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By Root 947 0

York City official. She spoke to a mass meeting of the Women’s Auxiliary at the Pengelly Building and mentioned—unfortunately without documentation—a confrontation that had occurred between workers and GM president William Knudsen just before Christmas. Because the workers were “a bunch of slobs,” he reportedly said, they would not get any Christmas bonuses. The workers supposedly told him what he could do with his bonuses and began shouting “Knuts to Knudsen!” Rose Pesotta, an official with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, also spoke to the EBs, and novelist Josephine Herbst told the EBs to “hold the line!”65

GM spokesmen fought back against these descriptions and charges. Alfred P. Sloan Jr., GM president of the board, wrote a general letter to the Flint workers telling them, among other things, not to worry about claims that if the union won, nonunionists would be out of a job. This was propaganda, he said, of the worst sort. “General Motors grew up on the principal that a worker’s job and his promotion depend on his own individual ability—not the say-so of any labor union dictators.”66 Some of the sit-downers showed their opinions of Mr. Sloan by writing this little ditty:

Oh Mr. Sloan, Oh Mr. Sloan

We’ve known for a long time

You would atone

For the Wrongs that you have done

We all know, yes everyone

Absolutely Mr. Sloan

Positively Mr. Sloan

Oh Mr. Sloan, Oh Mr. Sloan

Our homes are what we all now wish to own

But living costs are high

So we are out to do or die

Absolutely Mr. Sloan

Positively Mr. Sloan.67

Sibyl N. Walker, a member of the EB, gave her opinion of the top leadership at GM:

Wishie Washie

Wishie Washie

Give them soap

We’ve got old Sloan’s

and Billy’s [Knudsen] goat

We’ll wash ’em and scrub ’em

And bring ’em to time

Then hang ’em to dry

On the old picket line.68

The UAW leadership also struck back at Sloan’s assertions. Homer Martin, president of the union, despite having been described by his enemies as a “drunken butterfly” who “didn’t know from one minute to another what he was going to do,”69 wrote clearly to Sloan that at 78.6 cents an hour at forty hours a week, the average GM employee did not make enough money to buy even the cheapest GM product.70 This was social vision? Not likely, scoffed Martin and the vast majority of his membership.

In addition to bringing in speakers and publicizing the opinions of strike and corporate officials, the EBs also launched an all-out effort against what they perceived to be a continuing program of propaganda and intimidation sponsored by GM. They began to deliver letters to the sit-downers from their wives, and many of these letters painted stark, realistic pictures of what it was like to be an industrial worker during the Great Depression:

“Patient wife and baby” needed to pay the house rent. “If you will sen[d] me your badge I can get your check. . . . I am going to welfare tomorrow. Are you getting enough to eat? And are you warm? . . . Well honey, I wish they would hurry up and settle it. I want you to be home.”71

“Dearest Joe: . . . I will send your banjo and other things. . . . I hope you have enough clothes. . . . I sure am glad to hear you miss me and Melba. We all miss you. But don’t give up. It won’t be long.”

“Dearest Vess: Heard there was flu and dysentery in the plants. If you are sick, come home. Don’t stay there and get worse. There is work at the union to do without staying in there. . . . Sure hope with all my heart the union wins and show[s] some of these people a thing or two.”

“Dear Dad: Crowds at the Pengelly: thick and fast they come. . . . 1–2–3–4 who are we for? Sitters in! Sitters In! Boy oh boy! Hold the fort, for we are with you . . . heart and hand and soul we’re with you. . . . Lots of Love to Daddy; Marja.”

“Happy birthday, hubby dear. Keep up the good work. I was in the big workers parade yesterday. Wish you could have been with me. . . . Wife and daughter Minnie and Ann. P.S. The strike is almost won for us.”

And the men wrote home, in particular about the GM tactic of telling the women