Transcriber’s Note:
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.
For seven weeks the 27,000 workers in thesilk mills and dye houses of Paterson, N. J.,have been on strike for improved conditionsand against a proposed change in method thatwill, they declare, alter the character of theindustry.
The strike began with the broad silk weaversas a protest against the introduction of thethree and four loom system. They were soonjoined by the ribbon weavers and the dye housemen, whose demands are for an eight-hour dayand a minimum wage of $12 a week. The dye housemen have been laboring in two shifts oftwelve hours each. Their work is often carriedon under unhealthful conditions of dampness,high temperature and poor ventilation.
All the strikers joined the branch of the IndustrialWorkers of the World which conductedthe Lawrence strike. This is one factor whichhas caused tension in a situation, in which statutesdating back to colonial days have beenbrought to bear on a modern industrial struggletill a Supreme Court judge denounced thelengths to which the police have gone.
Back of the police incidents and the spreadingof the revolutionary doctrines of the IndustrialSocialists is a profound economic change involvedin the introduction of the four loom system.This is not merely the substitution of machinesfor skilled men due to invention, but the supplantingof high-grade textile manufacture bylow-grade output because of the greater profitsin the cheap goods. It is as if a vineyard weregiving way to a hay farm—a change which seriouslyaffects the working population of Paterson.
In order to make the situation clear it is necessaryto take a brief look at the history of thesilk industry in this country. Twenty years orso ago the competition between Pennsylvania andNew Jersey for the manufacture of cheap silkswas keen, but within a few years the battle wasover. Induced, it is said, by real estate companies,the manufacture of cheap silk on a largescale migrated to Pennsylvania. Great factorieswere built and leased on easy terms, and thesewere equipped with automatic looms, four ofwhich could be operated by one girl or boy.There the wives and children of the coal minersfurnished a cheap labor supply.
Since this migration the best grade of silkhas been made in Paterson, and there has beenno competition to speak of that the Patersonmanufacturers needed to fear. Yet they havebeen making only moderate profits while thePennsylvania manufacturers of cheap silk havebeen making fortunes. Under the system ofmultiple looms, the business of Pennsylvania,has expanded 97 per cent in the last six years;under the one and two loom systems of Patersonits business has expanded only 22 per centin the same time. Therefore the Paterson manufacturerspropose to compete in the manufactureof cheaper silks and consequently decided to introducethe multiple loom system. To them thisis only a natural economic development, and theopposition of the workers they feel is irrational,as opposed to progress. This view is made apparentin a statement issued by the silk manufacturers’association:
“As regards the three and four loom system,it is applicable only in the case of the very simplestgrade of broad silks and as a matter offact has for a long time been