People : Author : Rose Pesotta Tags

Rose Pesotta
Bread upon the Waters
CHAPTER 10
I Go to Puerto Rico
BACK IN NEW YORKafter the Chicago convention, I explained to President Dubinsky that Ihad done everything in Los Angeles that I had promised, and now intendedto go back to work in a dressmaking shop.
"Anything to prevent it?"
"No," he said, "I wish some of our other vise-presidentswould do that. It would be good for them. But I think you'd be wastingyour time. I can give you something better to do."
"What ?"
"You heard William Lopez's speech about Puerto Rico?"
"Yes."
"Would you like to go there?"
Would I? . . . For me the Lopez speech had been one of the high lightsof the convention. Here was a chance for vital missionary work.
"Lopez is in town," D.D. said when I agreed. "See himand he'll give you a line on what needs to be done."
Next day I lunched with Lopez and Jacob Potofsky of the AmalgamatedClothing Workers, who had visited Puerto Rico in the spring for the NRAand helped frame a Needle Trades Code which now awaited President Roosevelt'ssignature. Both were pleased at the prospect of action in Puerto Rico bythe International.
It was pleasant to contemplate going to this tropical mountain paradisewhich Christopher Columbus had discovered in 1493 and which Ponce de Leon,seeker of the Fountain of Eternal Youth, had colonized. This was the onlyland now under the Stars and Stripes on which Columbus had actually setfoot.
Three and a half days from New York by steamship, and 1,400 miles southeast,Puerto Rico lay 400 miles east of Cuba, with the Atlantic Ocean on thenorth, the Caribbean Sea on the south. A hundred miles long, one thirdas wide, and thus about the size of Maryland, it had a population of about1,500,000, mountains as high as 4,000 feet, produced sugar cane and tobacco,grew luscious fruit, and raised "the finest coffee in the world."
A festive bon voyage dinner was given me by the women members of ourunion. Arranged by Fannia M. Cohn, executive secretary of the educationaldepartment, there were flowers, pleasant speeches, good wishes.
Time sped by. Reminded about medical precautions before entering a tropicalcountry, I consulted Dr. George M. Price, director of our Union HealthCenter, who has since died. I needed to be immunized against malaria, typhoid,and several other diseases. This would require several weeks.
"Then I'll have to forget it. I've got to leave in two days."
Dr. Price said I was taking a big chance. He gave me some advice, warningme especially against drinking unboiled water.
The S. S. Borinquen was sailing on Thursday, July 12, and Lopez andI had booked passage on her. I felt it was important to arrive in San Juanwith him. His report on the convention and my presence would be evidencethat our union meant business in Puerto Rico.
My mother and several friends saw me off. Flowers and fruit had beensent from the ILGWU office. Once more I was departing for a strange land,and again my thoughts took me back to my last day in Russia before comingto the United States. The distance seemed so great that it was like lookingat some loved scene through the wrong end of a telescope.
The ship left her East River pier late in the afternoon. I stood atthe starboard rail until we had passed the Statue of Liberty. Rememberingmy feelings the first time I saw that symbol of hope and promise so manyyears before, I felt a lump in my throat. I led Lopez sternward, to watchthe sunset, as it tinted the buildings and towers of Manhattan with pinkand red and gold. The pink and red faded out, leaving only the gold, andsome lines by Alfred Noyes came to my mind:
There's a barrel-organ caroling along a golden street, In the city whenthe sun sinks low.
Slowly shadows crept over the scene, the gold was gone, and dusk fell.We moved past old cargo ships anchored and riding high in the roadstead,ships gray and black and with iron rust showing in great blotches wherethe paint had peeled from their sides. The bare masts of a sailing shipwere outlined against the sky. And a couple of hulks were anchored on theJersey side of the channel. Ferries crossed our path, and motor boats chuggedpast. Staten Island's lights evoked memories of pleasant Sundays therewith Russian friends years before.
Through the Narrows and into the open sea.
Lazily, relaxing completely in slacks, Southern California style, Ispent much of my time in a deck chair. Books from the ship's library toldme more about the wonderland in the West Indies to which I was journeying.
Borinquen was its name when the white men came, so called by its peacefulIndian inhabitants. Columbus gave it a different name --San Juan de Beutista.But Ponce de Leon, coming along a few years later with instructions fromthe Court of Spain to colonize the island, christened it anew. Sailinginto its finest harbor, he exclaimed: "Aye, que puerto rico!"What a rich port! Subsequently this designation was applied to the wholeisland, while the capital built on the harbor shores took on the San Juanname. That city was settled nearly half a century before the first housewas erected in St. Augustine, Florida, oldest settlement on our mainland.
But the arrival of the colonizers marked the beginning of the end forthe Borinquen Indians. Within a hundred years they were wiped out by acombination of forces--enslavement by the Spaniards, hurricanes, attacksby hostile Caribs, and epidemics of smallpox brought in by Negro slavesfrom Africa.
Loafing on the deck as the ship sped on and the air grew balmy, I amusedmyself by speculating on the lives the passengers led on shore. Some, Iknew, were school teachers, and some might have been nurses, sales girls,students. Others were not readily identifiable. Most of the women lookedbored and seemed to be changing clothes constantly. I wondered why. Slackswere so comfortable.
Lopez had a considerable acquaintance among those on board, and he introducedme to two manufacturers who were returning from a business trip. Our talkwas casual, and I avoided touching on the industrial situation, for I wantedthis sea-journey to serve as a vacation. But I did ask them:
"What are the women of Puerto Rico like ?" And one of themen said:
"Many of them are very intelligent, and have the makings of goodbusiness women."
I was up on deck early on Monday, for we were docking before eight.A perfect sub-tropical morning as the ship plowed through the deep blueAtlantic--a fresh breeze, clear blue sky, seagulls soaring above.
Massive stone fortresses stand high and bold upon headlands at the entranceto San Juan's broad landlocked harbor. They were built by the Spaniardslong ago as a protection against attack by pirates or enemy vessels. MorroCastle, oldest of these, was erected in 1539. As late as 1898 it withstoodbombardment--by Admiral Sampson's fleet.
As the Borinquen steamed into San Juan Bay, the sight before me tookmy breath away. Here was a part of the old Spanish town, flanked by anancient sea wall. High above the wall were two palaces, and beside andbeyond these, other houses of graceful Spanish line, with white or pastelsides, roofs of colored tile, and verandas with Moorish arches.
One felt as well as saw the great age of this city. Tall modern buildingsin a newer section to the right could not take away from the charm of theancient ones. To the south, a blue mountain, El Yunque, shimmered in thesun, like a gigantic precious stone.
Native boys, black and brown-skinned, dived from small boats for coinsthrown into the bay by people on the ship. Through the beautifully clearwater one could see their sleek brown bodies bobbing up and down. The pierwas crowded with people--white, bronze, brown, and black, in white clothes,some dingy, some immaculately clean. Twice a week they gathered, as fora social event, to meet the boat from New York.
Out of that crowd I heard my name called: "Welcome to Miss Pesotta!" And then: "Welcome to Mr. Lopez! " Above their heads werewaving hands and fluttering handkerchiefs and a big banner of the PuertoRico Free Federation of Labor. In the forefront of a delegation of about30 was a little dark-skinned young woman holding a huge bouquet of redroses. She was Teresa Anglero, who had made the first move to organizethe island's needle workers three years earlier, and who now headed theirunion.
"How long have you been away from Puerto Rico?" one of theschool teachers asked.
"It's my first trip here. I've come down to work among these people."
"Oh!" and her exclamation seemed to denote a special kindof loneliness. "It must be wonderful to receive such a welcome! "
As we stepped off the gang-plank we were greeted by representativesof the Department of Labor, coworkers of Lopez. Teresa Anglero handedme the roses with a gracious bow. Some of the delegation had traveled allnight to meet the ship.
Teresa gave me telegrams from officials of locals throughout the island,inviting me to visit their cities. I was to live, the girls told me, atthe boarding house where Rose Schneiderman, president of the Women's TradeUnion League, had stayed when she visited Puerto Rico for the NRA severalmonths earlier. This proved to be a large colonial house on the Condado,a historic shore highway. Facing the ocean, the house was set against abackground of dense tropical vegetation.
After I had changed clothes, we went over to the Free Federation Hall,where some 50 members of the union were waiting. I explained the purposeof my coming.
My speech was translated into Spanish by Lopez, a sentence at a time.The ILGWU's decision to organize the Puerto Rico needle workers under itsprotective wing made a deep impression. Here, as in our union in the States,I found women taking the lead. Their hearts were deep in the labor struggle.
After the meeting we mapped out a plan of action. We would make a tourof the cities where there were needle trades factories, set up local unionsin important sections of the island, and start organizational and educationalactivities. Where several small unions existed in a city, each shop comprisingan independent local, we would endeavor to combine these under a singleILGWU charter. Visiting the NRA offices, we talked with those in charge,got copies of the new Code, which was to go into effect on July 19, askedwhat plans they had for enforcing it. They had none; they would get tothat later.... The Code signed by President Roosevelt on June 28 providedfor a wage scale of $2 a week for home workers, instead of the customary$1 paid for 60 to 70 hours of home work, with as many as three personsin a family toiling. The Code also raised the pay of factory workers to$3 and $5 a week, the latter rate being for machine operators. Insteadof 48.hours, the factory employes were to work only 40 hours.
I spent the next three days preparing for our campaign, conferring withthe leaders of the Free Federation of Labor in San Juan and lining up allpossible support. We put out feelers to see what the employers thoughtof a collective agreement. Before any such action could be taken, however,a strong organization must be built up. For I had arrived at a time dreadedby all experienced organizers--in the wake of a lost strike. Recently thetelephone workers, striking to gain better conditions, had met with crushingdefeat.
From Teresa, Sara Alers, chair lady in the Morris Storyk factory, andothers I learned something of the history of our industry in this island.
For generations needlepoint work, embroidery, and other forms of finehand sewing had been taught by the nuns in the Puerto Rican convents. Girlsin middle and upper class families took pride in acquiring skill with theneedle, making exquisite table linens, lingerie, dresses, blouses, handkerchiefs,and dress accessories. Before World War I, however, they used their skillonly for themselves or their own families.
Until then the great sources of such articles for the commercial marketsof the United States and other countries were France, Belgium, and theMadeira Islands. Costs were low and profits large. Then the war cut offthat supply.
Some of the more enterprising needle-point teachers in Puerto Rico gota bright idea that would mean profit for themselves and trade and additionalincome for the island. One of them was designated to go to New York withsamples and establish business contacts.
Thus Puerto Rico got its start as one of the world's principal cheaplabor markets in this field, with China and the Philippines looming asimportant competitors. Factories came in later. Steadily the needle workindustry expanded, and in 20 years became the island's third largest, subordinateonly to sugar and tobacco. Out of an estimated 100,000 needle workers,17,000 were employed in the factories, while the other 83,000 toiled byhand in their homes. Some cutters were employed in the shops; but mostof the raw material was cut to pattern in New York garment shops and sentdown in bundles to the Puerto Rican contractors.
Mayaguez, center of the island's handkerchief industry, afforded anexample of operating methods. Cloth for handkerchiefs was cut in the NewYork factories and shipped to Puerto Rico, hundreds of thousands of piecesat a time. From the sorting department in the Puerto Rican contractors'shops, work would be farmed out to the homes of individual needle workersin bundles of several dozens. The needlepoint and embroidery would be donein those homes in the hills and, by the time the handkerchiefs were returnedto the contractor, they would look like a door-mat for a mud-turtle.
Then came the washing process in the factories; from morning to nightwomen washed and sterilized the handkerchiefs. Special chemical processeswere used to bleach the material without causing damage to the coloredembroidery. I have seen these women standing at the steam wash tubs, theirhands and feet terribly swollen at the joints. Most of them suffered fromarthritis or rheumatism. One owner of a factory told me this was the resultof the chemicals in the water.
Hundreds of dozens of these handkerchiefs were hung on lines for tenor fifteen minutes and then went to the pressing and the shipping department,where young girls folded them in squares and packed them in fancy individualboxes. New York and other city customers would get them at the departmentstores, paying as high as $1 each for handkerchiefs that cost the manufactureronly a few cents. Lingerie, blouses, table linen, children's wear, andother articles went through the same process.
A needle workers' union was established in San Juan in 1931. Other localsfollowed and a strike was staged against a wage cut in one San Juan factory,400 girls walking out. After a month they won their fight and got a unionshop. In 1933 there was a general strike, under the auspices of the FederacionLilbre Del Trabajo (Free Federation of Labor), affiliated with the AmericanFederation of Labor. Thus a collective agreement was won from the NeedleTrades Employers' Association, recognizing the right of the needle workersto bargain collectively. Following this, the Federation set up the UnionDe Trabajadores De Aguja De Puerto Rico (the Needle Trades Workers' Union),each organized shop being designated as a local. San Juan had five locals.
When a girl applied for a job in one of the larger garment factories,she had to fill out an application blank tantamount to an intelligencetest, much like a civil service examination. The back of the applicationbore a personal rating report and instructions to the manager of the establishmentto judge each employee on the following points: Quality in production;quantity of work; industrial intelligence; ability to learn new duties;initiative and creativeness; co-operation; physical quality; leadership.
The manager had to check to make sure each employee was of exceptionalleadership, could co-operate, was in good health, industrious, conscientious,and a rapid worker--all for the munificent sum of $5 a week for 48 hours'work!
The Commissioner of Labor, Prudencio Rivera Martinez, a short dark formercigar maker and now acting president of the Federacion Libre, assured usof all possible co-operation from the Labor Department. One commendablething Theodore Roosevelt Jr. had done during his Governorship was to establishthis department, which (in contrast to some other governmental agenciesin Puerto Rico) was composed of men and women with practical experiencein the labor movement. Most of them were active and earnest trade unionists.
At that time the Labor Department was working on an ambitious rehabilitationplan for homesteads on which to resettle those who lost everything theypossessed during the 1932 cyclone.
Walking in the narrow streets of the capital, one drank in romance atevery turn. The mark of ancient Spain lingered in the fortresses, the Governor'spalace, the cathedral, the mansion built by Ponce de Leon's son, the plaza,the memorial tablets, the statues of warriors and other heroes, the vestigesof the stout walls of masonry that had surrounded San Juan in pirate days,and in a thousand other nooks and corners. On the whole island, only about20,000 persons among a population of 1,500,000 were from the States. ThusSpanish remained the principal language spoken.
Having seen the showplaces of the capital on the first evening withLopez and his wife, I wanted to view the other side of the picture, particularlythe conditions under which the workers lived. A committee of union girlsplanned to visit a sick member, late next afternoon, and I gladly acceptedan invitation to accompany them.
The sick girl and her people lived near the water-front on the bay sideof San Juan, on the edge of a slum section called El Fanguito. Their housewas small, and obviously neglected by the landlord. But inside, the placewas tidy and presentable, a tribute to the ingenuity and grit of the tenants.My companions brought gifts to the invalid, delicacies purchased with hardearned dimes.
When we came away they took me a little farther into El Panguito, "TheLittle Mud," which ought to be called "The Big Mud." WhatI saw now appalled me more than any sight in my past life.
Here were many single-room shacks built on stilts to lift them abovethe mud, shacks thrown together of old boards and pieces of rusty tin.There was of course no plumbing in these "homes," nothing thateven remotely resembled sanitation. Garbage, slops, rubbish of all kinds,and human ordure went into the mud beneath.
Narrow plank walks led to some of the shacks. But to get to others theoccupants had to take off their shoes--if they had shoes-- and wade throughthe muck. Thus they became the prey of hookworm, which thrives in pollutedsoil. Piercing their bare feet, that scourge made its way to the intestines,multiplied, drained their vitality; the result was called tropical anemia.Children, dogs, and pigs also waded in the mud of El Fanguito.
I thought of my home in Ukrainia and the peasants, who used to carrytheir shoes slung over a shoulder, as they walked across the fields ontheir way to town. That was for reasons of economy. "Feet we don'thave to buy," they said. But the soil in which the peasants trod wascomparatively clean. No one in Ukrainia ever heard of hookworm.
My friends led me along a shaky plank to look in on acquaintances wholived in one of the shacks, and to peer through other open doors in therow. The couple we called upon were apologetic for the condition of their"house," as if somehow it was their fault instead of their misfortune.The man had long been jobless and was plainly ill; the woman did needlework, but earned little. For furniture, they had a table and two chairsimprovised from packing boxes. In a corner of the floor were ragged blanketsand a sack of straw, which sufficed for a bed.
Cooking was done on a small open hearth made of stones. Empty coconutshells, from which the tops had been removed, served as cooking vessels,dishes, and cups. Smoke from the hearth ascended through a hole in theroof. Flakes of soot hung from the rafters, and the shack reeked with odors.
The men, women, and children I saw in this slum moved about as if half-dead,the light in their eyes dull. Most of the men were sugar-cane cutters,now unemployed, and their families lived from hand to mouth. I wonderedwhat would be the fate of the children if they grew up.
Odd surprises were in store for me, and a few hours later a strangefright. The windows of my boarding house were without glass and unscreened.My bed was enclosed by a canopy of netting, which buzzing mosquitoes triedto penetrate. Lying in the dark and unable to sleep, I realized that Iwas hungry. On a shelf close by stood candy that had been given me whenI sailed. That would take care of my hunger of the moment.
I reached out carefully under the netting's edge, removed the coverfrom one of the boxes, and picked up a couple of chocolates. Almost instantlyI felt something clutch my wrist, something that moved and writhed. Inanother second the arm was being gripped higher up, and then the pressurewas at the elbow. The sensation was one of horror, but I didn't scream;I couldn't.
My voice was frozen in my throat.
Somehow I kept my head. Whatever this might be, snake or monster, Imust save myself. Reaching up with my other hand, I turned on the electriclight overhead and saw--red and black ants, thousands of them, swarmingover my whole forearm, like some fantastic long glove.
I leaped out of bed and raced to the veranda, brushing off the swarmof ants in frenzy. That took a long time, for some of them clung tenaciouslyto my skin, and bit me, leaving my arm dotted with red marks. After throwingthe candy out, it was a full hour before I got rid of the insects on theshelf and floor.
In the morning, half awake as I lingered in bed, I looked out of oneof the long window openings. It framed three tall coconut palms, set againsta shimmering blue sky. Down the center palm a tiny human figure clad inwhite was moving, as if in a movie set or in a dream. I had to rub my eyesto make sure that I was not asleep. Afterwards I often saw native boys "walk"up and down the trees, feet and hands moving in rhythmic motion.
"The real joy of living in its greatest realization...."
I turned from that line in a brochure, issued for tourists by the insularDepartment of Agriculture and Commerce, to another pamphlet from the samesource, but designed to attract industry. In this I found some revealingstatements.
Among seventeen good reasons listed for establishing industries on thatisland I read that "Puerto Rico's wage scales are reasonable."On other pages the language was more exact:
"Due to the over-population of Puerto Rico, there is always a largesupply of labor available.... Wages in Puerto Rico when compared to thoseon the mainland are very low, in many cases insufficient to adequatelysupport the workers and their families, even if steady employment wereavailable.... Labor agitation, so common in the industrial centers of theNorth, is not found in Puerto Rico." *
That of course was a spur to me. It made me keen to get to Mayaguez,the island's big open shop handkerchief center, where the needle tradesfactory owners had banded together in an association to fight both unionizationand the NRA Code.
I went there on Friday, the day the Code became effective, with Lopez,Teresa Anglero, Sara Alers, and three other active union girls. We spedwestward along a road paralleling the north shore. The country was gorgeous,the roads lined with the red of the flamboyant trees, and the hills andvalleys stretching off into the hinterland lusciously green. But in thisgarden of the gods there was evidence of utter poverty everywhere. On thedoorstep of every hut, women and girls, many of them small children, werebusily sewing linen. The children were spindly-legged, the adults lookedhalf-starved.
Overpopulation . . . 428 persons to the square mile . . . To match thehuman spawning in Puerto Rico, a constant repetition of the miracle ofthe loaves and fishes was needed. But there were no miracles in these moderndays.
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*Puerto Rico: Commercial and Industrial San Juan, 1934 pp. 8, D, 16.The italics are mine.--R.P. 114 .
• Chapter 11 : Island Paradise and Mass Tragedy