become bail for girls arrested as pieketers. Waiting .there for six hours her blood ran cold and hot with horror and indignation. Afterwards she said : " Every woman who sits complacently amidst the comforts of her home or who moves with perfect freedom and independence in her own protected social circle and says, ' I have all the rights I want,' should spend one night in the Jefferson Market Court. . . . The entire social structure is wrong from the foundation." Three members of the Colony Club, the wealthiest and most exclusive woman's club in America,- invited their society friends to hear representatives of the shirtwaist girls tell the story of the strike. Among those present were Miss Anne (Pierpont) Morgan, Mrs Belmont, Mrs'W. K. Vanderbilt, Mrs Clarence Mackay, Madame Nordica and her husband, and Miss Julia Marlowe. Miss Dreier scribed the fight, then various aspects of it were given by the representative- girls. Many of the audience learned for the first time che conditions under which American shirtwaists are made. One child of 15 told how she supported her family as a tucker, receiving 3.50d0l a week. Father was out of work, mother "could not see good out of her eyes," and three younger children were at 'school. Another, very young also, who got four cents a dozen for finishing waists, told how an Italian priest came to the shop and warned the Italian girls that if they struck they should, all go . The girl faltered, then I named the alleged destination of striking | girls. "Excuse me, please, ladies!" she I pleaded, then brightly added:' " But, just the same, we all stick to the union." Two hundred and thirty-three manufacturers have taken the girls back on union conditions, as follows:—Fifty-two-hour ; week; 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for five days, I and 8 a.m. to 4-p.m. Saturdays; limitai tion to night work in the rush season to 8 p.ra. ; abolition of Sunday work and of " inside contracting " ; a general increase ■of 15 to 20 per cent, in wages; full pay for legal holidays; and recognition of the union and of the " closed shop." . As another consequence of the strike it is reported that Miss Morgan, Mrs Belmont, and other women of immense means intend to establish ia big shirtwaist factory themselves, in which the girls may work under wholesome conditions and have fair play. The Chicago Public comments: "Such interest is apparently not of the charity-ball' order; Charityball sympathisers with the working poor do not become strike-leaders, as both Miss Morgan and Mrs Belmont have done. This is' the hopeful sign for them. From that point of vantage they must soon begin to ask why it is that manufacturers fight their employees over pitiful questions of wages—not merelv the superficial why, but the profound why." | The shirtwaist, or blouse, has become j a garment indispensable to women. All the world over there mav well be sympathetic interest in the strike of the 40,000.