Jacqueline Martinez
Character: Leah Schwartz
Professor Bernard Gerstman
Character Paper
I’ve been a laborer since I was very young. Papa brought us to the United States when anti-Semitism began to rise in Russia, and he thought it would be easy to find a job with his fine tailoring skills. But when we realized employers just wanted human machines for workers, things changed. While mama stayed at home to raise my younger brothers, I was already working at a small apartment for an outside contractor. I worked with cloth, as did many other girls like me.
As I got older, I wanted to be taken more seriously. I thought working at a real factory would do that for me, so I took a job at the Leiserson Company. They were one of the biggest shirtwaist companies in the city, but they kept up their profits by making us work day in and day out, lowering the wages at every opportunity they could. Once the Company announced they would begin subcontracting- making our wages even cheaper- I realized that the capitalist system truly did not care for its workers. So I began to rebel.
I listened to speeches by the American Federation of Labor, and became impassioned to join the Local 25 of the Ladies’ Garment Worker’s Union. Unions, I realized were the best way to make the worker’s concerns heard. Great power could come in great numbers, I thought. It was through the Local 25 that I met the people that would change my lives. The people who would teach me about Socialism- an ideology that could very well do the people justice. The people who would grant me the honor of being a leader and organizer within the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL). I took the role in a heartbeat.
Taking care of the WTUL wasn’t easy. “The girls of today are the mothers of the future; if they are overworked, the children pay the penalty”. That was one of the main mottos I would encourage our girls to use as we would lead strikes within the Village, or stop curious looking ladies outside shops. However, it wasn’t easy to make the WTUL fully successful. Most of us were Jewish and Italian immigrants; immigrants who, although mutually understood the terrible circumstances of labor, could not communicate their specific concerns between the language and cultural barriers.
There was also the issue of how closely my fellow leaders wanted to follow the AFL’s model of unionism. This meant making “bread and butter” issues the main focus of union efforts, and organizing members on a shop by shop basis. But I didn’t want just bread and butter. I wanted bread and roses. I also dearly wanted workers not to focus not on individual unions, but to expand and be able to work with other labor unions toward the common goal of protecting worker’s rights. That’s why, although I didn’t fully agree with her revolutionary rhetoric, I felt the need to approach Elizabeth Gurley Flynn when I was younger. I desired aid to better under how our girls in the WTUL could better feel represented in labor issues, and how we could create a sense of unity within labor.
Toughness and assertiveness were both traits the Jewish community considered virtuous in a girl. And I tried my best to embody them, even if I didn’t advocate for sabotage or crippling the economy. I was certainly a socialist, but I was a Right-wing socialist. I agreed with Morris Hillquit every time he said how we needed to convince people’s hearts to agree with socialism. In order to have democratic socialism, the people needed to believe in it. It was no use breaking the capitalists’ laws to take power if the capitalists would grant the same violent reactions to us if we were in power. The violent reactions of some Left-wing socialists also reminded me of the pogroms, and I never wanted to see any movement so reactionary again. I didn’t believe in anarchy. What I did believe in was creating a classless state that would serve all the people, establishing co-operative producers. I thought it would be smart that each trade would elect their own expert to observe the industrial affairs of their trade, and that the federal government could act as an overseer to ensure that goods were being distributed fairly by each trade. And to do this, we would need to make sure we saw socialists in office. And to make sure that in this transition to socialism, the majority of people had their heart in it instead of fire against it. Which is also why I loved the idea of general strikes.
General strikes were expensive, and difficult to orchestrate. But damn if they weren’t effective. Nothing got people impassioned for a cause quite like seeing many others just like themselves. Even when police brutality struck, it became an opportunity for us to become even louder. I remember attending mass meetings where union girls would stand up to tell their stories. Bessie was among them, and I supported her by donning a banner that read “we are not slaves” in Yiddish, just like she did. It brought me delight when the press would ask the girls questions, and when the richer ladies of the crowd were inspired to make generous donations for our cause.
But conducting real, large, general strikes involved a degree of compromise. As I said earlier, I did not agree with the revolutionary rhetoric of Left-wingers. I wanted a steady transition into a better system of governance that focused on improving our conditions today; not a bloody revolution like the Russians would have had a few years after the Paterson pageant.
Despite it all, I’ll never forget all the thrilling people and debates I heard in Polly’s restaurants. I spent so many days urging labor supports of every kind to look past their differences and compromise so we could truly mobilize together. By combining our voices, our funds, and our impactful stories, I believed we could change the future.
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