Who would ever have believed that the great Pierpont, J. P. Morgan himself, could have such a daughter? She was only carrying on like this because he gave her twenty thousand dollars a year. Rose couldn’t understand it. Why didn’t he just stop her allowance?
For this was Rose’s complaint. If she believed for one moment that these women really cared about the working conditions of people like the two young persons she’d brought with her, she mightn’t have minded; but for their own purposes, their own sense of power—their own vanity, in her opinion—these rich women, from old families, the very people who were supposed to take the lead in society and set a good example, were funding strikers and whipping up public support for a cause behind which, she was quite sure, were socialists, anarchists, people whose mission was to destroy the very society which gave them their wealth. These women were traitors, fools perhaps, but destroyers. She hated them.
And she could just see the articles in the newspapers. “Mrs. Master Hosts Luncheon for Mrs. Belmont and Miss Morgan before Carnegie Hall Meeting.” Or even worse: “Master Family Backs the Strike.”
Well, it just confirmed how right she’d been to bring these two young people here today.
As they all sat down to luncheon in the big dining room, old Hetty Master couldn’t help feeling pretty pleased with herself. She’d worked hard for this, and the timing had been perfect.
She’d taken an interest in the garment workers right from the start. She and Mary had toured the area, and attended some of the meetings. She’d talked to Alva Belmont and some of the others. And one way and another, it had been agreed that there would be a rendezvous at her house on the day of the Carnegie Hall meeting.
For a ninety-year-old woman to host an event like this was quite a social coup. It wasn’t too often these days that she had a chance to be in the thick of things, and who knew if such a chance would occur again?
She might be ninety, but Hetty believed in moving with the times. She’d seen so much change. She’d seen canals come, then railroads, gaslights, then electricity, steamboats and now the motor car. She’d seen the old crowd at the Academy of Music yield to the rich crowd at the Metropolitan Opera, and families you’d never heard of, like the Vanderbilts, get into Mrs. Astor’s Four Hundred. If Rose wanted life to be a bit more decorous, Hetty in the last years of her life wished she had a bit more excitement. In fact, just for once, she thought she’d like to be in the forefront of fashion.
And the garment strike was the fashion just now. She had every sympathy with those poor girls in the factories, though she wasn’t going to pretend that she knew all the issues. But today’s lunch would be remembered. However small, Hetty Master was going to see if she couldn’t get herself in as a footnote in New York’s history.
So she surveyed the guests at her table with great satisfaction.
Inviting Edmund Keller had been an afterthought. She’d seen him at his father’s the week before, and asked him to come along, as it was always nice to have a man around. As for Rose, she really hadn’t meant to invite her at all. Indeed, she’d been surprised when her grandson’s wife had got wind of the event and said she wanted to come. “There’s no need, dear,” she’d told her. But Rose had been so insistent, it would have been awkward to refuse. And now she’d turned up with two young people from the Lower East Side, and insisted they sit with her. Had she suddenly been converted to the cause?
The conversation was all about the meeting that evening. Important union people would be there. Samuel Gompers, the labor leader, and his lieutenants were moderate; they wanted better pay and conditions, if they could get them. Others, with a political agenda, might be more strident. Nobody knew what was going to happen. It was all very exciting. She’d almost forgotten about her granddaughter-in-law and her young people when suddenly, just as the main course was being served, Rose stood up and announced that there was a young woman from the garment district whom she’d like them all to hear, and turning to the young woman at her side, she said: “You can stand up now, dear.”
Anna Caruso glanced down at Salvatore. She’d only agreed to come if her brother was there to protect her. “Just tell your story simply, the way you told it to me,” Rose had said. But faced with all these people, in this big house, and the fact that she knew her English still wasn’t so good, she couldn’t help being nervous.
She’d been surprised when Mr. Harris at the factory had called her over last week. “This lady,” he’d explained, “wants to talk to one of our loyal workers, and I’ve told her you’re a sensible girl.” It was pretty clear that she’d better do what he said. So she’d told the lady what she wanted to know. Then the lady had said she’d like to come back to her house and see her family. So at the end of the day, she’d collected Salvatore and Angelo from the park, and the lady had driven them all back to Mulberry Street in her car. The sight of the Rolls-Royce stopping outside their house had caused quite a stir. When the lady had said she wanted to take her next Sunday to tell her friends about the factory, her father had been dubious, but when Mrs. Master had given him her visiting card and address, and offered twenty dollars for the inconvenience, it was agreed that she should go, as long as she was accompanied.
“My name is Anna,” she began, “and my family lives in Mulberry Street.” She told them how they had arrived in America from Italy when she was a little girl, how her father had lost their years of savings in the panic of 1907, how her brothers had had to leave school, and how they were all working to get back on their feet again. She could tell that they liked her story. There had been murmurs of sympathy about the loss in the panic, and of approval for the way they were all working so hard. She explained how difficult it was for her mother, working at home, and how she had gone to the Triangle Factory, where the conditions were better.
And now the lady started asking her questions.
“Is there a union at the factory?” Rose asked.
“There is a friendly union inside the factory.”
“It was the outside union, the Women’s Trade Union, that the owners did not like. Did you want to join it?”
“No.”
“So when the owners locked out the workers, what happened to you?”
“My parents wished me to continue working. Our priest also said I should work. So I went to Mr. Harris at the factory.”
“And he gave you back your job?”
“Yes.”
“Did he employ new girls to work at the factory?”
“Yes.”
“Are they mostly Italian, Catholic, respectable girls, like you?”
“Yes.”
“The girls who lost their jobs, who have joined the WTU, are they mostly Jews?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, dear. You can sit down.” Rose turned to the assembled ladies. “I think everyone here can see that this is an honest young woman,” she declared. “And I’m sure there are grievances at some of the factories which need to be addressed. But I think we need to be careful. What is it the Jewish girls want that Anna here does not? Are they really striking for better conditions, or is their object political? How many of these Russians are socialists?” She gazed round in triumph. “I believe it’s a question we need to ask.”
Rose enjoyed the silence that followed. In the first place, she’d brought a little common sense to the place. The people in the room would have been even more surprised had they seen the little press story that gave an account of how, at a luncheon at old Mrs. Master’s house, members of the Master family who were well acquainted with the true conditions of the workers, not all of whom were on strike, had questioned the motives of some of the socialist agitators behind it. Old Hetty could still have her moment of glory—her luncheon would be remembered—just not in quite the way she had planned. And the family’s reputation would be saved. The story would be printed in several papers that evening.
In the silence that followed, Hetty stared. She couldn’t believe it. Her own grandson’s wife had com
e here to ruin her party, in this act of public disloyalty. Her reaction was instant and natural. No doubt Rose knew the trust funds would flow down to William anyway, but if she thought that anything from this house was coming to her, she could forget it.
Hetty looked round for someone to save the day. Her eye alighted on Edmund Keller. It was worth a chance.
“Well, Mr. Keller,” she asked, “will you be our knight in shining armor?”
Edmund Keller paused. He liked old Hetty Master, and he would be glad to oblige her. But even more important for him was the cause of truth. And truth was more complex than Rose was making it out to be.
He understood the city well enough to know that the Russian immigrants, having suffered political and religious persecution, were determined to fight anything that looked like oppression in their new home. The Italians, on the other hand, were only fleeing poverty. They sent money back to Italy; many of them didn’t even plan to stay in America—sometimes at the docks there were more Italians returning home than arriving. They had less reason to cause trouble, or to enter the political process, therefore. And they might put up with bad treatment when they shouldn’t. But even having said that, the situation wasn’t straightforward. And if there was one thing, as an academic, that Edmund Keller hated, it was people who simplified evidence until it was misleading.
“Are there picket lines outside the Triangle Factory?” he asked Anna.
“Yes, sir.”
“Are there Jewish girls in the picket lines?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are there also Italian girls in the picket lines?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are, I don’t know, maybe a quarter of the picketing girls Italian?”
“I think so.”
“Why do you not stand in the picket line?”
Anna hesitated. She remembered the day the woman from the WTU had accosted her as she went into work, demanding to know why she was betraying all the other girls. She had felt so guilty. But when she had talked to her parents about it that night, her father had ordered her never to raise the subject again.
“My family does not wish it, sir.”
There was a murmur round the room. Keller turned to Rose Master.
“I think we need to be careful here,” he said. “The factory owners would no doubt like us to think that this is entirely a Jewish strike, a socialist strike perhaps. But they may be misleading us.” He didn’t mean to be rude. He just wanted to be accurate.
Old Hetty was beaming. Rose’s face was a mask.
But it was then that Edmund Keller made a great mistake.
He wasn’t a fool, but he wasn’t worldly. He was still an academic. He did not entirely grasp that for the powerful ladies of New York—or London or Paris for that matter—politics was a social game, to demonstrate who had the most influence. He supposed that, behind all these activities, there was actually a search for truth. So he didn’t realize that in setting the record straight, he was humiliating Rose.
“Of course,” he continued casually, “one can see why this girl’s family wouldn’t want her to join the WTU. But in fairness, European history shows that factory workers were nearly always exploited until a powerful union or a government intervened.”
If the ladies had been holding a historical seminar, a balancing argument like this might have been a point to raise. But they weren’t. And he had just given Rose her opening to strike back.
“European history? You’d know all about that, Mr. Keller, I’m sure. And isn’t it true Europe is full of socialists? And don’t you know that when innocent Italian girls are bullied or deceived into supporting the unions, they’re being used by Russian socialists? But you know all about socialists, Mr. Keller, from what I hear. Since you, Mr. Keller, I have it upon good authority, are a socialist.”
Keller hadn’t particularly studied the socialist question. Nor had he the least idea that the president of Columbia, disliking his somewhat liberal views, had told Rose that he was a socialist. He stared at her in great surprise, therefore, which she, naturally, took to be guilt.
“Aha,” she said, triumphantly.
“Well,” said Hetty, seeing that things weren’t going at all as they should, “this is all very interesting, I must say.” Which even Edmund Keller realized was a signal, in these circles, that the discussion should end at once.
Anna was very nervous. “I hope she’ll take us away now,” she whispered to Salvatore when the meal ended. But Rose Master was busy talking, and so they were left standing alone.
Had she said the wrong thing about the Italian girls on the picket line? Would the lady tell Mr. Harris at the factory, and get her into trouble?
They had been standing together for a minute or two when the old lady who owned the house came across. She was with another lady, not quite so old.
“I’m Mrs. Master,” the old lady said. “I just wanted to thank you for coming.” She was very polite. “This is my friend Miss O’Donnell,” she added.
You could see the other old lady was very rich, but she seemed kindly, and asked where they lived.
“I used to live not far from you, just the other side of the Bowery,” she said. Anna looked at her in disbelief. She couldn’t imagine the rich lady had ever lived anywhere near the Lower East Side in her life, but she didn’t like to say so. The old lady saw the look on her face and smiled. “I used to have to walk past Five Points every day.”
“You mean you lived in a tenement like us?” Anna finally ventured.
“I did.” Mary O’Donnell paused, as if remembering. Then she glanced at Hetty Master and smiled. “Actually, my father was drunk most of the time, and didn’t even work. As for our lodgings …” She shook her head at the memory. “I had to walk out in the end.” She turned back to Anna and Salvatore. “Your father sounds a good man. Whatever you do, keep your family together. That’s the most important thing in the world.”
Just then, Rose appeared. Fortunately, she seemed quite pleased about everything, and she took them away. So Anna never found out how the rich lady got out of the Lower East Side.
At Hetty’s request, Mary O’Donnell remained after everyone else had gone. Mary knew it was nice to have someone to discuss a party with, when it was over.
“It went well,” she told Hetty. “Everyone will remember it. And the conversations certainly made everybody think.”
“I am not pleased with Rose,” said Hetty.
“Mr. Keller did quite well.”
“He meant well. Rose,” Hetty continued, “was very disloyal.”
“I suppose we must forgive,” said Mary.
“I may forgive,” Hetty replied, “but I’ll be damned if I forget.”
“The Italian girl was sweet,” said Mary.
“That reminds me,” said Hetty. “Why did you tell her that your father was a drunk who didn’t work? Your father was a perfectly respectable man. He was a friend of the Kellers. I remember very well the day that Gretchen told me all about you.”
Mary paused, and looked at Hetty a bit sheepishly.
“When I saw that girl and her brother,” she confessed, “and heard about how they were living, it all suddenly came back to me. I don’t know what made me blurt it out, though.”
Hetty eyed her. “Are you telling me, Mary O’Donnell, after all these years, that you came to work here under false pretenses? That you weren’t from a respectable family at all?”
“I don’t think I could have done it. But Gretchen could. She was my friend.” Mary smiled, affectionately. “I’m afraid she told you the most dreadful lies.”
Hetty considered. “Well,” she said finally, “I’m very glad that she did.”
Edmund Keller spent a pleasant evening with his father. It wasn’t until the next morning that he heard what had happened at the meeting at Carnegie Hall.
And what a night it had been. The radicals had produced a splendid speaker, Morris Hillquit the socialist. With soaring oratory, he told the packed
hall that the factory owners and the magistrates who had fined them were nothing more than the mailed fists of oppression. “Sisters,” he cried, “your cause is just, and you will be victorious.” Not only that, he assured them, the garment women’s strike was the beginning of something altogether more wonderful. Through the union, they could lead the great socialist cause of a class struggle that would soon transform not only the factories of the Lower East Side, but the entire city, and even the whole of America. It was a thrilling speech, and they cheered him to the rafters.
True, he was followed by a moderate lawyer who counseled restraint and a legal battle instead. But his speech was so boring that the crowd grew restless. And when Leonora O’Reilly of the WTU spoke next, and chided the lawyer, and told the women that their strike had done more for the union movement than all the preaching of the last ten years, they cheered her too. No wonder they were in high spirits.
But not everyone was happy. Tammany Hall liked political power, not revolution. The conservative leaders of America’s big unions, men like Sam Gompers, didn’t think that preaching revolution was a good strategy either. From that evening, support in the smoke-filled rooms of the labor movement began to fade. And something else began to ebb away rapidly. Money.
Had Rose’s intervention at old Hetty’s lunch made an impression? Who knew? But one thing was certain. When Anne Morgan attended the Carnegie Hall meeting, she didn’t like what she heard. The very next day she let everyone know that she’d support the garment women’s rights, but not socialism. She wasn’t giving money to start a revolution. Other wealthy donors followed her lead.
It wasn’t until early February that the strike wound down. The women got a shorter working week, down to only fifty-two hours; they were even allowed to join a union. But the Triangle and the other factories could employ whomever they liked, union member or not.