The whole country was watching the situation.The hearings held by a congressional committee emphasized the stupidity of the employers in arbitrarily curtailing the wage, the inadequacy of the town government in handling the situation, and the cupidity of the I.W.W.leaders in taking advantage of the fears, the ignorance, the inflammability of the workers, and in creating a "terrorism which impregnated the whole city for days." Lawrence became a symbol.It stood for the American factory town; for municipal indifference and social neglect, for heterogeneity in population, for the tinder pile awaiting the incendiary match.
At Little Falls, New York, a strike occurred in the textile mills in October, 1912, as a result of a reduction of wages due to a fifty-four hour law.No organization was responsible for the strike, but no sooner had the operatives walked out than here also the I.W.W.appeared.The leaders ordered every striker to do something which would involve arrest in order to choke the local jail and the courts.The state authorities investigating the situation reported that "all of those on strike were foreigners and few, if any, could speak or understand the English language, complete control of the strike being in the hands of the I.W.W."In February, 1913, about 15,000 employees in the rubber works at Akron, Ohio, struck.The introduction of machinery into the manufacture of automobile tires caused a reduction in the piecework rate in certain shops.One of the companies posted a notice on the 10th of February that this reduction would take effect immediately.No time was given for conference, and it was this sudden arbitrary act which precipitated all the discontent lurking for a long time in the background; and the employees walked out.The legislative investigating committee reported "there was practically no organization existing among the rubber employees when the strike began.A small local of the Industrial Workers of the World comprised of between fifteen and fifty members had been formed....Simultaneously with the beginning of the strike, organizers of the I.W.W.appeared on the ground inviting and urging the striking employees to unite with their organization." Many of these testified before the public authorities that they had not joined because they believed in the preachings of the organization but because "they hoped through collective action to increase their wages and improve their conditions of employment." The tactics of the strike leaders soon alienated the public, which had at first been inclined towards the strikers, and acts of violence led to the organization of a vigilance committee of one thousand citizens which warned the leaders to leave town.
In February, 1913, some 25,000 workers in the silk mills of Paterson, New Jersey, struck, and here again the I.W.W.repeated its maneuvers.Sympathetic meetings took place in New York and other cities.Daily "experience meetings" were held in Paterson and all sorts of devices were invented to maintain the fervor of the strikers.The leaders threatened to make Paterson a "howling wilderness," an "industrial graveyard," and "to wipe it off the map." This threat naturally arrayed the citizens against the strikers, over one thousand of whom were lodged in jail before the outbreak was over.Among the five ringleaders arrested and held for the grand jury were Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Patrick Quinlan, whose trials attracted wide attention.Elizabeth Flynn, an appealing young widow scarcely over twenty-one, testified that she had begun her work as an organizer at the age of sixteen, that she had not incited strikers to violence but had only advised them to picket and to keep their hands in their pockets, "so that detectives could not put stones in them as they had done in other strikes." The jury disagreed and she was discharged.
Quinlan, an unusually attractive young man, also a professional I.W.W.agitator, was found guilty of inciting to violence and was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.After serving nine months he was freed because of a monster petition signed by some 20,000 sympathetic persons all over the United States.Clergymen, philanthropists, and prominent public men, were among the signers, as well as the jurors who convicted and the sheriff who locked up the defendant.
These cases served to fix further public attention upon the nature of the new movement and the sort of revivalists its evangel of violence was producing.Employers steadfastly refused to deal with the I.W.W., although they repeatedly asserted they were willing to negotiate with their employees themselves.After three months of strike and turmoil the mayor of Paterson had said: "The fight which Paterson is ****** is the fight of the nation.Their agitation has no other object in view but to establish a reign of terror throughout the United States." Alarge number of thoughtful people all over the land were beginning to share this view.
