The Threat to the Labor Movement/Section 12
Lying About Passaic.
BUT it is when the Times speaks of the Passaic strike it throws all caution to the winds and out-Munchausens the famous baron while at the same time not forgetting to say a good word for its particular hero—President Sigman. It says: (I quote a length so that readers may be able to form some idea of the amount of lying that can be done in a few paragraphs by a skilled editorial writer on a capitalist sheet.)
Passaic's textile strike is virtually brought to an end amid circumstances that have now become the regular thing with labor conflicts conducted under Communist inspiration and leadership. The same formula operated as in the cloakmakers' strike. Hostilities are proclaimed without sufficient cause. . . . . Bitterness and violence are engendered. Exhaustion casts the deciding vote. The Communist leadership decamps, as in Passaic, and leaves the task of bringing order out of chaos to moderate labor, or subscribes to a defeat which it hails as a victory.
It seems useless to argue with a sheet which dismisses such gains as the establishment of a union in a hitherto unorganized industry, the recognition of the right of union committees to take up and settle grievances, the restoration of the 10 per cent wage cut, the acknowledgment of the right of workers to be hired thru the union office, the securing of an agreement that there shall be no discrimination by the companies against strikers and the provision that no employes are to be hired until all strikers who wish to return have done so, as a defeat.
"The Communist leadership decamps" is a method of describing one of the most tremendous sacrifices ever made by a strike leader possessing the full confidence of the masses, and one of the most dramatic incidents in the history of the labor movement, to which The Times editorial writer is welcome. His ability to distort and conceal the truth in the interests of the capitalists shows that he has socialist leanings.
We challenge the writer of this canard to make the same statement concerning Albert Weisbord to a mass meeting of the Passaic textile workers.
If may be well to say here that the policy followed by the Passaic strikers did not change with the voluntary withdrawal of Weisbord, but that the left wingers in the U. T. W. have led the struggle which has forced the Botany, Passaic Worsted, the Dundee and the Garfield mills to capitulate and settle with some 8,000 organized textile workers.
I have kept for the last the juiciest morsel with which The Times has regaled its readers on this particular subject and it is here that President Sigman is again quoted approvingly:
President Sigman of the International Ladies' Garment Workers justly accuses the radical leaders in control of the cloakmakers' strike of having alienated public sympathy. THIS WOULD BE EVEN TRUER OF PASSAIC. The textile workers failed notably to win the support of a body of public opinion which has usually expressed itself in strikes affecting large bodies of low-paid workers. The reason was not indifference . . . . But despite the partial merits of the strikers' case, despite the unfavorable impression created by unwise or arbitrary police methods, popular feeling refused to be stirred. The dominant, and justified, impression was of a strike conducted by a little coterie of revolutionary leaders for purposes of their own. (Emphasis mine.)
"I wouldn't say he is a liar," said Abraham Lincoln in speaking of the reputation of a certain farmer for veracity, "but I do know that he has to get some one else to call his hogs at feeding time."
No strike of similar size has ever met with such wide popular support as has Passaic. The workers were able to hold out for over ten months just for this reason. Something like $500,000 was contributed to the relief committee by unions, fraternal societies, individual workers and liberals.
Sympathizers and supporters of a strike make up the most diverse group in American society. They include organizations like the I. W. W., the Civil Liberties Union, protestant and catholic organizations, liberal middle class elements and prominent individuals like Rabbi Wise and Senator Borah.
But the Times, like the reactionary union and socialist press, is interested only in "selling" the idea that fighting leadership is bad for the trade unions.
The simple truth, in a campaign of this kind, is an obvious handicap.