spoke some 45 different languages. With an eye to the fact that the bosses would try to exploit ethnic and language differences among workers, the strike committee was made up of four representatives from each ethnic group, with alternates in case something should happen to the initial representatives.

Workers kept scabs from entering the factories with mass pickets--typically involving not dozens but thousands of workers marching in an impenetrable line that completely encircled the mills.

The strike committee organized relief for workers and their families. And when the financial hardship caused by the walkout became too heavy a burden, Lawrence strikers repeated a tactic used in Italy and France, calling on workers in other cities to volunteer to provide a home for strikers' children for the course of the struggle.Workers in many cities answered the call, and parades of children were organized to board train for cities where supporters waited to take them in.

Meanwhile, the textile bosses of Lawrence stopped at nothing in their campaign against the mill workers.

In the first weeks, a provocateur was hired to plant dynamite so the strikers could be blamed. Later, when a striking worker, Anna Lo Pizzo, was shot during a clash with police, the bosses claimed IWW leaders Ettor and Giovannitti "incited" the violence and therefore were "accessories" to murder. They were jailed.

When slander didn't work, the bosses could depend upon police and troops, in addition to hired goons, to fight in their interests. One of the worst incidents happened on February 24 when police attacked a parade of Lawrence