icago Federation of Labor
and the Chicago Women's Trade Union League. Much also had been learned
from recent experience in the strikes immediately preceding.

The immediate cause of the first striker going out was a cut in the
price of making pockets, of a quarter of a cent. That was on September
22 in Shop 21, in the Hart, Schaffner and Marx factories. Three weeks
later the strike had assumed such proportions that the officers of the
United Garment Workers' District Council No. 6 were asking the Women's
Trade Union League for speakers. The League organized its own Strike
Committee to collect money, assist the pickets and secure publicity.
At the instance of the League also an independent Citizens' Committee
was formed.

In time of sorest need was found efficient leadership. The
garment-workers of Chicago, in their earlier struggles with the
manufacturers, had had no such powerful combination to assist them as
came to their aid now, when a Joint Strike Conference controlled
the situation, with representatives upon it from the United Garment
Workers of America International Executive Board, from the Chicago
District Council of the same organization, from the Special Order
Garment Workers, the Ready Made Garment Workers, the Chicago
Federation of Labor and the Women's Trade Union League. The American
Federation of Labor sent their organizer, Emmett Flood, the untiringly
courageous and the ever hopeful.

The first step to be taken was to place before the public in clear and
simple form the heterogeneous mass of grievances complained of. The
Women's Trade Union League invited about a dozen of the girls to tell
their story over a simple little breakfast. Within a week the story
told to a handful was printed and distributed broadcast, prefaced, as
it was, by an admirable introduction by the late Miss Katharine Coman,
of Wellesley College, who happened to be in Chicago, and who was
acting as chairman of the grievance committee. The Citizens'
Committee, headed by Professor George Mead, followed with a statement,
admitting the grievances and justifying the strike.

From then on the story lived on the front page of all the newspapers,
and speakers to address unions, meetings of strikers, women's clubs
and churches were in constant demand. Here again, the suffragist and
the socialist women showed where their sympathies lay and of what
mettle they were made. Visiting speakers, such as Miss Margaret
Bondfield and Mrs. Philip Sn