On the evening of January 11th, 1912, Joseph J. Ettor sat on the platform of historic Cooper Union, New York. From this rostrum, made famous by Lincoln, Henry George, and other notable Americans, the subject of Industrial Unionism was being debated. Morris Hilquit, lawyer and acknowledged intellectual leader of the Socialist party, was trying to prove it an impossibility and a dream. William D. Haywood was attempting the contrary. To all appearance, Haywood had failed; skillful dialectics had prevailed against a great tendency imperfectly defended.
Joseph J. Ettor, as he sat there listening to that debate, had in his pocket a telegram requesting him to come to Lawrence. It was sent by Angelo Rocco, the Italian chairman of the Ford Hall meeting, already referred to in the previous chapter. Neither Ettor nor Rocco realized the significance of that telegram in deciding the respective merits of the Cooper Union debate—not in theory, but in fact.*)
Joseph J. Ettor is a native of Brooklyn, N. Y., of Italian parentage and an organizer and general executive board member of the Industrial Workers of the World. This is the only organization that strictly adheres to the principles of industrial unionism. It was in its behalf that Haywood debated, while Ettor listened, an interested spectator.
The Industrial Workers of the World was launched at Chicago in 1905. It is an outgrowth of industrial development in this country. It points out that trades are absorbed into industries and the industries are interwoven into trusts. And that the machine process which makes this possible tends at the same time to displace skilled with unskilled labor. Accordingly, it organizes labor, not according to trades, but industries, into one big labor trust, with a due regard for the growing importance of unskilled as compared to skilled labor. The object of this labor trust is to improve labor's wages and conditions, while, at the same time, striving for the democratic control of industry by labor and for labor, instead of private capitalists, as at present. The philosophy and objects of the I. W. W. are expressed as follows:
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people, and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system.
We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping .to defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class has interests in common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the interests of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries, if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lock-out is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.
Instead of the conservative motto "A fair day's wages for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized not only for the every-day struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially, we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.*)
Ettor arrived in Lawrence on the midnight train on the 12th of January. After a brief rest, he took an early morning walk in the affected mill district, to get an idea of the actual situation. Saturday—for it was Saturday, January 13th—is a half-holiday in the mills; so everything was quiet. The crucial day is always Monday.
Ettor consulted with the revolters. They had already met at the Franco-Belgian Hall, 9 Mason Street, on the afternoon before. There they had formed a tentative strike committee, composed of representatives from each of the races that had come out. They also had decided to call a mass meeting at the City Hall on Saturday afternoon.
As a result of his tour and conferences, Ettor and his associates decided on a policy. This was to shut down all the mills and thus avoid the disorder and disaster which had attended all the previous trades union strikes. This was to be an industrial union strike—the dream and the impossibility made a reality.
Ettor and his associates had a big job before them. Despite its spontaneous and extensive nature, the revolt was practically an unorganized and incomplete one. The textile workers had some ten independent and A. F. of L. Unions in Lawrence. John Golden's United Textile Workers' Union had 208 members, divided, small as they were, into no less than three different craft locals. All told, these unions had about 2,500 members, mostly on paper.*) None of them had initiated the revolt.
The Industrial Workers of the World was the largest single organization in Lawrence, with about 1,300 members, only 500 of whom were in good standing at the time. It was instrumental in forming a textile alliance in Lawrence, composed of all the non-A. F. of L. organizations; but this was inoperative at the time. Such was the state of disorganization, that the active I. W. W. men had opposed a strike against the 54 hour reduction. They had to learn from experience what they knew from theory, that it is conditions and not majorities that make revolutions.
Ettor began his work that afternoon at the public mass meeting in the City Hall—the same City Hall from which the riot call had gone forth. He developed the plan of a strike committee composed of delegates representing all the races and crafts involved, and urged a complete tie-up of all the mills. Both ideas were taken hold of at once. The strike committee was formally launched and the industrial union strike took the place of an unorganized revolt.
Ettor and his associates on the strike committee threw themselves into their stupendous task with enthusiasm. Think of it, this small band of empty-handed, but clear-headed and sturdy-hearted men would throw itself against the power and the millions of the woolen trust and the great mill corporations of Lawrence! It was fanatical—as fanatical as early Christianity and modern Abolition—and as triumphant! But that properly belongs in another part of the narrative; to resume.
Much has been written of Ettor and the strike committee by observers on the ground. William Merriam Pratt, a first lieutenant in the Massachusetts National Guard and a military authority, describes Ettor as "a man of unlimited physical vitality, a wonderful capacity for leadership, and a pronounced Socialist." He also credits Ettor with great personal magnetism and eloquence.*)
So does the Lawrence Priest, believed to be Father Reilly, who penned the distortion of fact, now discredited by a jury's verdict, which appeared in the Brooklyn Tablet, a Catholic organ. Ac-cording to this truthful priest, Ettor "has a personality that was winning in its way. He spoke English and Italian fluently. He soon had all the active spirits in the strike believing in him absolutely and ready to do his bidding." (This last phrase is not true; Ettor often had to do the bidding of his associates; who believed in him absolutely but not submissively.)*)
Richard Washburn Childs, a writer for "Collier's," with a better grasp of actual conditions in Lawrence than Father Reilly, and a more truthful writer on that account, accordingly, declares:
Lawrence was ready for Socialism in one form or the other and Socialism came. It came in the form of the Industrial Workers of the World. It came, too, in the form of Ettor, a laughing boy of twenty-six or twenty-eight, an organizer of this new and different union, a born leader, a youth crying `Excelsior,' with a great power to win over, not only the rough-necked and the high-browed, but some men who were neither the one nor the other.*)
Still another investigator and writer, Nicholas Vanderpuyl, an Haverhill, Mass., minister, describes Ettor in these words:
And who is Joe Ettor? And what is he like? And what is he fighting for? In appearance he is a short, stocky Italian with a well-shaped head, crowned with a thick shock of hair upon which a small hat sets rather jauntily. He wears a flannel shirt and a large bow for a tie. His clothes are typically Italian in cut. He has a kindly, boyish face, which lights up with humor and then sobers with scorn. He has an apparently unlimited supply of physical vitality, and a voice that is strong and resonant, which seems to grow stronger the more he uses it. For over a week he has been speaking incessantly in the largest halls of the city and on the open common, and Monday evening, when he addressed a crowd that filled every seat and every available bit of standing room of the large city hall of the adjoining city of Haverhill, his voice was just as clear and strong as when he took command of the situation a week and a half before. On Thursday last, when he addressed a crowd of nearly 20,000 workers from the bandstand on Lawrence Common, he asked all who were out on strike willingly, to raise their hands, and the carrying quality of his rather remarkable voice was manifested by raised hands on the very out-skirts of that great crowd.*)
Ettor was certainly a great personal factor in the Lawrence strike. But it would be a mistake to believe that he was like a star actor, surrounded by satellites who only served to accentuate his brilliancy. Ettor had humble but able men about him. Men like Gilbert Smith, Anglo-American, born in Rhode Island, percher, socialist, strike veteran and secretary of the strike committee; August Detollenaere, described by an able lawyer as "no man's fool," Franco-Belgian textile worker and manager of a co-operative society that owns a building containing a bakery, grocery, meeting halls, stage, and educational institutions; Thomas Holliday, Englishman, weaver, socialist, methodical, statistical, yet individual, writer and speaker, whose ability as such was first proclaimed in open court by District Attorney Atwill; William Born, German, weaver, strike veteran, with an instinct for ferreting out violence on the capitalist side, 65 years of age, affectionately called "Pop" by Ettor; Archie Adamson, "the blue-eyed Scotchman," weaver, devotee of "Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush" and lover of Carlyle and Stevenson, Presbyterian and whipper expert, socialist and practical organization worker; Edward Reilly, "Witty Irishman," born in the Emerald Isle, with a warm, rich brogue and the Celtic faculty of seeing the funny side of a wake, while, at the same time, penetrating the shams and hypocrisies of the capitalist class, butler, Catholic, close associate of Ettor and chairman of the workers' committee that settled the strike; all these, and many more, unassuming men, alive to every responsibility and possessed of great latent power, aided Ettor at Lawrence. In addition, there were some women worthy of notice because of their oratory, bravery and practical helpfulness—Rosa Cardello, Josephine Liss, Carrie Hanson, Mrs. Annie Welzenbach and Mrs. Bateman—Italian, Polish, Danish, German-Canadian and English, respectively. "Joe" Ettor was the chieftain of a worthy band.
George Brinton Beale, Lawrence Journalist, in a review of the strike, describes the inception and the conduct of the strike committee in these words:
The general strike committee, with Ettor as chairman, was organized. The seemingly hopeless task of successfully organizing some 25,000 mill operatives, comprising nearly every race and creed of the world, was begun. Under the guidance of Ettor matters moved smoothly and swiftly. The general strike committee, representing in its personnel every nationality involved, by at least two candidates, took immediate hold of the situation. That hold taken in the first twenty-four hours following the start of the strike was maintained and unbroken to the day, nine weeks later, when the vote that practically marked the cessation of hostilities was passed.
Sunday of the 14th passed quietly. It was the deceiving quietude of organized preparation that most successfully misled practically the entire city. The trouble was over, it was but a tempest in a teapot said many. They knew not of the almost continuous series of meetings held by the thousands of operatives throughout the day. Neither did they know of a certain word that was, already early, becoming a watchword. It was a word of unfamiliar sound, one, however, that has since spread itself and its meaning over the entire civilized world. That word was "Solidarity." Its meaning, as given in the dictionary, is "Community of interests and responsibilities." It became a watchword and more, a sort of fetish, an open sesame to everything desirable to the workers.*)
The Boston Citizens' Report on "Strike Conditions in Lawrence" rightly attributes the cause of the strike to a wage reduction to meet the reduced hours of the new fifty-four hour law, which went into effect without any notice to the employees. Much disorder, due to the absence of leadership and organization, followed. Then, She report contrasts the change, following the coming of Ettor. It goes on thus:
With the conflict started came the I. W. W., understanding the point of view of the non-skilled worker, the prejudices and sympathies, and how to deal with them. The men and women whom Joseph Ettor undertook to fuse into a single coherent body were of diverse races, most of them unskilled.
When the local leaders of the American Federation of Labor came forward in the strike they could make little headway with this unskilled class. The I. W. W. undertook to organize the operatives industrially, a method contrary to the policy of their rivals.
Under the guidance of Ettor, the different nationalities and groups sent delegates to a central body, which met daily. From this central body radiated plans of action adopted by the leaders.
Racial antipathy, which had appeared to be the basis of hopeless discord, disappeared in the organization. Meetings were held and inflammatory speeches were indulged in, the net result of which was not so much violence as the making of a great body which withstood the pressure of the strike throughout the nine weeks of severe winter.*)
Finally, we have Wm. D. Haywood's description of the strike committee:
It was a wonderful strike, the most significant strike that has ever been carried on in this or any other country. Not because it was so large numerically, but because we were able to bring together so many different nationalities. And the most significant part of that strike was that it was a democracy. The strikers handled their own affairs. There was no president of the organization who looked in and said 'Howdydo.' There were no members of an executive board. There was no one the boss could see except the strikers. The strikers had a committee of 56, representing 27 different languages. The boss would have to see all the committee to do any business with them. And immediately behind that committee was a substitute committee of another 56 prepared in the event of the original committee's being arrested. Every official in touch with affairs at Lawrence had a substitute selected to take his place in the event of being thrown in jail.
All the workers in connection with the strike were picked from material that in the mill was regarded as worth no more than $6 to $7 a week. The workers did their own bookkeeping. They handled their own stores, six in number. They ran eleven soup kitchens. There were 120 investigated cases for relief. They had their own finance committee, their own relief committee. And their work was carried on in the open, even as this socialist meeting is being conducted, with the press on hand, with all the visitors that wanted to come, the hall packed with the strikers themselves. And when this committee finally reduced itself to ten to make negotiations with the mill-owners, it was agreed before they left that they must meet the mill-owners alone.*)
The strike committee met first, in the Franco-Belgian Hall, 9 Mason Street; then in Bros' basement in Chestnut Street; finally in the Portuguese Hall, at 329 Common Street. After Ettor's arrest the Franco-Belgian Hall was again used.
Newspaper reporters, special correspondents, social investigators, the Governor's secretary, state, military and police officials, flocked to the strike committee meetings to report its doings, or to confer with its officials. The strike committee was a governing body, with governmental powers; what it did was instinctively recognized as of supreme importance to the community.
Of course, the strike committee did not spring, like another Minerva, fully developed out of the head of a Jove. It grew, so that when Ettor was taken to prison it went along without him. A real democracy finds the "indispensable" ruler always dispensable—very much so.
Further, the strike committee's democracy was reflected in the widespread support it received. The strike came at a propitious time; when civilized countries were in an unprecedented wave of discontent and progress; when American civilization especially was rocked by increasing prices and anti-trust agitation. The strike focused and crystalized the sentiment thus engendered, to a very large extent. It also captured the support of all those desiring greater unity of labor—a more efficient and successful method of class war against capitalism. And so $80,000 was collected to support the strike—a big sum and yet a small one in view of the thousands of persons involved and the millions of wages gained. The state spent $172,000 alone for the maintenance of the militia.
Here, then, was the industrial democracy child of modern industrial development—in action, serving the interests of the many workers as against their few capitalist exploiters. The crude embryo —the rough outline of the future state, where industry and government shall be, by, for, and of the workers direct. It is a product of modern times worth reflecting on—all of which shall be done more fully in our closing chapter.
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