The Long and Terrible Strike of 1922
In January 1922, the small Warwick village of Pontiac was changed
drastically by one of the area's longest and most devastating strikes.
Before the eight month walkout ended, there was widespread turmoil and
suffering throughout the Pawtuxet Valley.
Breadlines and violence
Mills closed, nearly 5000 workers were idle, breadlines formed, armed
soldiers patrolled the villages, and nearly all business activity
ceased. The villagers in Pontiac soon found that the prosperous period
that followed World War I was over. For many decades, the village had
been dominated by the Knight family and had accepted the paternalistic
rule of Robert Knight and his son, Webster. This ended when Webster
Knight and his brother, C. Prescott Knight, sold their mills to the
Consolidated Textile Corporation. The new owners purchased the B. B.
& R. Knight name and the "Fruit of the Loom" trademark, hoping to
continue to enjoy the high profits as the Knights had for so many
decades.
Foreign Competition
Almost immediately, however, they found this was not going to occur as
they began to suffer losses because of a declining market and
competition from the South and from Europe. The attempt was made to
lower prices to increase the demand for the product and to eliminate
competition.
Wages cut
In 1921, to cut costs the company lowered wages by 22.5% and increased
the number of hours operatives were required to work per week. Mill
workers in Pontiac grumbled, but continued to work with the hope that
an increase in demand would bring prosperity to the mill owners and
earlier pay cuts would be restored.
On January 20, 1922, these hopes were lost as news reached the village
that the Goddard Brothers and the owners of the B. B. & R. Knight
Company were going to cut wages an additional 20 22%. The plants
immediately affected were the ones at Riverpoint, Phenix, Arctic,
Centreville, and Hope. It was felt that the mill workers in Natick and
Pontiac would also suffer the same wage losses. Their fears increased
when it was learned that the operatives in Crompton, Arkwright, and
Harris were getting a reduction in wages.
Strike
On January 21, 1922, 250 weavers at the Royal Mill in Riverpoint and
workers in the Natick and Pontiac mills declared a strike. News of the
walkout dominated the front page, even overshadowing the report of the
death of Pope Benedict XV and of three cases of smallpox in Warwick.
The Valley Queen Mill in Riverpoint, now the Bradford Soap Works,
closed and sympathy strikes took place in other mills in the Pawtuxet
Valley. Large numbers of strikers from the Knight mills in Natick and
Riverpoint began going from mill to mill urging their fellow workers to
leave their positions.
According to articles from a 1963 special report on the strike that
appeared in the Pawtuxet Valley Daily Times, "West Warwick police were
called out to prevent what seemed to be inevitable violence...at
Centreville...But trouble was avoided when workers in the
plant...walked out and joined the crowd. The mill closed, making the
total number of unemployed workers 2,874".
Dick & Derrick
Shortly after this, over 3000 strikers met at Vanesse Hall in Phenix
with the objective of getting all mill workers in the Valley to join in
the strike. Within a short time, professional organizers, James A. Dick
and William Derrick, entered Rhode Island. Dick assumed control and
marched the strikers from Phenix to the Pontiac Bleachery to attempt to
persuade the workers in the mills to walk out. The 1963 article in the
Pawtuxet Valley Daily Times reported that, "Warwick police guarded the
bleachery yard, however, and the West Warwick strikers were unable to
get in".
Workers from the Royal Mill in Riverpoint and from the Valley Queen Mill marched to Pontiac to get the workers to leave the mill on strike.