nesses against illegal arrest, and to
prevent interference with lawful picketing. The wrath of the police
was then turned upon the League. First one and then another ally was
arrested, this performance culminating in the unlawful arrest of Mary
Dreier, president of the League. The police were sadly fooled upon
this occasion, and their position was not in any degree strengthened,
when they angrily, and just as unreasonably freed their prisoner, as
soon as they discovered her identity. "Why didn't you tell me you was
a rich lady? I'd never have arrested you in the world."

This was good copy for the newspapers, and the whole story of wrongful
discharge, unlawful arrest and insulting treatment of the strikers by
the police began to filter into the public mind through the columns of
the daily press. It was shown that what had happened in the case of
the Triangle employes had been repeated, with variations, in the case
of many other shops. Respectable and conservative citizens began to
wonder if there might not be two sides to the story. They learned,
for instance, of the unjust "bundle" system, under which the employer
gives out a bundle of work to a girl, and when she returns the
completed work, gives her a ticket which she can convert into cash on
pay day. If the ticket, a tiny scrap of paper, should be lost, the
girl had no claim on the firm for the work she had actually done.
Again, some employers had insisted that they paid good wages, showing
books revealing the astonishing fact that girls were receiving thirty
dollars, thirty-five dollars, and even forty dollars per week. Small
reason to strike here, said the credulous reader, as he or she perused
the morning paper. But the protest of the libelled manufacturer lost
much of its force, when it was explained that these large sums were
not the wage of one individual girl, but were group earnings, paid to
one girl, and receipted for by her, but having to be shared with two,
three or four others, who had worked with and under the girl whose
name appeared on the payroll.

Monday, November 22, was a memorable day. A mass meeting had been
called in Cooper Union to consider the situation. Mr. Gompers was one
of the speakers. At the far end of the hall rose a little Jewish girl,
and asked to be heard. Once on the platform, she began speaking in
Yiddish, fast and earnestly. She concluded by saying she was tired of
talking, and so would put the motion for a general strike of the