Chapter 33 : 
End of an Era
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19451945

People :
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Author : Rose Pesotta

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CHAPTER 33



End of an Era



RETURNING FROM THE MORMON CAPITAL, I found that Jennie
Matyas, our San Francisco organizer, had been brought to Los Angeles
to direct the dress campaign. The Pacific Coast director had assigned
four of my staff of six to assist her. America Iglesias Thatcher and Mary
Donovan, however, had held aloof pending my return. Calling together
the whole six, I urged all to cooperate fully with the dress drive,
holding that it was entitled to every possible chance.

Jennie wanted a line on the local dress situation, and we had dinner at
the Brown Derby. I explained, taking the position that the only building
to be organized÷719 South Los Angeles Street, which was dominated
by the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association ÷ought to be left
alone while we concentrated on a bigger problem, sportswear.

But the arrangements for the general dress strike went ahead,
regardless, and I was left in the dark about them, while Jennie and
Wishnak held frequent conferences at the director's home.

At this point I successfully negotiated and signed an agreement with
Louis Tabak of California Beachwear. But because Levy insisted on
being in on all such things, it was necessary to have him present when
the "official contract-signing" was photographed for Justice. At
home taking his usual siesta, he kept us waiting long past the appointed
time.

Mr. Tabak, scheduled to leave town that night by plane, grew
impatient. "Why do you need this guy ? What in hell does he know
about the contract that you and I worked out?"

"He's the head of our Pacific Coast organization," was my reply.

Phoning the director again, I begged him to hurry. He didn't even
suggest that the picture be taken without him, but arrived two hours late.
The photograph shows him holding a pen on the dotted line, though he
hadn't read a line of the agreement.

Having come all the way from Boston to help dig a colleague out of
deep mud, I wasn't pleased by his attitude. But I made no outward sign,
simply continuing my daily rounds of the sportswear shops, hunting out
new prospects.

The union office was busy with final arrangements for the dress
strike. A committee from the Ben-Har Chenille factory, whose
NLRB case I had put aside because the workers were unwilling to testify
when called, came to see me. Some twenty boys and girls dropped into
my office in mid-afternoon.

All Mexicans in their teens, they looked like school kids rather than
workers in industry. I told them that unless they took the union seriously,
I wouldn't get involved in another NLRB case for them. If they wanted
our help they must get busy at once and enroll the rest of their
coworkers into the union, designating us as their collective
bargaining representative. Their answer was a collective giggle. One of
the girls spoke up. They were all ready, but we must come early in the
morning with leaflets and invite the rest to a meeting.

The factory, in the garment section, made chenille robes, beachwear,
and kindred articles. Before 6 a.m., when the first shift of workers
reported, Mary Donovan and I stood near the entrance, handing out the
leaflets inviting them to a meeting in union headquarters at 3 p.m.

Some unemployed girls already had been inside looking for jobs.
Eagerly all took our literature. In mid-afternoon they had noisily
arrived at the meeting hall, where we served cold soft drinks; the day
was beastly hot. They made themselves at home; someone turned on the
"juke box" I had rented for dances, and slick young jitterbugs enlivened
the scene.

Most of these workers were employed by the week, some getting less
than the state minimum wage. A few had worked in the Ben-Har
plant long enough to get sick from the dust of the raw cotton that goes
into the making of chenille. The boys were used either as floor helpers in
the dye house (the product being turned out in a raw white state, and
dyed later in specified colors), at the cutting tables, in the shipping
department, or as machinists. The girls operated special sewing machines, some with as many as sixteen needles. Now
that they knew that the "junion" could help them, they were ready for
action÷they wanted to strike.

But before we went any further in this affair, I stipulated that all the
others must sign up with the union. We would meet their employer, urge
that discharged workers be taken back, and demand a union agreement.
In the event our efforts failed, would they stand solidly behind their
coworkers?

Their lusty shouts in English and Spanish÷"Yes!" and "Si!"÷ gave
proof that this time they were ready. Not until the union office closed,
after 7, did they disperse dancing to juke-box music was too great a
temptation.

Next day Sue Adams, Mary Donovan, and I went to see the boss. We
had an appointment, but he kept us waiting in the outer office I told his
secretary that if he had no time for us, he might have plenty of time to
himself later. Immediately he called us in and asked if I had been
correctly quoted.

"Yes," I answered. "Are you ready to talk business with us? Otherwise
you'll find us with the rest of your employes÷dancing at our
headquarters! "

It developed that the head of Ben-Har Chenille, who, coming
from Canada, had established this profitable business only three years
earlier, was ready to sell it and go into another field. Because of
lend-lease, the government would use the cotton that went into
chenille for Navy ropes, he asserted. Furthermore, he was being
underbid by Southern chenille manufacturers, who were not bound by
any State minimum law to pay more than 25 cents an hour.

We told him it wouldn't be a great loss if he did go out of business,
since every girl and boy working in that dusty atmosphere was a
potential candidate for a tubercular sanatorium.

"But just now we want the discharged workers reinstated," I added.
"And you sit down with our committee and negotiate a contract! "

"What'll be in it?" he inquired.

We gave him the terms: there should be only one shift, with all
workers on a sensible day-time schedule. His was a
non-essential industry, making nothing for national defense. There was no excuse for
these youngsters going to work at such ungodly hours.

Mr. Garlick became abusive. "Why, these chippies," to whom he had
been like a father÷how dared they complain against him? He'd make
them eat their words! Sue resented his reference to "chippies" and I told
him he'd better stick to the point or we would leave. Mr. Garlick quieted
down and wanted to consult his lawyer.1

"Fine! " I said. "Our attorneys will find a common ground for a union
contract."

"Send the workers back," he pleaded, "or let me talk to them. They'll
come back. I have a large Christmas order that must go out this week."

"Come to our headquarters this afternoon."

When Mr. Garlick walked into the hall, he was greatly surprised to
find his employes engaged in gay dancing.

A shout greeted him. The youngsters, each with a bottled soft drink,
took their seats as the meeting was called to order. Garlick, a bottle of
Coca Cola in his hand as he sat with us, might have been one of our
staff.

We let him talk to his heart's content, but he left convinced that his
employes would not return under the old conditions. He agreed to
reinstate the discharged workers and negotiate in good faith with the
union.

It was understood that he would retire from business in six months,
but meanwhile we obtained substantial wage increases, regular union
hours, and at the end of the six months one week's vacation with pay for
all who had been in his employ for one year or over. All pending NLRB
cases involving the Ben-Har plant were withdrawn. The pact was
signed for one year, in case Mr. Garlick decided to reopen his
establishment before its expiration.

Returning to work in holiday spirit, his employes came to
headquarters daily to dance as well as for union business. Immediately
they elected as shop chairlady Frances Chavez, a young machine
operator who was an Aztec princess. Slant-eyed and with olive
skin, she looked like a figure in an Orozco fresco.

Our department forged steadily ahead. I carried on negotiations with
several sportswear employers, a majority of whose workers we had
enrolled. One day Levy called up while I was busy with a shop
committee. What would I say if the sportswear industry was included in
the call for the general dress strike?

"Let me think it over," I said. Neither America Thatcher nor Mary
Donovan had ever been in a strike before and Sue Adams had her hands
full with the Mode O'Day local and the newly organized Ben-Har
Chenille group, the two totaling 600 workers. Would such a step benefit
the workers concerned ? I thought it worth venturing substantial gains might be made.

So I told Levy it would be all right, provided the call was issued only
to dress and sportswear workers.

That was on Friday, July 18, and I had to provide my own
headquarters with all the strike paraphernalia. During the week-end
nothing could be done; on Monday I got in touch with a friendly real
estate agent, seeking temporary strike quarters within walking distance of
the garment center.

I had been negotiating for two vacant floors in the Cabrillo Hotel, at
Broadway and Eleventh Street, for union headquarters. We had held
regular meetings there with the newly organized sportswear workers.
The second floor was used by the Los Angeles Examiner, located across
from us on Broadway, for its coupon service, and the basement had
recently been vacated by a night club. Our Pacific Coast director was
supposed to close the deal, but he could not "find time." The agent had
offered the place rent free for six months if we would renovate it. I had
held out for six months' free rent and renovation by the owners.

Now with a strike impending, we took the place on a
month-tomonth basis. The coupon clip service would move into a
corner giving us the rest of the space.

America and Mary were horrified when they came to help put the
place into shape. On the basement walls were paintings of nudes in
suggestive poses. Washing off the water color pictures, we covered
others with flags and posters. We rented folding chairs, recently used by
a circus, and had a phone put in. A mahogany bar was turned into a
commissary.

I asked J. L. Goldberg, formermanager of the New York Knit Goods Union, who was now employed in a Los Angeles cloak and suit shop, to give me a hand.

My associates didn't understand how we could work with the coupon clippers from the Examiner listening in.

"They won't stay," I assured them.

The general strike committee for the dress industry hired the Labor Temple fir its headquarters. An elaborate commissary was to serve meals for the dress workers; I would have to take care of my own.

Two nights before the strike, I was told casually that the Joint Council
had unanimously elected me secretary of the General Strike Committee.

"I don't want to serve as secretary," I protested. "I know nothing about
your plans."

But the council would not meet again, and during the strike only the
strike committee would meet, so there was no way I could withdraw.

On Wednesday, July 23, eve of the general strike, I went to the Eighth
Street office to get badges for the committees, strikers' cards, shop lists,
and writing material.

"We didn't prepare any for you," Jennie Matyas said. "We have just
enough for our own committees."

Rose Harrington, chairman of the commissary committee, called out:
"I can't see how it will be possible to feed your strikers also." My
rejoinder was that we would get along by ourselves÷taking food from a
nearby lunch-room for the first few days.

I phoned the printers that evening to send over a package of
strike calls as soon as they were ready.

"I have an order," the foreman said, "to print 5,000 circulars and to
deliver them to a lady at the Alexandria Hotel." That was where Jennie
was staying.

"Five thousand? Why, that will cover only a few blocks, not the whole
garment section!"

"I'm only working here, Ma'am. That was the order."

Goldberg telephoned the printer's agent at his home to instruct his
pressman to print 5,000 more leaflets and deliver them to our new strike headquarters. He wasn't sure he could get enough of the same
paper at this late hour, but he'd try.

The pay-off came at midnight when the strike call, warm from
the press, the ink still wet, came in. I was busy with the sign painters

getting the picket signs ready for the following morning.

Opening the first bundle, I was dumbfounded. The leaflets called out
all dress, blouse, skirt, sportswear, and lingerie workers for a general
strike in their industries. Only a few days before, I had specifically
informed Levy that I could be ready with the sportswear group only! 

Those who had written the strike call had not consulted me, and no
one ever assumed responsibility for its contents! Well past midnight, my
staff and I went to our rooms, rented for the duration, in the Cabrillo
Hotel.

The staff was now augmented by chairladies from recently organized
sportswear shops, the executive board of Local 266, with Edith Mann,
its slim, small, serious minded president, and some Mode O'Day
members. George Wishnak's wife, Masha, an excellent manager, came
in as office secretary in my headquarters.

At 6 a.m. all of us were up, bright and eager for action. The
committee members went to their assigned places with the leaflets. At 10
a.m. about 500 strikers assembled for shop meetings. A loud speaker
boomed, the crowd milled around, and there was a continuous shuffling
of feet. The coupon clippers quickly vacated their quarters, 4 and we
had the place to ourselves.

The union dress shops came out, but not the nonunion shops.
In a few days, Mayor Bowron appointed a committee of three to bring
both sides together. Since the nonunion shops resisted
organization in line with the program of the Merchants and
Manufacturers' Association, and only a few workers had quit, the going
was tough.

I had been pulled into the strike at the eleventh hour, and had not
been consulted about the strike call. "A woman vise-president has
to have nine lives to survive÷I'll give them a lesson they'll never forget,"
I assured a colleague. But this was easier said than done. A hot potato
had been thrown into my lap. The job proved the hardest I had ever
undertaken.

Each staff member was given typewritten instructions to learn by heart
before holding meetings with strikers. John Donovan and Dr. Carlson
continued holding classes even during the strike÷preparing the newly
organized for union duties.

The girls had to be trained in the difficult job of holding masses of
strikers in line. There was always danger of "stooges" coming in for
other purposes than helping win the strike, and we had to be on the alert.
In addition to handling all these unorganized workers, I had to negotiate
with the employers and be on hand at the picket lines.

J. L. Goldberg, experienced in organizing pickets, staging
demonstrations, and other strike details, was a great help. Our rented
sound truck, with signs on both sides, cruised around the garment
district, speakers explaining in English and Spanish the cause of the
strike.

The sports-wear manufacturers formed an association and
indicated willingness to negotiate a collective agreement with us. But in
the lingerie and blouse shops, where only union members walked out,
there were fights on the picket lines and arrests. The employers had their
usual hired thugs to "protect loyal workers," who came and went under
guard.

As the police frequently threatened the strikers with arrest, and the
thugs tried to provoke fighting, our committee had to be present
constantly to keep order. Armed with song sheets, the pickets sang
loudly. At the slightest deviation from the rules set by the police, they would be arrested.

W. R. Woodard, a blouse manufacturer, got an injunction prohibiting
picketing. He was willing to negotiate with the union, but his attorney,
Mr. Watkins, who was also Hollywood-Maxwell's lawyer, advised
him against it. Woodard's workers, some of whom had been with him as
long as six years, issued an open letter to the firm, saying they would like
to return to work.

"We think it's about time that you use your own judgment and settle
with the union," they wrote, "so we can come back to the shop and your
regular schedule of shipments can be resumed."

They reminded Woodard that he had repeatedly referred them to his attorney, but that the lawyer had returned their proposals with a curt
note.

Information came in letters from non-striking girls. One of these,
used by us in a leaflet, read:

"I have been one of the workers at Woodard while you girls have
been striking. I was too slow, so I was laid off.

"So many young girls work there that never sewed before, so they
cannot get their work out. I hope for your sakes you win out; then when
the shops are all union we might have a better chance to work....

"I heard they gave all the old girls a raise so they won't strike."

Several of us were arrested one morning in front of the Chick
Lingerie Company's factory. At Lincoln Heights station, we had to wait
three hours for a judge to set bail. I played rummy with other prisoners.

Women kept arriving. Several more of our crowd, among them Edith
Mann, were brought in, carrying jail bedding. By 11 o'clock we
"transients," both colored and white, had increased to about 30.

Among the newcomers was a red-haired girl about 18, who
walked l in drowsily. A dozen women, evidently "regulars," surrounded
her.

"How was it, Margie ?" they inquired.

"Wonderful," she answered, fixing her bedding in an upper bunk. "I
lived every minute of my twenty-four hours and now I want to sleep."

Her friends hushed the others as she undressed and got into bed. She
was a dope addict, and this jail was practically her vacation place
between frequent flings.

The rummy game went on. A slim blond girl in slacks sat reading a
book. I asked what she was in for.

"Soliciting," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

How did it happen?

Well, going home after a day's work, she was approached by a man
outside the hotel where she lived.

"So I thought to myself: another five bucks are not to be sneezed at,"
she went on. "But what do you think that bastard did? He

showed me his police badge and arrested me when we were both stark
naked."

Hailing from the Dust Bowl, she had been in Los Angeles two years.
Her trial was to take place in a couple of days, and she wanted to send
word to her "boy friend" to get her a good lawyer. Would I be kind
enough to phone him that afternoon when I get out?

When I telephoned the downtown hotel and asked for Chick, he had
checked out, leaving no address.

Lunch was served at long tables in the jail dining room Anemic
looking navy beans with almost no taste, on tin plates; white bread that
was like wads of cotton in the mouth, coffee akin to dishwater. Hungry
women grumbled in whispers.

"For the taxpayers' money," I told my neighbors, "this jail could
afford to give you decent food. This is outrageous. People could get sick
from eating this bread alone."

The attendants cast unfriendly looks in my direction.

Released on bond before noon, I hurried by cab to our headquarters,
for a conference with the employers' negotiating committee. At 2 p.m. I
must be in police court.

I barely had time to grab a taxi to get there. Traffic was heavy and we
were three minutes late. My case already had been called, and I had
forfeited my bond. So I had to return to jail until another bond could be
posted.

They led me through a side door to the back detention room where I
had spent the morning. A matron began to ransack my handbag, shaking
every article÷powder puff, address book, and all÷as if to ferret out a
weapon.

"You saw that stuff this morning," I protested. "I'm in a hurry to
telephone my bondsman."

"We're running this jail, not you," the head matron barked.

"And damned inefficiently, too," I told her.

"We don't like your kind around here," she retorted.

Then I was shoved into the inner waiting room. After a couple of
hours, the bondsman succeeded in having my new bail set and I went
straight from jail to the picket line.

I was keen to get the strike settled. Signing of a new dress pact was
about to be announced and I knew that the general public, and some of
our sportswear strikers, wouldn't understand that two separate groups
were on strike and that different agreements must be reached.

We worked long grueling hours, negotiating, planning, organizing.
Goldberg assisted me, and Masha Wishnak took notes for the record at
our conferences with the employers.

One of them asked me where Levy was. I was about to answer when
a messenger came in and asked me to phone our director. Goldberg
went to do that, and he returned saying that Levy wanted me to bring the
employers' committee to his house to continue the session. "Forget it," I
said. "We're too busy. Let him sleep."

Our conference became snagged over the immediate 10 percent wage
increase we had asked for. All other provisions had been agreed upon.
With the dressmakers awarded a 15 percent wage raise by the mayor's
commission, we felt that the sportswear strikers also were entitled to a
substantial increase.

The spokesmen for the other side argued that there had been a general
raise of pay in the spring. We knew that; it had been given
because-the employers feared a strike.

"But, gentlemen," I exclaimed, "surely you don't expect your workers
to return without any immediate wage increase. Our demand is still 10
percent the day they go back to your shops."

"We offer five percent," Jack Takiff replied.

"Agreed!"

While this increase was small, we were sure that it would be
acceptable to our members because of the other points we had won for
them. They were protected by a clause providing that in the event of a
six percent advance in living costs, they would be entitled to a
corresponding lift in pay. Other gains were a 37 1/2-hour
work-week, a week's paid vacation, a four weeks' trial period, and
minimum wage rates as established in the trade.

And there was little doubt that the whole employers' group would
approve of our tentative agreement. Los Angeles was a critical area, with
acute labor shortage. Dozens of skilled garment workers already had shifted to defense, notably aircraft, after brief training, and the
demand for others was growing.

"The nimble fingers of the garment workers," a local engineer
commented, "especially qualify them for delicate precision instruments."

The dressmakers also returned with a union contract÷all but a few
who walked out from one factory÷in the 719 South Los Angeles
building, which promised to give us a long drawn-out fight.

In the sportswear group Chick Lingerie and W. J. Woodard Blouse
had held aloof from negotiations. They had determined, under the
influence of the M & M, I was convinced, to fight it out. Picketing at
these three buildings continued militantly.

At another sportswear factory, the Sun-pose, in the
Harris-Newmark Building, we tried to reason with Mr. Runkin, its
head.

"You'll have to join up with the rest eventually," we contended.

"All right, try and get my workers into your union," he taunted me.

Opal Alvarez, now staying at home to take care of her family,
reported that several of Runkin's workers were "sick and tired of walking
to and from work like thieves" with thugs protecting them. They were
inclined to join the union. But Runkin had given them an increase during
the strike, when they had not walked out with the rest, and they felt
duty-bound to stay on the job. Opal promised to let me know of
any new developments.

Meanwhile we called off the pickets at the Harris-Newmark
Building with the idea of giving Runkin enough rope to hang himself.
Soon he began to intimidate his "loyal" workers, and discharged one of
them. Opal phoned me at midnight, and I had the discharged girl, Eva,
come to see me. At seven next morning she was in my room at the
Cabrillo Hotel.

I learned that the workers were so incensed with Runkin's actions that
they would do anything I might ask now.

"Even if I ask them to strike?"

"Yes, they're waiting for a signal."

I went down to confer with Mary and America. But they were somewhere in the market and would not be back before 10. I had a plane reservation to leave at noon to attend a GEB meeting in
Philadelphia

Without wasting time, I had Eva follow me straight into the Runkin
factory. The doors were wide open, the thugs gone.

Planting myself in the middle of the big workshop, I began in a
soap-box voice:

"Girls, do you know that your coworker, Eva, was discharged
last night by your boss, Mr. Runkin? Have you asked yourselves why?
Because she was too loyal to him during the strike, so loyal to him that
she forgot that God helps only those who help themselves.... Why do
you sit here like slaves ? Get up and come with us to the union. Mr.
Runkin won't dare discharge any one of you if you're smart and join up
with the rest.... What happened to Eva last night might happen to you
today or tomorrow...."

The boss, the sweeper, and the forelady rushed over to where I stood, and tried to push me out. Not until I had finished the last
sentence did they succeed. They managed to get me into the
office, but Eva remained in the work-room.

Pale and shaking with rage, Runkin shouted: "What are you
trying to do to me?"

"You asked for it÷and you earned it! " I said. "You heard
me÷we're not going to let any chiselers run the garment market in Los
Angeles.

We could hear movements outside÷the office staff running in
and out, stamping of feet in the hall, shouts and laughter. FacingRunkin,
I asked: "Will you sign that collective agreement, like a good boy?"
I left him fuming. Outside more than half the factory workers,
with Eva triumphantly at their head, were waiting for me. Then I took
a minute to look in on Goldberg, who had lately returned to work
at a machine in the same building, and announced that the
Sun-pose workers were on strike.

He could not believe his ears. "They finally decided to come
out?"

"No, Mr. Runkin decided it for them."

I asked him to come back and take over, as I was in no position
to negotiate with an enraged employer to whom I was like a red rag to a bull.

The picket line paraded in front of the Runkin shop, and it was with deep satisfaction that the workers carried their signs proclaiming
that they were striking because their employer was unfair to them. That
strike was brief but effective. The girls enjoyed themselves, confessing
that they had been most uncomfortable walking through the picket lines
during the big strike. They had felt that they must keep their word to the
boss. But he had failed to keep his.

Runkin finally consented to sign, on one condition÷that one of the
Mexican women who had been especially militant, must not return with
the rest. Goldberg didn't mind agreeing÷there was an acute shortage of
special machine operators in the industry, and he was happy to send her
into an established union shop.

After the strike I asked Rebecca Holland and Goldberg to join our
staff. Rebecca, a capable organizer and business agent, had for years
been connected with the ILGWU in Chicago and New York. A former
University of Wisconsin student, she had gone to work in a garment
factory in Chicago, joined the dressmakers' union, and served on
important committees. Later she supplemented her education at
Brookwood Labor College. In private life she was Mrs. J. L. Goldberg,
proud of her husband and of Zami, their fine, intelligent son, then about
12.

I attended our quarterly GEB meeting in Philadelphia and had a brief
visit with my family in New York. Before returning West, I stopped over
at Unity House, the ILGWU's vacation resort in the Pocono Mountains.
President Dubinsky was spending a week-end there, and Louis
Levy also was there. D.D. called us into his cottage to discuss the Los
Angeles situation.

My report was short and went straight to the point. Now that the
sportswear union, newly-established in a rapidly expanding
industry, had grown to nearly 2,000 members, with many more in
prospect, permanent offices had to be set up and a staff organized to
conduct their affairs until the new membership was qualified to carry on
without supervision. Unlike our old-time members, these California
workers needed special care. Los Angeles was one of the fastest growing
cities on the Coast, and more women would pour in to work either in
defense industries or the garment trade. I was willing to finish the job on
one condition; that I be given full charge of the sportswear group.

Levy interrupted me to say that there was not room enough on the
Pacific Coast for two vise-presidents; he would not remain there if
I returned. That was a new one on me; I recalled that when he was ill he
had demanded that I be transferred with all possible haste from Boston
to Los Angeles.

Dubinsky turned to me. "Do you want to go back to Los Angeles ?"

"Under the present set-up, no I " I answered emphatically. But I
agreed to return there and clear up certain unfinished details, after which
Levy and his wife could run the International's Pacific Coast affairs
from their home without my annoying presence.

Dorothy Rubin, who had been my secretary in Boston, was
transferred at my request to Los Angeles, having had experience in that
type of office. I asked her to install the check-off system for the
new locals, while we went ahead with the election of officers and fitting
out the new headquarters. These, the finest in the city, were set up
under my supervision on the same two floors in the Cabrillo Hotel that
we had used during the strike.

Soon after we reached the Coast, a committee from
Hollywood-Maxwell came to see me; the whole group was now
anxious to join the union. "Call a meeting right after work near the
factory," they urged.

Realizing that something extraordinary had happened, I went over and
found 70 people waiting. Fearful of losing their jobs, they signed
membership cards authorizing the ILGWU to negotiate with their
employers. They were ready and willing to do anything I asked.

Two days later I had to. disappoint them. They had held out too long.

Hollywood-Maxwell was going to close its
"who-can-tell" factory in Hollywood, and was shifting to
other sections of the country, where it could pay learners' wages
indefinitely. If the girls joined the union, we would place them in other
sportswear shops.

When I came back from the East, C. J. Haggerty, president of the
California State Federation of Labor, informed me that upon his
recommendation I had been appointed as a member of the State Council
of Defense, to serve on its health, welfare, and consumer interest committee. Haggerty was head of the human resources and skill
committee.

The Council had been set up by the Legislature in September, 1941.
Attending one of its sessions on January 8, 1942, only a month after we
entered the war, I made note of what was happening there. Obviously
the Republicans in the Council were intentionally gumming up the
works, confusing the issues, and endeavoring to thwart every
constructive move made by Governor Olson. At the head of the
opposition stood Attorney General Earl Warren, close friend of Herbert
Hoover, protector of the reactionary Associated Farmers and big
business generally, and later Governor.

From the beginning of Olson's Governorship until the end, virtually
every worthy measure proposed by his administration was defeated or
emasculated in the Assembly or Senate.

Saturday, December 6,1941÷Not a cloud appeared in the sky as we
stood marveling at the sight of Boulder Dam. There was no sign from
any quarter that overnight the lives of millions would be disrupted. On
Friday I had driven 350 miles from Los Angeles to Boulder City,
Nevada, with four companions. We were thrilled deeply as we
contemplated this triumph of modern engineering÷ the gigantic curving
wall of concrete, 726 feet high, which had harnessed the wild Colorado
River and created 180-mile-long Lake Mead.

From openings high on the face of that wall, tremendous jets of water
poured unceasingly, with a never-ending roar. In the great
power-house at the base of the dam, the world's largest electrical
generators produced current which would run machinery and provide
light for industries and homes in numberless cities and towns in
California, Arizona, and Nevada. That power-house was operated
by the City of Los Angeles and the Southern California Edison
Company. And beyond the turbines through which it flowed, the water
would move on to irrigate a vast stretch of land in Southern California
which only a little while ago had been a desert÷the Imperial Valley.
Now it was one of the giant food baskets of the nation.

We were intrigued by the bright colored new houses, the fine hotel,
and the well equipped stores in the city which had sprung up from nothing in a boundless waste of sand, to provide housing for the 5,000
or more workers on the dam-building project.

Evening found us in Las Vegas, another boom city, which boasted of
being "wide open." Streamlined, brilliantly lighted, its drinking and
gambling places were never closed. And the red-light district
operated without disguise or apology.

In one swank bar a blond beauty sang an old-time minstrel
Song, I'm As Happy As a Big Sunflower. Lingering over cocktails and
affected by the care-free opulence of our surroundings, we felt
that way too.

Sunday, December 7, 1941÷We got an early start back to Los
Angeles. Fine weather, our heads clear, and life was good. I was driving
my 1940 Packard, with an almost noiseless engine, and a tank filled
with ethyl gas. We were traveling on a wide concrete road, with well
banked curves, a nearly perfect highway. Fifty-five was just a nice
easy gait for that car, my proudest possession.

Desert country. Emigrant trains of covered wagons had come this
way, and prospectors for gold. Men had lost their bearings in the old
days, went mad with thirst and fever, and died under the broiling sun.
But the desert held no menace for us on that tranquil Sunday morning.
We could stop for a drink or a meal at any one of innumerable roadside
places, in pleasant atmosphere. Proprietors of neat cabins offered
Ostermoor mattresses, cooking equipment, shower baths, "all the
comforts of home." Sleek cars from a dozen states flashed by. We sang
one song after another, with light hearts.

Around 11 o'clock I turned on the radio. What I heard was like
knife-thrust:

. . . Pearl Harbor bombed . . . American soldiers and sailors killed .
. . treacherous attack by Japanese planes . . .

"Listen!" I called, and the others stopped singing.

My heart seemed to stand still as that dark news continued. Weall
were silent, intent on every word.

Automatically I stepped on the gas, disregarding the speed law. My
one thought now was to get back to Los Angeles. It was as if some terrible storm had overtaken us in the open, and we must run for shelter. I had a curious apprehension that some disaster might befall
my sister Esther, then visiting me, before we could get home.

When that broadcast ended, and music came on, I turned it low,
waiting for more bulletins. Between flashes from the commentators, we
speculated on what lay ahead. Where would the enemy strike next ?

There had been plenty of warnings about the Japanese, with their
bowing, grinning envoys doing double-talk to our State
Department, but these had gone unheeded.

Only a short time before, in San Pedro, I had spoken with several 
pump-men who were filling an oil-tanker soon to sail for
Japan. "I'd rather sink the goddamn thing than let her shove off," said
one of them. He was outspoken about his feelings toward the nation
that was getting the bulk of our scrap iron and most of our West Coast
oil, to war on the Chinese. Bitterly he spoke of "some Senators" who
had referred to Japan as "our best customer." But he was a poor man
working for wages÷and he had to fill her up.

Los Angeles was quiet, as if stunned. On the boulevards, going into
the city, we passed through the big markets, usually scenes of great
activity. The Japanese boys and girls who manned most of the invitingly
arranged fruit and vegetable stands there were on duty, but there was
little business now. I wondered what would become of them. Nearly all
were American-born.

At other times First Street, the main thoroughfare in the Japanese
quarter, was brightly lighted, with youngsters strolling arm in arm and
the Tomio Hotel and the restaurants crowded, the latter chiefly by white
Americans. But this evening that street was deserted, and police in pairs
were on guard at the corners.

Esther met us with strained face when we got to my apartment. She,
too, had been concerned about us.

Far into the night our ears were glued to the radio. Repeatedly the
story of the sneak attack was told, in different words, by various
newscasters.

Next day at the office little work was done, everybody listening to
each new report over the air, climaxed with President Roosevelt's
speech calling for a declaration of war and the swift action by Congress which followed. I closed my eyes
for an instant then, and seemed to
hear the beat of drums and the
tramp of marching feet. And I
remembered again what my father
said in the market-place in
Derazhnia after Russia was
defeated in 1905: ". . . Mark my
words, the Japanese war lords
will not stop at this÷"

That evening, as we drove to
Long Beach, where Governor
Olson was to address a
mass-meeting about the
crisis, we encountered the first
total blackout. It was pitch dark on
the roads, as we moved along
feeling our way. The towering oil
derricks, with the red lights
topping them extinguished, looked
sinister as their silhouettes were
outlined against the sky. This
blackout lasted throughout the
night, and the scheduled meeting
was canceled. Few people in that
region slept, alert to all noises. The
Japanese might land secretly on
the California coast at any hour.

All day I had been turning over
in my mind a question: What
effect would the massacre far
away in the Pacific, and the action
in Washington, have upon my own
life? Out of that pondering came a
decision.

Working here in the last two
years, despite all the obstacles set
in my path, I had felt that what I
was doing had importance. The
long neglected and scattered
dressmakers' local had been made
whole again and was thriving, and
the sportswear and cotton dress
groups were solidly organized.
More than 2,000 women workers
had joined our ranks in this city in
those two years and could be
counted as good unionists.

But in the light of the tragedy
that had plunged us into a world
holocaust, my job was no longer
important.





Footnotes

1.  The names of Mr. Garlick and Mr. Runkin, as well as that of the Sun-pose
company, mentioned later in this chapter, are fictitious.


     From : Anarchy Archives

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     Chapter 33 -- Publication : November 30, 1944

     Chapter 33 -- Added : February 09, 2017

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