Bread Upon the Waters

Bread upon the Waters Rose Pesotta 1945 Contents Acknowledgement 4 Foreward 6 Chapter 1. Flight to the West 9 Chapter 2. California Here We Come! 22 Chapter 3. Mexican Girls Stand Their Ground 34 Chapter 4. The Employers Try an Injunction 42 Chapter 5. Our Union on the March 49 Chapter 6. Subterranean Sweatshops in Chinatown 58 Chapter 7. Far Cry from ‘Forty-Nine 69 Chapter 8. Police Guns Bring General Strike to ’Frisco 75 Chapter 9. Some History is Recorded in Chicago 80 Chapter 10. I Go to Puerto Rico 89 Chapter 11. Island Paradise and Mass Tragedy 98 Chapter 12. Yet the Puerto Ricans Multiply 106 Chapter 13. Last Outpost of Civilization 114 Chapter 14. Early Champions of the Common Man 119 Chapter 15. Employers Double as Vigilantes 126 Chapter 16. Out on a Limb in Seattle 134 2 Chapter 17. Travail in Atlantic City 142 Chapter 18. Milwaukee and Buffalo are Different 151 Chapter 19. Vulnerable Akron: The First Great Sit-Down 160 Chapter 20. ‘Outside Agitators’ Strive for Peace 170 Chapter 21. Pageant of Victory 178 Chapter 22. Auto Workers Line Up For Battle 185 Chapter 23. General Motors Capitulates 196 Chapter 24. French-Canadian Girls Get Tough 206 Chapter 25. We Win Against Odds in Montreal 207 Chapter 26. Union Fights Union in Cleveland 215 Chapter 27. The Mohawk Valley Formula Pads 226 Chapter 28. European Holiday: War Shadows Deepen 237 Chapter 29. Graveyard: Boston is Boston 247 Chapter 30. Return Engagement in Los Angeles 259 Chapter 31. Back in the American Federation of Labor 270 Chapter 32. Dust-Bowlers Make Good Unionists 283 Chapter 33. End of an Era 293 Chapter 34. Labor and the Road Ahead 308 3 Acknowledgement When I went back to work in a dress factory early in 1942 I set out to write a book on my years afield as a labor organizer. During that period I had accumulated a great mass of memoranda — letters, articles written for the labor press, leaflets, pamphlets, copies of special publications used in organization drives, statistical reports, diaries. I had the material and the urge, but soon realized that I was not equal to the task before me. Fortunately, at that stage, my friend John Nicholas Beffel came to my aid. Though he has kept modestly in the background, claiming credit only as editor on the title page, it was largely his collaboration that made this book possible. Mere words cannot express my deep appreciation for his energy and endurance, his ability to get at first-hand sources of data, and his painstaking accuracy with regard to names, dates, and historical facts. In developing my narrative we had occasion to seek critical opinions from vari- ous other friends and co-workers of mine in both the A F of L and the CIO. The first draft was read to my advantage by McAlister Coleman, Myriam Sieve Wohl,Helen Norton Starr, and Samuel H. Friedman. Extensive portions of the manuscript also were scanned by four professors of economics and labor problems — Drs. Theresa Wolfson, Amy Hewes, Harry W. Laidler, and Broadus Mitchell — whose sugges- tions were exceedingly helpful. Thomas F. Burns, Powers Hapgood, and Frank Winn read some of the CIO chapters; Elias Lieberman and Abraham Katovsky went over the Cleveland section; Sue Adams and William J. Sheehan the Califor- nia and Pacific Northwest parts; Yvette Cadieux Blonin the Canada chapters; and Abraham Desser the pages on Puerto Rico. Other portions were weighed, from the viewpoint of the general reader, by Adelaide Schulkind, Lillian Weinberg, Fannie Breslaw, Rae Brandstein, Ada Rose, Nat Weinberg, and Evelyn Casey. And Grace and Morris Milgram thoughtfully paralleled our reading of the galley proofs. Special thanks are due to all those named, for constructive criticism and invalu- able encouragement. Because of wartime dislocations manuscript typists were at a premium. Hence I am particularly indebted to four friends who assisted nobly on that end — Alicia Lloyd, Betty Flohr, Frances Davis, and Rita Herling Weissman. They worked with us Sundays, holidays, and evenings, often after doing a day’s labor on their own jobs. 4 I alone assume responsibility for all statements in this book. 5 Foreward Rose Pesotta is many things, but I think of her chiefly as possessing built-in energy. Her vitality is not induced by regimen, nor summoned by an act of will. It is in her genes. Talk with her a few minutes as casually as you may, and strength is poured into you, as when a depleted battery is connected to a generator. If this is true in a chance meeting with an individual, what do you suppose happens when she sets out to rouse and direct a throng of her fellow-workers? You will find out in this book. She draws on rich resources of training, travel, and experience. What is a crisis to another is to her a gleeful adventure. But you must not think that she has a permanent elation. A person who is never fatigued exhausts others. She tells you that sometimes after long and hard exer- tion she was tired. That is the physical counterpart of a saving spiritual let-down. Her magnetism is more than mere bodily electricity. It is pity and sympathy and ever-present personal modesty. She puts herself in your place, and knows your difficulties better, somehow, than you can yourself. My appreciation of Rose Pesotta goes back more than two decades to theBryn Mawr Summer School for Women in Industry, when I was in the role of one of her instructors. Of course a teacher who is worth his salt is first of all a student, and I am thankful that I learned from her She brought a knowledge of Russia, whose Revolution filled all our minds, and of clothing factories over here thatwere being transformed, by workers’ organized struggles, from sweatshops. She had the indispensable rebellion, yes, but even then she quickly followed protest with plan. Enough of us stopped with indignation. She had the reserve of strength, and of self- confidence, that went on to cure. She could be partisan, but refused to bepartial. She had in her mind a solution, a restored whole. As the years have passed, her native power has taken on added precision. Hers is a controlled vigor. Once a workman in a drop forge gave me a demonstration of his skill. Poised high above his anvil was a hammer of steel weighing tons. He put his watch on the anvil and, with a pedal, played that smashing block only fractions of an inch above the crystal. It was the beauty of mastery. Rose Pesotta’s anvil is the promise of a great free America. Her hammer is moral force joined with affection. And when she has heated the obstinate iron to glowing, she knows how to tap as well as to pound. 6 Her story reveals, with the self-effacement of day-to-day fact, how she has helped to shape the lot of workers in many cities and industries where she has gone as a union organizer. She has moved as a creator through changing scenes the loyalty of our unions in the First World War, followed by assaults from without and from within, until the great depression sank them to impotence; then a fresh start when the New Deal sanctioned the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, and the mixed blessing of industrial as against craft resurgence. Rose Pesotta was born within the Pale, vast Russian ghetto of Tsarist days,but found her way out of it in her teens. She wanted freedom for herself and for others. And in succeeding years a host of troubled people engaged her compassion and her fighting ingenuity. Confused scores of thousands needing to be supported against associations of employers allied with the police, wretched Mexicans exploited as only Southern California knows how, Puerto Ricans in the mud of poverty from which colonial dependency has not lifted them. She has not quit with the needle trades, but has rallied rubber and auto workers, pick-and-shovel men, and more. Her democracy has embraced chambers of commerce, judges, and Governors, for she knows how to persuade and reprove them too. She has the faculty of seeing a problem complete. When she brought me the manuscript of this narrative she was in a hurry to get back to the shop where, after a decade as a general, she elects to be a private, operating a sewing machine. A thousand upturned faces or a single swift seam, the pattern of America’s social future or the fashion of a dress, they claim herequal zestful fidelity. Broadus Mitchell 7 To the memory of my father, who died as he had lived, unafraid; to my mother, for her infinite loyalty and patience … To the pioneer builders of our union, whose vision and idealism inspired me; to the victims of the Triangle fire, whose martyrdom aroused me; to the shirtwaist makers and dressmakers, whose un- selfish devotion lighted my path; and to those organized working men and women in America who battle for a place in the sun for all their kind This book is dedicated 8 Chapter 1. Flight to the West My mother waved farewell as the TWA plane took off from Newark airport. In a moment I lost sight of her. The big winged ship taxied to the end of the field,and swung around. Another few seconds and the plane had lifted clear of earth. and was gliding smoothly through space. Looking eastward as we climbed, I could see the Statue of Liberty, ships moving in New York Bay, the skyscrapers of Manhattan with their lights just beginning to stab the gathering dusk.

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