Excerpt from “How I Became Part of the Labor Movement” by John W. Anderson

After about a month a number of organizations, rivals and sometimes enemies of the CP [Communist Party USA] became interested in the[1933 Briggs] strike. The Proletarian Party passed out two leaflets to workers in the area of the strike giving them support. The Socialist Party began holding public meetings in Detroit and New York City for the purpose of raising money and gaining public support for the strike. As a result of meetings sponsored by the Detroit branch of the Socialist Party I decided to join that party. But SP support of the strike was limited to holding meetings and collecting funds. The AFL had previously labeled the strike as a wildcat, which meant that picket lines need not be respected, but now Frank X. Martel, president of the Detroit AFL, came out in support of the strike.

The IWW rented an upstairs flat in Highland Park which they used as a soup kitchen and an office for the purpose of recruiting new members and giving support to the strike. John Oneka, George Lutzai and other 1ww members went to the farms around Detroit and collected truckloads of potatoes, carrots, onions and cabbage to make soup for the strike kitchens. They went to the bakeries and got day-old bread, buns and rolls. They went to the dairies and got surplus milk and chocolate milk that otherwise would have been dumped into the sewers for lack of customers who could afford the milk. The IWW fed all who came to their hall.

A number of developments changed the leadership of the strike. The CP, wanting to exploit the strike for its own purposes, called a meeting of the strikers at a hall called Dance Land. Having had no previous experience with left-wing politics, a number of strikers and members of the strike committee attended the meeting. They got me to go on the platform to say a few words. When we realized that the purpose of the meeting was to recruit new members to the Communist Party, we knew we had been used by the CP. The reaction on the strike was immediate.

At about this time Phil Raymond was arrested by the Detroit police and held for several days. He wasn’t charged with anything. They knew he was a member of the Communist Party and a leader in the strike. It took a writ of habeas corpus to get him out.

During Raymond’s incarceration, Frank Cedervall of the IWW was invited to speak to the strikers in their hall on Mack Avenue. Cedervall was an unemployed plasterer who had never worked in an auto plant but he was a powerful speaker of great sincerity and ability who did much to build up the morale of the strikers. The strike committee, now hostile to the CP, voted to remove Phil Raymond as the speaker at our daily mass meetings and invited Frank Cedervall to replace him. Phil Raymond and his group then announced that they would no longer support the strike and they urged the strikers to return to work.

Cedervall soon won the respect of not only the strike committee but of most of the strikers. He was looked upon more as an individual. While most of us knew the IWW was a radical organization it did not have the foreign connotation of the CP. It was more of an Americanized approach.

I spent most of my time at the Mack strike committee headquarters. We had a joint strike committee, I being the representative from Highland Park. Once when we were holding a mass meeting we received a call from the Highland Park strike committee saying that the Michigan State Police were about to break up the picket lines there. We rushed all the strikers we could get to reinforce the Highland Park picket lines. Our forces were too small to defy the State and Highland Park police. Picketing came to an end there the latter part of March.

Soon after the busting up of the picket lines, I was walking from the IWW hall and kitchen toward the plant. The Highland Park police picked me up and took me to police headquarters. I was brought before the chief of police, Dan Patch. He seemed a kindly man who was sympathetic to the workers on strike. He said he had attended some of the mass meetings and that I had a strong influence over my audience. After hearing me speak he was of the opinion that I was a potentially dangerous man. When he said the strike was instigated by Communists I asked him, “Was the Boston police strike of 1920 led by Communists?” He made no reply.

Transcribed by Juan Conatz