Pray for the dead
And fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones
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WE NEVER FORGET
Mamie Fasig-13
Member: Industrial Workers of the World
Lancaster Silk Strike
November 19, 1907
From The Industrial Union Bulletin of December 7, 1907:
The Striking Silk Workers
…In Lancaster the recently chartered local of the I. W. W. is fighting bravely against one of the most bitter enemies of organized labor. Mr. J. E. Stehli, a man who with his two sons and a brother (a general in the Swiss army), owns several large mills in Switzerland, France and Italy, besides the one owned by that family in Lancaster.
The strike is now in progress four weeks and the girls and men and children are standing out firmly, although it is their first strike, their first battle. And it is a battle, indeed.
On Friday they all marched out to give the last escort to one of the little comrades who died, a victim of the cruel conduct of the firm.
In order to humiliate the strikers the firm’s representative superintendent, Mr. Schnabeli (whom the firm imported from Switzerland), had issued the order that the strikers would not be paid off at the mill, but at a small store on Grand street. Upon arriving there the strikers were not permitted to enter the store but were paid off through the window. Here all the men as well as girls had to stand in a drenching rain for a long time.
Mamie Farig [Fasig], one of the youngest I. W. W. members, 15 [13] years old, caught cold and died several days after, a victim of capitalist brutality. A wreath of red carnations bearing the I. W. W. emblem was laid on her grave.