But the reductions in rates and wages were not the only grievances of the workers. Again and again there are complaints about the abuse of the absolute and arbitrary power vested in the foreman or even the assistant foreman. It was this power as much if not more than the seasonal periods of unemployment that instilled in the workers the constant fear of being fired, and kept them from making complaints.

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"I especially recall the feeling of fear besides the wages," testified Hillman before the Federal Industrial Relations Commission in 1914, "I believe I started in with $7 a week, and during 3 years I worked up to $11 or $12; but what I consider more important is this, that is the constant fear of the employees of being discharged without cause at all. There really was no cause at all sometimes. The floor boss, as we called him, did not like a particular girl or man, and out they went. I remember especially the panic of 1907 when the employees were in constant fear of Who will be thrown out?' I remember we tried, all of us, to get into the good graces of the floor boss. When I worked for Hart, Schaffner and Marx I worked two months without pay, as it was understood that I had savings enough to live if I did not get any other remuneration. I believe for about a couple of months I worked for $6 or $7 a week. The conditions prevailing were about the same everywhere, the man directly in charge was the boss and everything else. I remember when I made the first complaint I packed up my tools and I went out."

One girl testified that she began work at the age of 12. She was small enough to be covered by the boss' coat when the factory inspector came around! "One day the foreman came to me and told me I could be assistant foreman and that he would give me $8 a week to start and then make it $10. But then suddenly all the men seemed to be getting ugly to me, and I didn't know why, but I know now. The assistant foreman who was there before me was a man and he got $22, and then you see they thought I knew just about as much, and they offered me the job and they only gave me $10, and I didn't know I was working for less than the man; so all the other men hated me and tried to take it out on me. Afterwards I learned that the manager didn't know about it either, but that the foreman was just doing this on his own account."

If a worker was too good to lose, but yet showed a tendency to rebellion and toward arousing the discontent of the others, he or she would generally be made foreman or forelady. Bonuses would be given to foremen or foreladies for increasing the productivity of their shop, while if they did not get better results they would lose their jobs. Thus the foremen and assistant foremen were given every incentive, including that of fear, toward driving the workers, though no changes were made in the earnings of the workers themselves for increased production. This system naturally led to all kinds of abuse and petty tyranny on the part of the foremen and foreladies, from whose actions there was no appeal. In one shop, for example, the foreman had the water turned off before and after the dinner hour, so that the workers could have no reason to take off time from their work. Many other disputes arose in connection with the saving of time. After the passage of the 10-hour law, for instance, foremen in several shops managed to evade the law by requiring the workers to work before and after punching the time clock, and the workers did not dare complain.

The obnoxious system of fines was another weapon in the hands of the foremen, and one of the most irritating. In many instances failure to punch the time clock three times daily was fined, and in some shops punching it one minute late was fined the equivalent of 15 minutes of working time. Excessive fines were imposed for the slightest errors in work, out of all proportion to the amount of loss incurred by the employer. If any garment was even slightly damaged, the worker had to pay the full price of the garment, and he might be compelled to purchase it at the retail price. In one instance, a tailor earning $14 a week slightly damaged three pairs of pants and was charged $12 by the company. His fellow-workers being unable to complain raffled off the three pairs of pants to compensate him for the loss. The Senate Investigation Committee revealed similar conditions in other shops, for example:

"Senator McKenzie: In taking these goods, do they permit the employe to take them at cost?

"Witness: No Sir, they charge their regular wholesale price with their profits attached to it.

"Senator McKenzie: They make him pay the profits you

say?

"Witness: Yes, sir.

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Senator McKenzie: They have made a sale in other words? "Witness: Yes, Sir, on a damaged piece of goods."

Many workers complained that they were forced to pay for materials that they used up or lost at retail rates. "A fine of 60 cents was imposed for a lost spool whether empty or full, and on entering, shop workers have been charged 25 cents for oil cans procurable wholesale at 5 cents."

The effect of all these unremedied grievances, together with the lack of any possible means for adjusting them, engendered in the workers a state of chronic unrest and discontent, which broke out in numerous small but bitter strikes. Mr. Joseph Schaffner of Hart, Schaffner and Marx described the situation to the Industrial Relations Commission as follows:

* *

"Careful study of the situation has led me to the belief that the fundamental cause of the strike was that the workers had no satisfactory channel through which minor grievances, exactions and petty tyrannies of underbosses could be taken up and amicably adjusted. Taken separately, these grievances appear to have been of a minor character. They were, however, allowed to accumulate from month to month and from year to year. *The result was that there steadily grew up in the minds of many a feeling of distrust and enmity towards their immediate superiors in position, because they felt that justice was being denied them. If they had had the temerity to complain against a boss, they incurred his displeasure, and his word was taken in preference to theirs. In some instances they lost their jobs, and where this was not the case they seldom received any satisfaction.

"Shortly before the strike I was so badly informed of the conditions that I called the attention of a friend to the satisfactory state of the employees. It was only a few days before the great strike of the Garment Workers broke out. When I found out later of the conditions that had prevailed, I concluded that the strike should have occurred much sooner."

The resentment of the workers had, in fact, piled up through years of injustices until almost anything would have served to start the blaze. The first spark was struck on September 22 in Shop No. 5, a pants shop of Hart, Schaffner and Marx, when several girls walked out of the shop rather than accept a cut of one-quarter cent in rates. Annie Schapiro, one of the first to go out, gives the following account of what happened:

"After they had cut the rates for seaming pants 14¢, they gave it back again, then cut again, and we went out. There was a man (Morris) who said 'No, I will not work for 334¢. We were told to come back Friday at twelve. On Friday there was the whole bunch there and we did not know anything about it, and he (Morris) would not leave us go upstairs and stopped us in the office. He said 'What are you going to work for? That is only 334¢ now. I wouldn't work for that

*

I said I could work for 334¢.

"I went down on the Monday the next week to see about the seamers and they did not come back to work. And one or more fellows went down-town, and the rest of them left."

The workers then sent a committee to Hart, Schaffner and Marx, urging them to restore the quarter-cent cut, but the firm refused because they said other workers were quitting and refusing to do the work anyway.

"That was the people in the other departments, and they
saw there was trouble in the shops
so at shops 14 and

15, the rest of the seamers did not want to do our work, and
so it was on Wednesday they picked up their tools that they
should work with, and they did not want to do that work; the
people went on strike.
The foreman threw Morris

out, and then all the people refused to work."

Contrary to all precedent, the walk-out in Shop 5 provoked immediate and enthusiastic response in other shops. It seemed as if the workers had just been waiting for something or someone to give the final push. The news spread through the clothing shops of Chicago with amazing rapidity. By the next day almost a thousand men and women had left the shops and long before three weeks were over, more than 40,000 were out, and the whole city was affected. Nothing

like it had ever been known before in the history of the clothing workers.

At the very beginning of the strike a group of workers went to the office of Robert Noren, President of District Council No. 6 of the United Garment Workers and appealed for help and support in the strike. Noren wired to President Rickert for instructions, and was authorized by him to call a strike of the garment workers. Here if ever was a chance to organize the Chicago clothing workers on a scale never before dreamed of, but at the crucial moment, the officers of the United Garment Workers for some reason failed to take advantage of the opportunity. Even after the strike was well under way, in spite of the growing and insistent demand for a general strike in all the clothing shops, and in spite of the proof that "union label" shops were doing work for strike-bound houses, the United Garment Workers hesitated to call a general strike until more than 18,000 were already

out.

It was about this time that the Chicago Daily Socialist first came to the aid of the strikers. On October 7th a Special Strike Edition of the Daily Socialist was published, and thereafter a series of articles appeared, giving a full and detailed history of the progress of the strike. Mr. Robert Dvorak, the author of these articles, practically forced the hand of the United Garment Workers District Council No. 6 by threatening to publish a call for a general strike without waiting longer unless the union did it. But the United Garment Workers did call the strike, and within one week the number of workers out on strike had grown to 45,000. "This great exodus was brought on because 50,000 copies of the Daily Socialist containing the call were distributed by the strikers throughout the city and in front of the unfair concerns' doors."

The strike grew so fast that District Council No. 6 was unable to handle it, and in a few weeks was asking for speakers to address meetings and for other assistance from the Chicago Women's Trade Union League, of which Mrs. Ray