Hes currently writing a study of the textile strike of 1926. Is considered a period pioneered many of the labor protests that were to become born in the 1930s. The coworker strike was using the union to provide social and Relief Services to striking workers. This describes the tremendously violent means police used. We ask that you please join us for a light reception after the event. Lets welcome professor jacob zumoff prof. Zumoff thank you very much. I am very happy to be here, especially since quite a bit of my research is based on material here, including the town of pelham, new jersey. What i kind of want to do is talk a little about the strike talkf, and then i want to look at the question of why a strike is important and why it is worth looking at. As has been said in the inch of introduction, a lot of scholarly perception of the 1920s, the roaring 1920s, looks at it as a period of antilabor with tremendous attacks on the working class and the Labor Movement. And a relatively conservative right wing period, which is very much true. But i think the passaic strike provides a different perspective of this period. Which is located not that far from here on the other side of the river in new jersey, was, in the early 1920s, essentially a company town. Dominated by wool companies. A lot of people know about paterson, which is down the road from passaic, silk city, usa. Was20s,ic dominated by wool companies to avoid high tariffs on wool. Unlike in paterson, where there millslarge number of silk and a relatively few number of people for each mill, the wool mills were huge, employing thousands. And there was only a handful of major mills in this city, which gives a different character to the politics and industrial relations in the city. Owners werel determined to keep out unions, perhaps looking out paterson down the road, where there had been a large number of strikes. Aey wanted to keep Passaic Union freetown. That used pretty much everything they could in order to do that. 1920s, whatin the is referred to as welfare capitalism as an attempt to provide peace through having certain types of social benefits that would prevent workers from joining unions. But besides the carrot, they also used the stick. They set up a Company Union to prevent organized labor. They had a very elaborate system of espionage against the workers. So if you wanted to get a job in the, you have to get cleared by the wool council. They were sent into peoples homes, in the factories. You, youlacklisted cannot get a job at any of the mills. And there was what the chief of police referred to as the passaic plan. Where if they thought you are an , they were to you on h rain and get you out of the city. All of these things were used in order to keep out labor unions. 1920s, passaic was a the mainfor not having textile workers seeing in in the United States, the united textile workers, which was affiliated with the American Federation of labor. Had no real members in the wool mills and was more or less hostile to organizing workers, reflecting the mentality of the leadership of the American Federation of labor at the time, which focused on skilled workers, mainly americans, mainly male, and almost entirely white. Wereorkers in passaic almost entirely immigrant, largely from southern, central, and eastern europe, and over half of them were women. Many of them were married with children, who worked the late shift in order to provide for their children. And, as opposed to paterson, the workers in passaic were almost entirely unskilled. Theunited text files United Textiles workers really did not want to do anything with them. The textile920s, industry in the United States it was a very volatile industry. Of beyond thend scope of this talk, by 1925, the price of wool had fallen. Especially in the 1920s. Throughout the world, they tried to make up the downside of this andutting workers wages increasing their hours. In late 1925, the wool council, the Companies Members of it, unilaterally cut workers wages by 10 and cut their overtime an increased their hours and increased their hours. Needless to say, workers were not particularly happy about this. But the companies were not particularly worried about this, because this had been done in the past, and they did not think the workers would be able to do anything about it. 1925, some workers, under the leadership of a hungarian American Work at one , who wearsts probably a member of the communist party, he went to the united textile workers and tried to get a textile union interested in fighting the wage cut. The united textile workers wanted nothing to do with it. So he and his fellow workers organized a Company Called the united front committee. Or the ufc. A, essentially in everything but name, a union. Representing all of the different workers and all of the different plants. And they went to the bosses of one of the larger companies, the botany mill. Fired him and other workers. From the point of their view of the company, that would have probably been the end of it. But one of the interesting things was the ufc had counted on support from people who were outside of the plant. One of the more famous and most important was someone by the name of albert weisbord. City,w up in new york went to city college, and went to harvard law school. What makes a most important was he was a supporter of the communist party. He joined the communist party while at harvard. He had work in various inacities in textile mills new england and, for various reasons, moved to paterson in 1925. Communists,er helped organize the united front committee. Early 1926, there were thousands of workers on strike. What became known as the passaic strike really took off. By february, 1926, there was anywhere between 15,000 workers and 20,000 workers on strike, not just in passaic, but in other local cities, like garfield and clifton. The strike of these 15,000 would last until march, 1927. So more than a year of this massive militant strike. Came, in thee literature of the period, to symbolize the Labor Movement of the 1920s. It was not the only strike in the oneiod, but it does it is the one that epitomized the attempt by the working class to try to fight back, push back against the antilabor, and it received support from the Labor Movement throughout the country. The list of some of the eminent radicals and liberals, artists and intellectuals who supported it reflects a list of some of the important people in the period. Mary heaton vorse and Elizabeth Gurley flynn. Norman thomas. Wright. Ephen solomon all of these people played a role in trying to build support for this strike. The other interesting thing about the way this shark was built was that, in many ways, it was the first mass media strike. Of the0s was a period growth of tabloids in the newspapers in new york city. There were many of them. There is the evening post and the daily news, but also the pioneer popular style with the use of photography. Almost on a would daily basis print pictures of the strike going on. One of the tactics of that the used was tossaic arrest and beat up newspaper workers which, in the age of mass media, created a spectacle and made the papers hostile, for obvious reasons, and made the strike that much better known. I think that the most important, the key element of the passaic strike, was really the role of the communist party. The strike was not about communism. The strike was about economic demand, particularly, as i said, fighting against the wage cut, fighting against increasing hours. But what really made the strike standout, what made the strike the involvement of the communist party. On one hand, this is because the media in the city of passaic and ownersice and the mill were more than willing to use communism as a way to attack the workers. ,ut i think more fundamentally the involvement of the communist party is notable because it was the communists who provided a narrative for the also were very important in organizing for the strike. I do not want to go into too much on the history of the communist party, which is quite bookicated, in my previous was on the communist party. But to know a couple of things partyit, the communist had been founded almost a decade earlier after the bolshevik revolution of 1917. The bolshevik revolution true quite a bit of support among workers in the United States as well as internationally. The importance of the bolshevik revolution as the first time in history where the working class took power, even a decade later, was something that was quite important and resonated among many workers in passaic, many of whom had come from what had been part of the czars empire. Its hard to come up with exact numbers for how large the communist party was in 1925 or 1926. Estimates go from 8000 to 13,000 on the one hand, is not small. On the other hand, compared to the size of the working class in the United States, or the size of the United States, is still a relatively small organization. Before the passaic strike, the communist party was largely although many people supported it, in the working class, supported the idea of socialism, the party itself oftentimes tended to be isolated. It was disoriented, for various reasons. Its main support were among immigrant workers. Time, the party, through the strike, showed that only the communists were able and willing to take this bunch the americanom federation of labor and the mainstream Labor Movement had basically ignored. Fight for their rights and fight for them. And so, the communists did not cause the strike, but they position torong build the strike and epitomize it for the period. For various reasons, the communist party was located, the headquarters, in new york. So they had quite a number of supporters who are able to go out. What also, the communist party had the political analysis and that providedram them with a framework in order to build this strike. They had a number of supporters. Threwtire communist party itself into building the strike. Strike was the first time the communist party was able to achieve mass struggle. This is the first time they were really calling the action, and they were able to lead the strike. What they were able to do was demonstrate their competency as organizers. They pioneered several techniques that would become central and decade later in the 1930s and the fight for industrial unions. In that sense, i think the strike serves as a bridge to later labor struggles and the cio. Etey build mass to get pick lines with thousands of people, often in a state of tremendous police violence. The police were nicknamed the cossacks. Partly as because there is resonance for Eastern European workers but partly because they really went in on horses with truncheons and attacked people. They were more than 1000 arrests during the strike. Were peoplee arrested more than once. Calmness activist communist activist Jack Rubenstein was arrested several times in the same week. He was arrested twice in two days. There were tens of thousands of dollars in bail that people arrested had to pay. Had more than 50,000 in bail himself. So one of the things the communist party pioneered was the class struggle for those who were arrested. Communist organizations founded with the International Labor defense, founded by james cannon, a leader of the communist party. The press of the communist party, particularly the daily newspaper particularly the daily newspaper to build support and solidarity for the strike. There was an array of organizations aligned with the communist party to build support among workers. There were in numerous foreign that, forroups example, in passaic, the hungarian or the polish, or the Italian Foreign language groups were active in trying to build support. There was the Young Workers league. Many of the workers were quite young. Anna communist party news and the communist party news or his eyes and tried to build support. Women from the bronx came to care for children, provide food, but also walk on the picket line. There were supporters in other unions of sympathetic to the communist party. One of the interesting things is that one of the plans in load i new jersey, there was a relatively significant in lodi, new jersey, there was a relatively significant number of black workers who work in some of the worst conditions. The communist party and the American Negro labor conference helped build support for workers and their for workers there. Helped build a Large Network of solidarity. Part of this was a relief. They raised that tens of thousands of dollars to provide food and shoes and childcare for the strikers. They organized a summer camp in new jersey for children of the strikers. Support, forhe old example, the new york city bakers union donated truckloads of red of bread. The c. P. This work build solidarity. But the main way in which the communist party really defines the strike as they provided a political framework for the strike. I want to quote they young worker, the paper of the Young Workers league, the communist party youth organization. In trying to build support for youth, their paper put it the role of the government as the armed fist of the ruling boss class was shown in all of its hideous to the passaic strike errors. Jointlyon of struggling against the bosses and their tools, the government, was clearly given home to the workers. So in article after article, the various papers used the strike sawraw what the communists as a political lesson that, for them, the workers struggles, like the passaic strike, helped raise the consciousness of the working class to understand the necessity of smashing the entire capitalist system and replacing it with socialism. The communists saw the politicians as confirmation of their belief in the necessity of the working class to organize independently of the democratic and republican parties. Necessaryike provided picketies to help man lines and they also had a greater meaning in this period, as it came to symbolize the struggle of the entire working class. So the pamphlet that this talk is named after was one example. The passaicraphy of the picket line, the police attacking the picket line, the workers, they were able to build support and illustrate what was happening with the strike. Thei think this is also first time a movie was made about the strike. The International Workers association, aligned with the c. P. , made a movie using actual strikers and picket lines to popularize the strike and supported throughout new jersey, new york, and the United States, to raise money for the strikers. Mentioned james cannon was a leading communist. After he had1930, been expelled from the communist party because he was a supporter of leo trotsky. Their service and skills, the communists led the workers with a moral authority that needed no mechanical many relation, nor authority, which is the rock on which real leadership is based. So in that sense, what made the like iso important was, said, the role of the communist party. In various ways. I want to talk a bit about the end of the strike. Since, of course, in order to evaluate a strike, you have to look to how it ends. Since i noted that the passaic wool companies are relatively very unified and there was a small number of them, so in many ways, the strike was very effective. But the wool owners, the mill owners were determined not to surrender. Communism as an excuse not to settle. But really, they wanted no union in their plants. So they were willing to take large losses in order to appease the strike. There were various attempts to mediate or settle the strike by various outside agencies. , thetate government governor of new jersey, tried to not dealing with weisbord and trying to basically edged them out. The department of labor of the United States, james davis, tried to settle the strike by saying workers should go back, and then they would talk about what would have. Throughout all of this, the ufc and weisbord, with the support of thousands of workers, refused to fall into the trap of returning to work or accepting various attempts to solve the issue of the strike without their own leadership. One of the main issues was what unitede the role of the textile workers. Even though the united textile workers had opposed organizing these workers, by the middle of the strike, they were more than willing to work with the and tried to edge out the leadership of the strike. Attempts tothe mediate the strike was done by the governor of new jersey, with the afl trying to play a leading role. The workers in passaic refused to accept this. As the strike became more and more popular, there grew more andmore pressure on the afl the netted textile workers that they code no longer openly oppose the strike they could no longer openly oppose the strike. A strike by the summer of 1926 had already gone on several months. It was reaching a point in which the workers were not hired and 0 tired and were continuing to support the strike. With the question was raised which direction with the strike go . Weisbords perspective was to try to spread the strike to other textile centers, particularly the silk workers of paterson and other wool mills in, for example, lawrence and elsewhere in new england. He attempted to meet with different textile unions in the summer. Action with joint the silk workers of paterson. That together, they would try to the striked turn into a patersonpassaic strike to defend the gains and extend unionization in the area. Step of theb way, leadership in the afl and other unions refer used to extend the strike refused to extend the strike. Latesummer 1926, the strike was kind of at an impasse. The question, then, was what was going to happen . Where the strike was going to go. When august, 19 26, more than six months into the strike, the united textile workers basically agreed to accept passaic workers into the utw. 1973, imed a utw local, believe. And they were going to attempt to negotiate with a different mills in order to end the strike. The reason they did this was because there was so much pressure coming from the ranks and from the Labor Movement that, like i said, the utw coul it. Wash their hands of however, the united textile aorkers pretty much demand condition, which was leadership of the strike had to leave. Weisbordsitely, albert albertexplicitly, weisbord. One of the conditions for the utw to take over was weisbord and had noe town more to do with the union. More than a dozen other people see in sympathetic to the copyist communists were purged from the union. The communist party, against weisbords advice, or against his is higher, agreed on these conditions. Took over the strike. The next six months, they settled peace mill with most piecemeal with most of the mills. It was essentially a compromise that the companies agreed to take back the workers, and reverse the wage cut, and they agreed not to discriminate against the strikers. But they adamantly refused to have the union contract. And they refused to recognize the unions. ,nd some of the mills especially the united peace and the united piece dye works in lodi, who are mostly black workers, had no agreement at all. But from the point of view of the workers, this was an orderly retreat, better than being totally smashed. But what happened over the next several months is the Companies Began to violate the agreement pretty much whole scale. The conditions of the workers did not dramatically improve, and workers who were known as militants found themselves unemployed or not hired back. In 1928, the united textile workers washed its hands of the entire situation by expelling its passaic local, because the passaic local, on the pretext that passaic workers supported a strike in new bedford, massachusetts, in which the communist played a prominent role. If you read the history of the united textile workers in the 19s written in the 1950s, they do not mention the passaic strike at all. So how does one evaluate the passaic strike at the end of it . The question of trade unions, on a Narrow Economic basis, the strike was lost. That is to say, there was no union formed, and the companies were able to reverse whatever agreements they had made. But i think the significance of the strike goes beyond just the breadandbutter issues. Because it showed, in the very dark period, in. Like i mentioned, where tapping thewere workers, with the percentage of workers in unions were on the decline, in which the ku klux klan was able to march in large numbers in washington, d. C. , renowned for antiimmigrant attacks, a kind of served as a ray of light of what was possible. And it also, for the communists, had a very strong impact. It showed that comments were competent organizers. It showed that they had the political perspective and the Political Program in order to achieve mass struggle. In themunist party 1920s and late 1920s was undergoing dramatic changes, which i call in my book the stalinization or to generate enerization of the commonest party. But for the moment, the passaic strike really put the communist in passaic andp, in the working class nationally and also internationally. Something that, a year later, would become important in the ggle to free end on a of want to quote from weisbord. The reald, importance of passaic is that there are many passaics. America is virtually built on passaics. Not only of the textile industry but in every basic and heavy industry in the country. The monstrous exploitation, the terrible brutality that characterizes passaic theacterizes in all suffering and determination not only of those workers, the millions of unskilled workers in the textile industries, but in the many millions of workers the country over. I think for those of us today, in many ways, the politics are reminiscent of the 1920s. And theaic strike attempt to symbolize and reinvigorate the Labor Movement under communist leadership is something that is quite important and interesting to look at. [applause] open up tol questions now. Ill come around with the mic. This is a little outside the range of your talk, but how would you compare, if you would, the role of the communist party in passaic was the role of the communist party in strikes a decade later . Obviously,f different strikes in the 1930s, there are a lot of different strikes. One of the arguments i would the is that a lot of 1930s, i think you can see in the passaic strike kind of the outline of those here for example, in 1934, there were three major strikes World Historic strikes in the United States. Incourse, there is the c. P. The west coast longshore, but also in toledo, in minneapolis, supporters in minneapolis and in toledo, supporting them. I think the tactics used in the strikes, including large passaic , noarge picket lines reliance on the government, a willingness and importance in trying to build community support, whether trying to employ people in toledo or farmers in minneapolis, and those in the Labor Movement were looking for militancy and class struggle as opposed to trying to get the government to provide a orution, all of these come were seen in the passaic strike. Question back here. I was wondering, you mentioned a sizable Africanamerican Community in five involved in the strike in lodi. In your research of the actual passaic strike, what was the percentage of africanamericans . Prof. Zumoff i am still trying to track and that all down in terms of the exact figures. That is something that interests me. Keep inhe things to mind is even though it is called the passaic strike, the strike involves plants in several different cities. I did not want to give a new jersey geography lesson, but passaic and garfield and clifton thus are in the same counties. And in lodi, they were dye workers, not wool workers. Industry, i have not been able to find an example of any black workers. They were mainly european immigrants. There were various slavic groups, italians from southern italy. Lodi, silk dye plants in that was the most dirty, lowpaid work in the silk industry. Aat the silk work as paterson, the unions, one of nothing to do with it. They worked in acid. The most horrible work. There were about 400 black workers in the plant at lodi. So one of the things c. P. Is even though there were not that many black workers in passaic, they made the question of interracial unity raised the question of interracial unity and fighting for black rights one of the central things they did. So the only extent copy of the negro champion from 1925, and the headline is black workers strike in passaic. So they went out of their way to push the importance of the fight for black rights, was kind of reflected the way in which the communist party in the 1920s drew an impetus from the communist party in moscow taking up the fight for black liberation. I hope that answers your question. Maria we have another question back here, and then i will head up front. Can you go further into weisbord . So manyhes banned different because he spanned some a different phases. He goes to harvard law school. Then the 1930s occur. Touched ayou sort of little bit about what lessons they are getting. Everyone talks about 1932, 1933, 1934 as this great upsurge. So when they are working with the cio, what lessons are they taking from these kind of experiences . Of union low period involvement, union membership, and strikes. Prof. Zumoff you mean what led to the communists to what is beyond what we all know . Prof. Zumoff i think one of the main lessons is the importance in industrial unions and a question of how to go. One of the key things happening was that the working class in ly inountry was increasing factories, where the majority of the workers were unskilled, a large number where women. Immigrants played a key role. And the question of how to organize those people. Afls perspective of organizing skilled workers had failed. That was the most important thing that came out of the 1930s and the cio. , in some ways, was an industrial union. Alllaimed the right to textile workers, but claimed only skilled workers. So the idea of industrial unions through militancy, in which every worker in a mill or factory or shop had a right to begin that union and had a place in that union, a lot of it was i will not say it was originated in isaiah, but i think it was put in strong relief there. As was, for example, the necessity of relief organizations i mentioned minneapolis earlier. I think a lot of that can be mbryonic form,e there were several similar things in passaic. Weisbord is a very interesting figure. He grew up in new york. His father owned a small Textile Factory in the lower east side. He went to city college at a period in which there was quite a bit of, right after the russian revolution, support for it in the calm years party at that time. Shows he was mainly interested in playing chess. Then, he goes to harvard law school. Exactly why i do not know. But while he was there, he becomes increasingly active in the socialist party. He becomes, i believe, the head of ypsl, at least in massachusetts. While atjoins the c. P. Harvard law. And he gets a job at various textile mills. And for accommodation of personal and political reasons, he gets sent back to paterson in 1925 and gets a job as a silk worker in paterson. Then, kind of food chance but also his own ambition, he becomes active in workers struggles. The first strike he was involved with at the time was actually in hudson county, in what is today union city. And then he becomes active in the passaic strike. To go through and figure out what role he claimed, decades after this strike, that everything was his all his work, and the rest of the c. P. Leaders were kind of piggybacking on it. One of the things i found, looking through the archives of the communist party as a whole was focused and trying to provide leadership and help in the strike. Ofit is hard to figure out his later writings what is right. He was expelled from the communist party in 1929. For a brief moment, he was a whoorter of jay lovestone, organized an organization in the 1930s. Then he was convinced that he was a supporter of of the trotskyists. Disdained other supporters of trotskyists. Late 1930s, he kind of has his own organization, which does not draw a lot of support outside of a rather narrow group of people. Believe he i claiming hee park, was always right and everyone else was wrong. He is an interesting and perhaps contradictory fellow. One of the things we have to say about the passaic strike is it really projects him forward into a position of being leader of the most important Labor Movement in the United States, and he never had that position again. I would say one other the reasons that the passaic strike perhaps that there is not much written about it is trying to separate the man, weisbord, from the strike becomes difficult. About a month ago, i happened to see a movie celebrating the centennial of the ludlow strike and the Colorado Coal wars. I cannot help but think of all of the similarities. Heavily immigrant workforce receiving no representation, had to engage in very militant shuttle, of course with the obvious difference that you cannot wage a gubernatorial Style Campaign in new jersey that you could in colorado. But what struck me most about ludlow was how insidious the company was in dividing workers, pretty freshho are off the boat, did not know english. Moved workers said they could not communicate with each other. So the only way the strike was organized was by sending an organizers who could speak more than one language, which was not a very common ability. So how much of that was true in passaic . Where workers there any more assimilated than they were in colorado . Did they have more english language ability . Where they similarly divided and closed off logistically from the outside and each other, etc. . Prof. Zumoff that is a very interesting question. I am not an expert on colorado, so i will not speak about colorado. But i will speak about passaic. One of interesting things as there is actually a fair number of studies about passaic in the 1920s. Even before the strike, it was kind of the quintessential if you wanted to write about a city, they would take this one. Theof the things is that wool companies would go to ellis island to recruit people directly from ellis island to work in passaic. The wool owners, the mill owners, consciously tried to keep the workers separate but also so that they would not assimilate into broader american society. One of the things is there is a census pamphlet on passaic. Atshows that especially among polish workers. The number of the percentage of workers who did not speak english, even though they had been living in the United States for more than a decade, was much larger than in any other place in comparable size. There is another pamphlet about it is called Adult Education in passaic and is about what we would call esl in passaic and how, in companies, one of their main representatives was on the Passaic School board. And they opposed Adult Education in english, because they wanted to keep the workers divided and not speaking english. It is kind of interesting because the general idea in the 1920s is this idea of henry ford and the americanization and all of that stuff. Had awners in passaic different plan to keep workers illiterate in english. Illiterate in any language and divided amongst themselves. Theof the key things is c. P. Had supporters who were quite they had hungarian supporters there was a huge hungarian publishing in passaic. Supporters. Lian also slovak supporters. One of the weaknesses of the book,as are argued in my was it was often times focused exclusively on these Foreign Language federations but this also, in some way, was its strength in places like passaic, which allows them to intersect. That also makes excavating the strike somewhat more difficult. Flowing in hyperion and wants to be my research assistant, i am more than happy to talk it out. Maria there are two questions i want to get to. Questions. Couple of you spoke about how the communist partys intervention and innovation of the Youth National newspapers and even a movie galvanized National Opinion and seems to be, if not the earliest, one of the earliest examples of labor emerging as a voice on the half half of the oppressed. Do you have any sense of how this played out internationally . In which u. S. Iod imperialism was really feeling impactvotes to have an on the commonest party and organized struggle internationally . Prof. Zumoff that is something i am still looking into. What i can say is my within theng is with soviet union. It was something pointed out. There are examples of telegrams from textile workers in russia in solidarity with workers. It was something that communists elsewhere were aware of. There are several photos, and i think one or two articles, about it in paris. Italianbe interested in communists, but the 1920s was not the best time to find communist newspapers in italy. It was also in International Press correspondents. It was something the communist used internationally. So yes. Roleam interested in the of the ifp and almost a saving grace for the workers. They carried out their nonsectarian defense, but with a very sharp class understanding. They recognized the working class and the press had a common enemy. Wereould you deeply, they uncompromising. But tactically rather flexible. Overhere was this debate weisbord and the utw. So i am interested in comparing that to the aclus approach as another defense organization, which was based on free speech politicians. And on the other side, those canon learned were applied in 1934 in the minneapolis strike. I. L. E. Wasf the founded in 1925, right before the strike began. I think in many ways, passaic was the first Major Campaign that in the United States they did. If you read labor defender, it is full of, for several months, defending passaic strikers. So they were quite active in it. And the politics were most important in terms of their reliance on the working class. Obviously, they were in favor of defending people. But i think the passaic strike of ther the way fact that you cannot just have a reliance on the courts. One example was weisbord was one point in which she was in jail, in passaic county. And they were able to get him out on bail. , thes he was walking out other county then arrested him. Is of the things i found out the veill had to pay for weisbord, which was tens of thousands of dollars, until the early 1930s. The aclu was, in fact, active in defense. That was part of the united front, is that baldwin, who had an onagain, offagain friendlyhostile relationship to several people in c. P. , they also raised money and were of fact active in providing lawyers. League for industrial democracy, line with the socialist party, was also involved, particularly after Norman Thomas was arrested for nothing more than getting up and trying to speak. Bailnk they had a 10,000 on him as well. All of these groups were active pay the difference with the i. L. E. Was the politics, the emphasis on not just trying to fight for Civil Liberties but nature ofg the class the court system was something that was key. It was not necessarily as clear in the passaic strike but really in the yearsad later, where the difference between a lot of the civil i. L. E. Cames and. Orward so the legal aspect is important , but i argue in adjunct to what is happening on the ground. In terms of the lessons from the minneapolis strike, it is clear that, for some things, one of the things i found out that was interesting was passaic was one of the first times they dispatched picket lines by automobile. Something that would become very important in this strike in 1934. Politically, one of on the 1934 strike in minneapolis shows is the fact that canon and atrocities and trostskys is they were willing to engage in negotiation but they had no illusions. Weisbord stated openly that they were willing to sit down and talk with anyone who is willing to bargain, but they will not renounce the power of the strike of the ticket line in advance. So i think the importance of reliancerest and the on class struggle, as opposed to trying to get the department of labor or anything, which, in the 1920s, was quite hostile in a much more open way than the 1930s, is something that played out later on as well. In the passaic strike, the department of layer labor would not have anything to do with strikes. What weisbord it was brought a delegation to washington, d. C. , including young children, and the whiteet outside house, because coolidge refused to talk to them. For onee only have time last question, but you are welcome to continue the conversation during the reception. I was interested in what you are saying about recruiting directly at ellisdirectly, withe , andf the strike itself there was quite a high turnover in the workforce because of that with new recruits coming in. A decade and a half previously, had there been any attempt to develop industrialized unions in the United States . Question, while they were active in this area. There was the strike, actually two strikes. And there are two factions who tried to organize in 1912 and 1913. They tried to organize in pessaic as well. Not any lasting success. There had been another attempt, not by the ifw, but to organize another industrialized union under leadership, and that also failed. There have been previous attempts. None of them succeeded. That is one of the reasons i think the wool companies were so sure in their own minds that they were going to be able to wipe this strike out quickly. They had done the same things earlier. In terms of immigrants, one of the things to keep in mind is 1924, there was the National Origins act that basically cutt placesigration from where what were called the new immigrants, central and southern europe. All the groups of people who had been the backbone of the pessaic workers, people from these countries found themselves cut off from being able to migrate to the United States in the 1920s. I think there is a certain amount of sense, that played a role in the strike itself. Suddenly, there had been a large amount of turnover of workers. Theree workers had been for at least several years, going on a decade or more, and so they began to think of themselves as this is their home and they were more dedicated to organizing. Think in thense, i 1930s the idea of different ethnic groups coming together in the union. No longer hadnies a massive amount of workers coming in, immigrants coming in. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] interested in American History tv, visit our website, cspan. Org history. You can preview upcoming programs and watch college lectures, archival films, and more. American history tv at cspan. Org history. Sunday on q and a, in his book, a fine mess, author and journalist tr reid takes a look at tax systems around the world. I went to the imf and world bank and said what is a good tax system . They said go to new zealand. New zealand follows the fundamental principle of good taxation, which the economists reduced to bblr. Broaden the base so you can lower the rates. They used to have a tax code like ours, hundreds of exemptions and deductions, therefore very high rates. They got rid of all of them. Salary, that his income. Health insurance, that his income. If you get free parking from the company, that his income. No deductions. You want to give to charity, that is great, but you are not getting a tax break. If you tax everything and give no right off, then you can set the rates very low. Sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q and a. General George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River right here to begin their march to trenton. Learn more about their harrowing experience that christmas night in 1776. These are the times that try mens souls. The summertime patriot will in this crisis shrank from his country, but he who stands now deserves the thanks of man and woman. Thomas payne will write the american prices. It is published on december 19 in the pennsylvania journal
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