A Call to Action
To all Workers of Lawrence, Mass (from the Committee of Ten):
… As long as the fight was confined to the mills of Lawrence and appeared not to extend any further we deemed it unnecessary to appeal to other classes of workers; but now that the combination of capitalists have shown the unity of all our adversaries, we call on you as brothers and sisters to join hands with us in this great movement. Our cause is just…
Workers quit your hammers, thrown down your files, let the dynamos stop, the power cease to turn the wheels and the looms, leave the machinery, bank the fires, tie up the plants, tie up the town. Great is the provocation, greater must be the answer of the workers to the employing class… On to the general strike of all workers, of all professions, of women, men, and children. Tie up everything. On to action!
At the Washington Mill at 9:00 AM on Friday, January 12, the paymaster witnessed “a blur of arms and backs surging through the mill gates and into the courtyard. He immediately called the police. Nightstick in hand, the lone cop on the local beat arrived a few minutes later to find two thousand people swarming outside the mill (Watson, Bread and Roses, p. 11).
