tude of
the police did not, however, change.

It was to these events, as Natalya Urusova found, that the foreman of the
Bruch factory had referred when he asked the girls, with a sneer, why
they didn't join their "sisters." Going to the Union headquarters on
Clinton Street, she learned all she could about the Union. Afterward, in
the Bruch factory, whenever any complaints arose, she would say casually,
in pretended helplessness, "But what can we do? Is there any way to
change this?" Vague suggestions of the Union headquarters would arise,
and she would inquire into this eagerly and would pretend to allow
herself to be led to Clinton Street. So, little by little, as the long
hours and low wages and impudence from the foreman continued, she induced
about sixty girls to understand about organization and to consider it
favorably.

On the evening of the 22d of November, Natalya, and how many others from
the factory she could not tell, attended a mass meeting at Cooper Union,
of which they had been informed by hand-bills. It was called for the
purpose of discussing a general strike of shirt-waist workers in New York
City. The hall was packed. Overflow meetings were held at Beethoven Hall,
Manhattan Lyceum, and Astoria Hall. In the Cooper Union addresses were
delivered by Samuel Gompers, by Miss Dreier, and by many others.
Finally, a girl of eighteen asked the chairman for the privilege of the
floor. She said: "I have listened to all the speeches. I am one who
thinks and feels from the things they describe. I, too, have worked and
suffered. I am tired of the talking. I move that we go on a general
strike."

The meeting broke into wild applause. The motion was unanimously
indorsed. The chairman, Mr. Feigenbaum, a Union officer, rapped on the
table. "Do you mean faith?" he called to the workers. "Will you take the
old Jewish oath?" Thousands of right hands were held up and the whole
audience repeated in Yiddish:[14] "If I turn traitor to the cause I now
pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise."

This was the beginning of the general shirt-waist strike. A committee of
fifteen girls and one boy was appointed at the Cooper Union meeting, and
went from one to the other of the overflow meetings, where the same
motion was offered and unanimously indorsed.

II

"But I did not know how many workers in my shop had taken that oath at
that meeting. I could not tell how many would go on strike in our factory
the next