The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 25, 1926, Page 13

(Ramon Coffman is the “Uncle Ray” of newspaper fame. He Is the author of the “Childs History of the World,” and his articles for children go into a mil- lion and a half homes every day. He is now writing for The Publishers Syndi- Cate of Chicago. Coffman has always been a friend of the labor movement and has written several times for The Fed- erated Press.) + < y bel years ago I spent several weeks of my life as a tutor in the family of Arthur R--, a New York millionaire. I had never performed such work before, and I did not realize when I obtained the position that I was to be little more than a glorified nursemaid to Mr. R—’s two sons, Arthur, 15, and George, 12. The history of my work as a “tutor” does mot concérn ug here, but it did give me an insight into the life of the family of a bawon of the textile industry. Mr. R— was the owner of five mills in which cloths were made. I did not at that period see the inside ‘of a textile mill or meet any man or woman who worked in one; but I ob- served with interested eyes the Park avenue mansion, The mansion was of four storiés, On the first floor there was naught but a reception hall, a dining room, and the quarters in which the ser- vants prepared food for the four mas- ter mortals of the household. .To rise to the second floor an automatic elec- tric elevator was provided. This flcor Was given up to a magnificent draw- ing room and the bedrooms of the master and the mistress. i slept on the third floor, in a room equipped with a private bath and a fireplace, It was desirable that. visi- tors should see that the tutor, the . Chosen guardian of the scions of the family, was adequately provided for. The rooms of the boys, with further private baths, were, of course, on this floor. Tempted tho I am to go into fur- ther details, I must not drift too far into this description. Remarking only that the numerous servants of the household were stuck up on the fourth floor; that I visited “a further R—- hous by the New Jersey seashore and learned of still another up in Maine; that I did not count the family automobiles or the servants; that I ate at the master’s table and partook | of rich food (tho a bit of # stuck in my throat), and that ene of the men servants confided to me: “Yiss, Mr. R— is very rich; he inhirrited his five mills from his father;” I shall pass on to another side of the picture. A few blocks east of the R— man- sion on Park avenue there are build- ings which do not provide four floors to a family. I knew of those eight years ago, and that is why the food did not always course down my throat 80 pleasantly, and why my private bath did not give me an unstinted feel- ing of luxury; but it was only later that I gained something of a knowl- edge of the lives of men and women who worked in the mills which sup- plied the income for the goings-on of the R— family life. : That first glimpse was attained at Paterson, N. J. There was a strike in , Progress. I did not make a scientific study of wages, hours and working conditions; but I did learn a single salient fact—that while Mr, R—, the master, worked (or at least put in time) two hours a day, and obtained a family-expenditure-privilege of $100,- 000 or more a year, the men and women who make the cloth were con- siderably less fortunate. I have been reminded of all this in 1925 by a visit to another home of the textile industry—Passaic. This visit is fresh in my mind as I write, dt having occurred only two days ago. A good proportion of the city of Passaic is “out.” Sixteen thousand workers have dared to question the right of mill owners to blacklist them and spy on them and to slash their wages at These strikers are probably a little more than half of the working population of Passaic, a city claiming about 70,000 persons within its limits. If-you are in the habit of counting one’ working person to each family of five, you will need to revise your system calculations to provide for Passaic, The father works. The mother works. Big brother works, Big sister works. Of course I am speaking in hit-or-miss fashion. There Textile Contrasts may be no big brother or big sister in a family; all of the offspring may be below the legal age for child labor. The mother may be dead, or the father may be dead. What I am driving at is that the Passaic child cannot look forward to a university education, no matter how much he might desire one, or how well he could utilize one. I am speaking of a normal child, in a normal mill worker’s family. A nor- mal child, when the age of possible income-producing eomes, will not pur- sue his education while ‘his mother or father, or little brothers and sisters, are suffering for lack of proper finan- cial provision. No, he will got out to the mill and strive to get a job to eke out the family in¢ome and make it adequate to living needs. On the day I visited Passaic, a state- ment by the head of the largest. mill in the city appeared in the daily news- papers. This gentleman contended that the average wage for the whole textile tmdustry has been $22 per week, Twenty-two dollars and some odd cents! There is a figure to conjure with. Knowing the cost of rents, the cost of food, the cost of clothing, may we conclude that this is a handsome sum for a family of five to grow up on? I suppose that you will reply that it is inadequate; and indeed it is not sufficient to maintain even a very mis- erable standard of living for a family of five persons. Hence it follows the young daughter or son must go into the mills as early-as possible. Their ten or twelve dollarg a week, added to the family income, may drag the family out of debt, or mostly out of debt! Back in January of this year some of the mili owners put their heads to- Introducing Mr. H. C. Frayne A Typical Labor Faker. By V. E is a well-fed gentleman, short and stout. His belly hangs down between his legs. He becomes fre- quently indisposed: he looks like a man who has the sugar sickness. He thinks a lot of himself. He is New York state representative and high in the councils of the A. F. of L. But that is not so important as his mem- bership in the Civic Federation, where big capitalists meet with their lieu- tenants, the big labor leaders, in order to figure out how to hoodwink the laboring men, And then, not less important is Mr. Frayne’s membership in Tammany Hall, of which he is a prominent exec- utive member. This ought to be suf- ficient for a personal introduction, Mr. Frayne has no power, the A. F. of L. is a decentralized organization, all power is vested iu the. various in- ternationals, whom Mr. Fitiyne in- vokes only when it serves his purpose. Mr. Frayne’s power is merely the power of his ability to serve the high- est bidder, usually the capitalist class, and that’s quite a power at present in the United States, especially in strongly centralized indwgtries, or in industries with powerfal employers’ associations, Every morning at 10 a. m. Mr. Frayne comes to his office, giving ad- vice to numerous other little Fraynes who need his supreme counsel, and there is plenty of money in all this, as it is in all Tammany jobs, from the Tammany judge down to the Tam- many labor leader. The New York labor movement is divided into two categories, the bona fide labor move- ment, that is the one controlled by Tammany Hall, Tammany unions and the others. Amongst the others used to. be the socialist unions—those “damned Jews,” as the bona fides call themselves, but in the last five years, socialism moved closer to Tammany, and lately there arose the greatest menace that there ever was to con- stituted authority, the left wing, and against that there is one sweet united front. Hence the socialist Shacht- man went to Mr. Frayne, and Mr. Sigman went to Mr. Green, Then there is the “socialist” Forward, as the mouthpiece of these new combina- tions on the Jewish field, and Mr. Leary of the World. This is the politi- cal introduction for Mr. Frayne, and where his power comes from, You heard a lot lately about Mr. Frayne in connection with the fur- riers’ strike. Of course, you may won- der what Mr. Frayne has to do with the furriers’ strike, with negotiations -with the fur manufacturers. Indeed, Mr. Green himself, who belongs to the same society as Mr. Frayne, also came in to help the poor furriers out of their plight. At first these gen- tlemen came in Jike bulls in the china shop. This is now known as Carnegie Hall, Then they put on silk gloves— this is known as the Armory, Then they came bearing gifts. They agreed to the 40-hour .week. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. If you give them your confidence they will stab you in the back. It’s like catching - . Zack. the chicken with the sweet corn after you failed otherwise, and it’s an old game. It’s a long time since Mr. Frayne had to work so hard, and what is personally a nuisance to him is that he has to meet and give his valuabl: counsel and advice to these damnab|: Jews, Sorkin, Shachtman and Mr. Samuels. Mr, Frayne has a big job, but as a mere pastime he handles some little strikes, like the costume tailors in the Metropolitan Opera Co, There he took his revenge at the “damnable” Jewish outfit. He played as their powerful friend, kept them walking for all the winter months in the streets on the picket line, played even an April fool joke on Wm. Green, who has no business to butt in on Frayne’s jurisprudence, and finally let the tail- ors know that they were wasting timc’ as they were all wrong and the Metro- politan Opera Co, was upholding the principles of the A. F. of L., which al- ways stood for the right of the firm to reorganize their staffs -as they please, and to fire whenever and whomsoever they please. Then there are the shoeworkers of Brooklyn, who wanted that Mr. Frayne use his influence that the Boot & Shoe Union affiliated with the A. F. of L. should not scab on them during the strike. But then Mr. Frayne doeg not do such favors just for the asking, and he of course refused. The selling out business is a lucrative proposition, and now that the lefts are there it’s even harder work. This is, in brief, an introduction to Mr. Frayne’s activi- ties, not to mention his meetings with hig masters in the Civic Federation, the time he spends with the leaders of Tammany, the double-crossing of each other in the official A. F. of L. family, the judges, police and the underworld. Mr. Frayne is a very busy man in- deed, but he will always meet you with a smile. Oh, yes, he is a friend of the working men, always was. Yes, he was a worker himself once. You did not hear much that was not praise- worthy of Mr. Frayne in the past, neither did ydu hear of Mr. Heifers, who represents the A. F. of L. in New Jersey state, until these damnable Reds went on an organized campaign, spoiling these nice quiet faking busi- nesses. Both Mr. Frayne and Hilfers are typical labor lieutenants of the capi- ist class, the executors of a well- conceived policy of the employers di- rected against the budding new mili- tant unionism within the A. F. of L., coming from the left. Mr, Frayne, in this case, leads the fight against this new unionism amongst the or- ganized workers, and Hilfers leads the fight of the employers against the militant ‘action to organize the unor- ganized. The active appearance of Mr. Green in this situation only shows how much importance the capitalist class attaches to these two struggles, the furriers and Passa‘:, N, J. These two struggles have by far transcended the narrow economic objectives that gave them birth, and thd they remain purely economic struggles they bear & much greater significance, eS nr i By Raymon Coffman gether. They were looking forward to a time when their profits would slacken, Something must be done, and done quickly. What more natural than that they should cut down on that “burdensome item,” the wagés? After all, they weren't in business for their health, I was hot present when the mill owners conferred, bur I’ll bet the next hat I hope to buy that this sort of argument prevailed upon them; “If we cut the wages, say 10 per cent, we can probably persuade our employes that it is necessary because of hard times, and probably they will accept it without making trouble. Then we can maintain a decent level of profits. On the other hand, if there should be a strike, it would come at an auspicious time, There is a slaek in the industry, and a few weeks dis- appearance of the workers from the scene will not seriously handicap pro- duction. They will be licked, and we'll fire all agitators and drive them out of town.” If that reasoning prevailed, it dfd not work out very well. Sixteen thon- sand men, women and children watked mut. It was one of those movements which sometimes occur among unor- yanized workers -when theyyare goad- 2d to revolt. Some, indeed, who were eBs bold, less far-seeing, remained at heir places, fearing the proverbial volf and anxious to hang on to what srusts they had; but the greater part of the workers braved the snow of the winter and did not scab. The strike has continued strong 32 “weeks without a break. The rich mill owners were at first indifferent, thinking that the workers could be forced to come crawling back to work at whatever miserable wages the mills chose to pay. But they did not reckon with the spirit of the striking textile workers or with the American labor movement, which has supported them thruout the strike. When they saw Y\|how well the strikers were sticking the mill owners roused>¢kemseives and resorted to violence in aii effort. to crush the spirit of the strikers. In this they were ably supported by the local police, whose many acts of un provoked violence are too well anthen- ticated for reasonable doubt. ‘Tie owners have resorted to every deceit, frameup and device. They have pros- tituted the courts to their purposes, and stiff jail sentences and excessive bail bonds have been the rule thru the strike. More than 465 strikers have been arrested to date in the po- lice campaign to harass the striking workers and break their strike. But, miracle tho it may appear, they have not been able to break this strike, and it looks to me as tho they will never accomplish this purpose. They wii have to recognize the workers’ union. I have seen the Passaic workers if action, attended their meetings, ob- served their efficient and excellent re- lief system, talked with the young workers, in whom I am especially in- terested. I can say without hesitation that nothing in years has stirred my faith in the workers’ world es has my first-hand experience with this strike of exploited textile workers. The human brotherhood and solidarity dis- ployed in this struggle for unionism will certainly have its effect on the unorganized workers everywhere in the other textfle industries and in all American industry, Finally, I cannot see how aty worker or labor sympathizer cen fail to dig down deep into his pocket for strike relief for these heroic young strikers: fathers and mothers, grand- mothers, grandfathers, young work- ers, all of them of heroic mould; all of them sternly determined in their fight for a decent living wage. The Passaic strikers are fighting the bat tles of every working man and woman in this country and should be backed to the limit of labor’s purse, More, in their struggle against police and — court autocracy and the attempts of men like Chief Zober to nullify the constitution, these striking textile workers are fighting the battles of every American citizen, Every decent American citizen should get behind them and back them with money and with articulate moral support in their battle against autocracy and arre . gance in industry. ;