The manufacturers were now, naturally, more deeply distrusted than ever
on the East Side.[29] The doctrine of the closed shop became almost
ritualistic. Early in September, one of the Labor Day parades was headed
by an aged Jew, white-bearded and fierce-eyed,--a cloak maker who knew no
other words of English than those he uttered,--who waved a purple banner
and shouted at regular intervals: "Closed shop! Closed shop!" That man
represented the spirit of thousands of immigrants who have recently
become trade-unionists in America. Impossible to say to such a man that
the idea of the closed shop had been an enemy to the spread of
trade-unionism in this country by its implication of monopolistic
tyranny.
Impossible, indeed, to say anything to Unionists whose reply to every
just representation is, "Closed shop"; or to employers whose reply to
every just representation is, "We do not wish other people to run our
business." This reply the Marshall conference still had to hear for some
days. It was now the first week in September. There was great suffering
among the cloak makers. On the manufacturers' side, contracts heretofore
always filled by certain New York houses, in this prolonged stoppage of
their factories were finally lost to them and placed with establishments
in other important cloak making centres--Cleveland, Philadelphia,
Chicago, and even abroad.
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