Click on the headline to link to the "Bread And Roses" Centennial Website- A Brief History Of The Great Lawrence (Ma) Textile Strike Of 1912
BOOK REVIEW
Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants and the Struggle for the American Dream, Bruce Watson, Penguin Books, New York, 2005
Every leftist political movement has its ‘high holy days’ of remembrance, or it should. The international labor movement has May Day and in the America labor movement today, Labor Day. There are, however, other days worthy of celebration by militants here in America (and internationally) like the anniversaries of Sacco and Vanzetti, the great general strikes of 1934 in Toledo, Minneapolis and San Francisco and the subject of this review the great ‘Bread and Roses’ strike in the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912. That, until recently, this heroic (and victorious) strike was not remembered officially under any conditions by that very representative working class city and that its continues to remain shrouded in ignorance tells as much about contemporary American labor as any other indicator. That ignorance is something that Professor Bruce Watson has with this effort attempted to remedy. As an important work of labor history Watson has done more than a commendable job. Moreover, because he has done such a scholarly, well-written and easily readable work today’s militants can draw many lessons from that seemingly long ago labor struggle.
On completion of this book I was struck by the parallels between the conditions that fostered that 1912 strike, the social composition of that work force and the attitudes of those bosses and today’s ‘globalized’ capitalist working conditions. The ethnic and racial groupings today that make up the core of the American working class, for example, are somewhat different from those that fought the 1912 where South and East Europeans predominated. However, the much overused sociological term ‘melting pot’ still applies to the extend that the working class is not heterogeneous in its racial and ethnic makeup, a factor that not only aids the breakdown of class unity but is, a more or less, conscious stratagem of the bosses to divide the working class at the base. Moreover, although we are not talking about fighting for nickel and dime raises like those asked for then today the wage system has created a wider gap between rich and poor that would not be unfamiliar to those strikers long ago. And certainly the bosses have not changed, although they are certainly slicker than in those days of William Woods and the other textile magnates. And they put their money where their mouths are, spending over a billion dollars a years to defeat unionization drives and strike action.
One question, on which there is no comparison, or none worthy of mention, is the difference in labor leadership as the 1912 strike evolved and today’s labor leadership. This refers not only to the differences in political perspective of the Bill Haywood and Joseph Ettor-led Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and today’s Democratic Party-embedded labor leadership which are striking enough but about the nature of society and politics. Fundamentally the old preamble to the IWW constitution drawn up in 1905 is correct in its assertion that there are two distinct and different class interests in the world and at the end of the day they are irreconcilble. Today’s labor leadership acts as if there wasn’t a capitalist that it did not like. An interesting sidelight to the IWW-led 1912 struggle was the attempt by the conservative traditional craft unions associated with the AFof L during the strike to break away from the bulk of the unskilled laborers who formed the core of the textile industry. That has happened in later struggles as well.
One thing that was clear then and has been muddied by today’s labor bureaucracy (with no little help from social democratic and other leftists) is the role of the state. If any mass struggle in the last one hundred years points out the capitalist class nature of the American state it is Lawrence. At every critical point from the first day of the strike and from the lowest level of government the police and military power of the state was used against the working class and in defense of the interests of the capitalist class. This is the class struggle in the raw, up close and personal, that usually only gets exposed in pre-revolutionary or revolutionary situations.
If nothing else, whatever Professor Watson’s personal political sympathies may be, he has performed a great service by placing the Lawrence strike in the context of the development of American capitalism, especially in its post-robber baron period; the development of the multi-ethnic working class; the role of the development of light industry and the Merrimack Valley in the development of American capitalism; the creation and furtherance of a radical response to the primitive capitalist production conditions; and, the role of the state in capitalist society. One may fault Professor Watson with a bit of a ‘kitchen sink’ approach to this work when he brings in every possible event and personality that can reasonably or logically be connected with the Lawrence strike in any way. Even Marxists recognize limits to the interrelatedness of events in any particular situation. However, that is a small price to pay for this important addition to labor history. Kudos.
BOOK REVIEW
Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants and the Struggle for the American Dream, Bruce Watson, Penguin Books, New York, 2005
Every leftist political movement has its ‘high holy days’ of remembrance, or it should. The international labor movement has May Day and in the America labor movement today, Labor Day. There are, however, other days worthy of celebration by militants here in America (and internationally) like the anniversaries of Sacco and Vanzetti, the great general strikes of 1934 in Toledo, Minneapolis and San Francisco and the subject of this review the great ‘Bread and Roses’ strike in the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912. That, until recently, this heroic (and victorious) strike was not remembered officially under any conditions by that very representative working class city and that its continues to remain shrouded in ignorance tells as much about contemporary American labor as any other indicator. That ignorance is something that Professor Bruce Watson has with this effort attempted to remedy. As an important work of labor history Watson has done more than a commendable job. Moreover, because he has done such a scholarly, well-written and easily readable work today’s militants can draw many lessons from that seemingly long ago labor struggle.
On completion of this book I was struck by the parallels between the conditions that fostered that 1912 strike, the social composition of that work force and the attitudes of those bosses and today’s ‘globalized’ capitalist working conditions. The ethnic and racial groupings today that make up the core of the American working class, for example, are somewhat different from those that fought the 1912 where South and East Europeans predominated. However, the much overused sociological term ‘melting pot’ still applies to the extend that the working class is not heterogeneous in its racial and ethnic makeup, a factor that not only aids the breakdown of class unity but is, a more or less, conscious stratagem of the bosses to divide the working class at the base. Moreover, although we are not talking about fighting for nickel and dime raises like those asked for then today the wage system has created a wider gap between rich and poor that would not be unfamiliar to those strikers long ago. And certainly the bosses have not changed, although they are certainly slicker than in those days of William Woods and the other textile magnates. And they put their money where their mouths are, spending over a billion dollars a years to defeat unionization drives and strike action.
One question, on which there is no comparison, or none worthy of mention, is the difference in labor leadership as the 1912 strike evolved and today’s labor leadership. This refers not only to the differences in political perspective of the Bill Haywood and Joseph Ettor-led Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and today’s Democratic Party-embedded labor leadership which are striking enough but about the nature of society and politics. Fundamentally the old preamble to the IWW constitution drawn up in 1905 is correct in its assertion that there are two distinct and different class interests in the world and at the end of the day they are irreconcilble. Today’s labor leadership acts as if there wasn’t a capitalist that it did not like. An interesting sidelight to the IWW-led 1912 struggle was the attempt by the conservative traditional craft unions associated with the AFof L during the strike to break away from the bulk of the unskilled laborers who formed the core of the textile industry. That has happened in later struggles as well.
One thing that was clear then and has been muddied by today’s labor bureaucracy (with no little help from social democratic and other leftists) is the role of the state. If any mass struggle in the last one hundred years points out the capitalist class nature of the American state it is Lawrence. At every critical point from the first day of the strike and from the lowest level of government the police and military power of the state was used against the working class and in defense of the interests of the capitalist class. This is the class struggle in the raw, up close and personal, that usually only gets exposed in pre-revolutionary or revolutionary situations.
If nothing else, whatever Professor Watson’s personal political sympathies may be, he has performed a great service by placing the Lawrence strike in the context of the development of American capitalism, especially in its post-robber baron period; the development of the multi-ethnic working class; the role of the development of light industry and the Merrimack Valley in the development of American capitalism; the creation and furtherance of a radical response to the primitive capitalist production conditions; and, the role of the state in capitalist society. One may fault Professor Watson with a bit of a ‘kitchen sink’ approach to this work when he brings in every possible event and personality that can reasonably or logically be connected with the Lawrence strike in any way. Even Marxists recognize limits to the interrelatedness of events in any particular situation. However, that is a small price to pay for this important addition to labor history. Kudos.
