, and their agreement that, as between Union and
non-union men of equal ability to do the job, the Union men shall be
given the preference."

The manufacturers were willing to make this agreement. But the
representatives of the Union received it with a natural suspicion bred by
years of oppression. "Can the man who has ground us down year after year
suddenly be held by a sentiment for the organization he has fought for a
quarter of a century?" they asked. "Between Union and non-union men, will
he candidly give the preference to Union men of equal ability? Will he
not rather, since the question of ability is a matter of personal
judgment and is left to his judgment, prefer the non-union man, and
justify his preference by a pretence, in each case, that he considers the
skill of the non-union man superior?"

Nevertheless, a majority of the leaders of the cloak makers were willing
to try the plan.... A minority refused. This minority was influenced
partly by its certain knowledge that the 40,000 cloak makers would never
accept an agreement based on the idea of the preferential Union shop, and
partly by its complete distrust of the good will of the manufacturers.
The minority was trusted and powerful. It won. The conference broke.

The _Vorwaerts_ printed a statement that the preferential shop was the
"open shop with honey." The news of the Brandeis conference reached the
cloak makers through the bulletins of this paper; and during its progress
and after its close, frantic crowds stood before the office on the lower
East Side, waiting for these bulletins, eager for the victory of the
closed shop, the panacea for all industrial evils.

After the decision of the leaders, after the breaking of the conference,
the cloak makers who had settled gave fifteen per cent of their wages to
support those standing out for the closed shop, and volunteered to give
fifty per cent. The _Vorwaerts_ headed a subscription list with $2000 for
the strikers, and collected $50,000. A furore for the closed shop arose.
Young boys and bearded old men and young women came to the office and
offered half their wages, three-quarters of their wages. One boy offered
to give all his wages and sell papers for his living. Every day the
office was besieged by committees, appointed by the men and women in the
settled shops, asking to contribute to the cause more than the percentage
determined by the Union. These were men and women accustomed to enduring
hardsh