The Potters Herald

The strike committee is made up of the executive board, the plant bargaining committee, and the chairman of the Flying Squadron. Each local has a distinguishing mark for its Flying Squadron, and that of Dodge is a blue fatigue cap, with "Flying Squadron" in yellow. The squadron is on watch 24 hours a day.

The Publicity Committee was meeting, and they let me sit in. They were discussing the material for the next issue of the weekly paper, and the meeting was so full of pep it reminded me of the Provincetown Players who first put on Eugene O'Neill's plays. They took up the case of a man who had been burned out, and had lost his children. They didn't know yet whether he was a UMW member, but welfare was to deal with his case immediately. Next they took up an article about activities for wives. You've got to make the women at home understand what the strike is about, was the gist of the article.

"You take this piece of literature which told all about the strike," some one said, "it was given away at the gates and in the Union Hall. How many men troubled to take it home? The women sit home and half the time all they know about a strike is that there is no pay check."

"Yes," said someone else, "you know well enough that our dress-making classes and our dancing classes for the kiddies have had more criticism than anything else."

This had a familiar ring. As long as I have been in the labor movement, most men wait until there's a strike before they feel something must be done about the little woman.

Then followed a piece on the Union-wide blood bank the Union has set up. "Sign up for Blood Donations. When you donate a pint of blood it is like putting money in the bank. You never know when you and your wife and kid may need it," the article said.

So the contributions ranged over the whole strike activities, from pensions to blood banks. When I was called away far too soon, someone was reading an article on the H-Bomb and what to do about it. I passed through the Welfare Room where the strikers were being screened for relief, and back through the kitchen again, feeling I had only had a glimpse of this militant Local.