My Mother's Politics
Title
My Mother's Politics
Identifier
MY_MOTHER'S_POLITICS
Creator
Jacob Schlitt
Description
"Despite all my mother's personal problems, she seemed to be more consumed with the ill world's problems[.]"
Date
2016-01-02
Coverage
1910/1951
Format
application/pdf
Type
text
Text
MY MOTHER’S POLITICS
Despite all my mother’s personal problems, she seemed to be more consumed with the ill world’s problems: poverty, hunger, sickness, disease, exploitation, war, and hatred, and wondered why so little was being done to deal with them. She “carried on” about these concerns from my earliest days. As a child, it was above my head. Since she had no one else to talk to about them, she talked to me. I would shake my head in agreement, but at the age of six or seven, I really had no idea what she was talking about. To her last days (when I did know what she was talking about) she would denounce injustice, man’s inhumanity to man, and particularly the madness of war.
It seems she thought about these problems all the time, but especially when reading the paper or listening to the news on the radio. It is not unusual for people to respond to news stories that upset them. Some respond by writing letters to the editor. Others respond by speaking out to no one in particular—the newspaper they are reading or the newscaster they are listening to. My mother did both. Frequently, when I came home from school in the evening, she would bombard me with her comments on the day’s events.
What caused my mother to be so concerned about such matters? It may be linked to her involvement in her union and the 1910 Cloakmakers’ strike. Many of the leaders of the union were Socialists, Bundists. Though they had traditional Jewish educations, they rejected religious observance, and advocated political involvement and social change to benefit all workers.
I assume my mother’s first concern when she came to “the Goldene Land” was to survive. She was a skilled tailor working in a sweatshop on the Lower East Side, but she must have had dreams of a time when she would not have to work endlessly for low wages; where she would have enough money for all her needs and for a few luxuries—“Bread and Roses.”
Her concerns may have started earlier. One of the stories she told me was that when she was a girl, a neighbor would visit with news of the outside world, about remarkable inventions, like the telegraph and the telephone, and automobiles. And about America.
Word of the New World had arrived in Vaslui, and several young people decided that there was where their destiny lay. Among them was my mother. What courage it must have taken to decide to leave one’s family and strike out for the unknown. She explained that the money to enable her to embark on such a voyage, came from a French organization called the “Alliance Isrealite.” Groups of young Jews were formed and they walked across Europe to the various ports from which boats left for America. They were know as “Fees-geyers,” literally, “foot-goers.” I imagine the young people shared their hopes and dreams as they walked, talking about what they hoped to find.
And I imagine there were, among the young people, Socialists and Marxists, escaping the Czar, and looking forward to acting on their beliefs in the New World. Others may have been driven by their desire to escape the anti-Semitism under which they lived. All must have heard that America was the land of opportunity, that the streets were paved with gold. How large was her group? How old were they? How were they organized? How long did the journey from Vaslui to a port take? How and where did they eat and sleep? What did they take with them? I have no idea. My mother would have loved to have told me her story, but I was not interested. Not until now, and now it is too late.
Did my mother know of the political events that were taking place around her in Eastern Europe? The growing opposition to autocratic rule; the effort of workers to improve their lot; the demand for democratic government. And within the Jewish world, Zionism, and the enlightenment.
She certainly learned about them soon after she arrived in New York. And she learned first-hand what exploitation and sweatshops were The 1910 Cloakmakers’ Strike must have been transformative. She was 22 years old. She did not know how to read or write. But she knew the rightness of the struggle to create a union, obtain a contract, reduce hours, increase wages, and improve working conditions. She knew that she and her fellow workers were being exploited. And she know that it was only the Socialist Party that supported the workers, and it was her newly formed union, The International Ladies Garment Workers Union, that supported the Socialist Party. Her heroes became Eugene Debs, Morris Hillquit, Meyer Berger, Norman Thomas, and the leaders of her union. And she became a leader in her shop, and was elected to the Executive Board of Cloak Finishers Local 9.
Over the years, new names were added to her list of heroes, and she spoke of them with me. She admired Woodrow Wilson because of his support for the League of Nations, which would put an end to war. To my mother, we were fortunate to have a Mayor like LaGuardia, a Governor like Lehman and a President like Roosevelt. And I guess, she felt the ILGWU was fortunate to have a leader like Dubinsky. Still, she recognized their limitations and the shortcomings of the system—the corrupt Tammany Hall bosses, and the corrupt union Business Agents.
By the 1930’s and 1940’s, my mother followed the ILGWU’s position: she supported the American Labor Party (ALP) when the union helped create it in 1936, and shifted to the Liberal Party when the Communists captured the ALP in 1944. She mourned the death of FDR in 1945, and supported Harry Truman for reelection in 1948, despite my support of Henry Wallace.
Her politics was also reflected in the newspaper she read: The Jewish Day, which had a liberal editorial policy and supported the New Deal. The Forward was Socialist, the Freiheit was Communist, and the Morning Journal was surprisingly Republican.
It was during the last years of her life that my mother reiterated her concerns with which I started this piece: why are we not able to deal with all the injustices in the world? In 1949, at her request, or rather, her insistence, I bought my mother a recording machine to enable her to articulate her concerns. Unfortunately, she did it in Yiddish and I have been unable to translate her remarks. And over the years the sound quality has deteriorated.
And she was a Zionist, thrilled at the thought of a Jewish state. Among her heroes were Theodore Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, Rabbi Stephen Wise, and David Ben-Gurion. One of the last big purchases she made was an Israel bond. Toward the end of her life, my mother dreamed of visiting Israel when she retired, which she hoped to do at 65 in 1953. She died in 1951.
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Despite all my mother’s personal problems, she seemed to be more consumed with the ill world’s problems: poverty, hunger, sickness, disease, exploitation, war, and hatred, and wondered why so little was being done to deal with them. She “carried on” about these concerns from my earliest days. As a child, it was above my head. Since she had no one else to talk to about them, she talked to me. I would shake my head in agreement, but at the age of six or seven, I really had no idea what she was talking about. To her last days (when I did know what she was talking about) she would denounce injustice, man’s inhumanity to man, and particularly the madness of war.
It seems she thought about these problems all the time, but especially when reading the paper or listening to the news on the radio. It is not unusual for people to respond to news stories that upset them. Some respond by writing letters to the editor. Others respond by speaking out to no one in particular—the newspaper they are reading or the newscaster they are listening to. My mother did both. Frequently, when I came home from school in the evening, she would bombard me with her comments on the day’s events.
What caused my mother to be so concerned about such matters? It may be linked to her involvement in her union and the 1910 Cloakmakers’ strike. Many of the leaders of the union were Socialists, Bundists. Though they had traditional Jewish educations, they rejected religious observance, and advocated political involvement and social change to benefit all workers.
I assume my mother’s first concern when she came to “the Goldene Land” was to survive. She was a skilled tailor working in a sweatshop on the Lower East Side, but she must have had dreams of a time when she would not have to work endlessly for low wages; where she would have enough money for all her needs and for a few luxuries—“Bread and Roses.”
Her concerns may have started earlier. One of the stories she told me was that when she was a girl, a neighbor would visit with news of the outside world, about remarkable inventions, like the telegraph and the telephone, and automobiles. And about America.
Word of the New World had arrived in Vaslui, and several young people decided that there was where their destiny lay. Among them was my mother. What courage it must have taken to decide to leave one’s family and strike out for the unknown. She explained that the money to enable her to embark on such a voyage, came from a French organization called the “Alliance Isrealite.” Groups of young Jews were formed and they walked across Europe to the various ports from which boats left for America. They were know as “Fees-geyers,” literally, “foot-goers.” I imagine the young people shared their hopes and dreams as they walked, talking about what they hoped to find.
And I imagine there were, among the young people, Socialists and Marxists, escaping the Czar, and looking forward to acting on their beliefs in the New World. Others may have been driven by their desire to escape the anti-Semitism under which they lived. All must have heard that America was the land of opportunity, that the streets were paved with gold. How large was her group? How old were they? How were they organized? How long did the journey from Vaslui to a port take? How and where did they eat and sleep? What did they take with them? I have no idea. My mother would have loved to have told me her story, but I was not interested. Not until now, and now it is too late.
Did my mother know of the political events that were taking place around her in Eastern Europe? The growing opposition to autocratic rule; the effort of workers to improve their lot; the demand for democratic government. And within the Jewish world, Zionism, and the enlightenment.
She certainly learned about them soon after she arrived in New York. And she learned first-hand what exploitation and sweatshops were The 1910 Cloakmakers’ Strike must have been transformative. She was 22 years old. She did not know how to read or write. But she knew the rightness of the struggle to create a union, obtain a contract, reduce hours, increase wages, and improve working conditions. She knew that she and her fellow workers were being exploited. And she know that it was only the Socialist Party that supported the workers, and it was her newly formed union, The International Ladies Garment Workers Union, that supported the Socialist Party. Her heroes became Eugene Debs, Morris Hillquit, Meyer Berger, Norman Thomas, and the leaders of her union. And she became a leader in her shop, and was elected to the Executive Board of Cloak Finishers Local 9.
Over the years, new names were added to her list of heroes, and she spoke of them with me. She admired Woodrow Wilson because of his support for the League of Nations, which would put an end to war. To my mother, we were fortunate to have a Mayor like LaGuardia, a Governor like Lehman and a President like Roosevelt. And I guess, she felt the ILGWU was fortunate to have a leader like Dubinsky. Still, she recognized their limitations and the shortcomings of the system—the corrupt Tammany Hall bosses, and the corrupt union Business Agents.
By the 1930’s and 1940’s, my mother followed the ILGWU’s position: she supported the American Labor Party (ALP) when the union helped create it in 1936, and shifted to the Liberal Party when the Communists captured the ALP in 1944. She mourned the death of FDR in 1945, and supported Harry Truman for reelection in 1948, despite my support of Henry Wallace.
Her politics was also reflected in the newspaper she read: The Jewish Day, which had a liberal editorial policy and supported the New Deal. The Forward was Socialist, the Freiheit was Communist, and the Morning Journal was surprisingly Republican.
It was during the last years of her life that my mother reiterated her concerns with which I started this piece: why are we not able to deal with all the injustices in the world? In 1949, at her request, or rather, her insistence, I bought my mother a recording machine to enable her to articulate her concerns. Unfortunately, she did it in Yiddish and I have been unable to translate her remarks. And over the years the sound quality has deteriorated.
And she was a Zionist, thrilled at the thought of a Jewish state. Among her heroes were Theodore Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, Rabbi Stephen Wise, and David Ben-Gurion. One of the last big purchases she made was an Israel bond. Toward the end of her life, my mother dreamed of visiting Israel when she retired, which she hoped to do at 65 in 1953. She died in 1951.
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Original Format
application/msword
Collection
Citation
Jacob Schlitt, “My Mother's Politics,” Autobiographical stories & other writing by Jacob Schlitt, accessed March 22, 2025, https://tsirlson.omeka.net/items/show/407.