brings, in the spirit of mutual help as
well as self-help.

These first Eastern strikes in the garment trades, although local in
their incidence, were national in their effects. There had been so
much that was dramatic and unusual in the rebellion of the workers,
and it had been so effectively played up in the press of the entire
country that by the time spring arrived and the strikes were really
ended, and ended in both cities with very tangible benefits for the
workers, there was hardly anyone who had not heard something about the
great strikes, and who had not had their most deeply rooted opinions
modified. It was an educational lesson on the grand scale. But the
effects did not stop here. The impression upon the workers themselves
everywhere was wholly unexpected. They had been encouraged and
heartened to combine and thus help one another to obtain some measure
of control over workshop and wages.

The echoes of the shirt-waist strikes had hardly died away, when there
arose from another group of dissatisfied workers, the self-same cry
for industrial justice.

There is no doubt that the Chicago strike which began among the makers
of ready-made men's clothing in September, 1910, was the direct
outcome of the strikes in New York and Philadelphia. While the Western
uprising had many features in common with these, yet it presented
difficulties all its own, and in its outcome won a unique success.
Not only was the number of workers taking part greater than in the
previous struggles, but, owing to the fact of a large number of the
strikers being men, and a big proportion of these heads of families,
the poverty and intense suffering resulting from months of
unemployment extended over a far larger area. Also the variety
of nationalities among the strikers added to the difficulties of
conducting negotiations. Every bit of literature put out had to be
printed in nine languages. And lastly, the want of harmony between
certain of the national leaders of the union involved, and the deep
distrust felt by some of the local workers and the strikers for a
section of them provided a situation which for complexity it would be
hard to match. That the long-continued struggle ended with so large
a measure of success for the workers was in part owing to the
extraordinary skill and unwearied patience displayed in its handling,
and in part to the close and intimate cooeperation between the local
strike leaders, both men and women, the Ch