reasons of dissatisfaction with the terms of their
trade.

The factories had continued work with strike breakers. Some of the
companies had stationed women of the street and their cadets in front of
the shops to insult and attack the Union members whenever they came to
speak to their fellow-workers and to try to dissuade them from selling
their work on unfair terms. Some had employed special police protection
and thugs against the pickets.

There is, of course, no law against picketing. Every one in the United
States has as clear a legal right to address another person peaceably on
the subject of his belief in selling his work as on the subject of his
belief in the tariff. But on the 19th of October ten girls belonging to
the Union, who had been talking peaceably on the day before with some of
the strike breakers, were suddenly arrested as they were walking quietly
along the street, were charged with disorderly conduct, arraigned in the
Jefferson Market Court, and fined $1 each. The chairman of the strikers
from one shop was set upon by a gang of thugs while he was collecting
funds, and beaten and maimed so that he was confined to his bed for
weeks.

A girl of nineteen, one of the strikers, as she was walking home one
afternoon was attacked in the open daylight by a thug, who struck her in
the side and broke one of her ribs. She was in bed for four weeks, and
will always be somewhat disabled by her injury. These and other illegal
oppressions visited on the strikers roused a number of members of the
Woman's Trade-Union League to assist the girls in peaceful picketing.

Early in November, a policeman arrested Miss Mary E. Dreier, the
President of the Woman's Trade-Union League, because she entered into a
quiet conversation with one of the strike breakers. Miss Dreier is a
woman of large independent means, socially well known throughout New York
and Brooklyn. When the sergeant recognized her as she came into the
station, he at once discharged her case, reprimanded the officer, and
assured Miss Dreier that she would never have been arrested if they had
known who she was.

This flat instance of discrimination inspired the officers of the Woman's
Trade-Union League to protest to Police Commissioner Baker against the
arbitrary oppression of the strikers by the policemen. He was asked to
investigate the action of the police. He replied that the pickets would
in future receive as much consideration as other people. The atti