From Long Ago to Today
From Long Ago to Today: My 60 Years of Life and Struggle in the Workers’ Movement
Fun Waytn Amol Un Haynt
By Morris Goldowsky
New York, 1959
Printed in the United States Futuro Press, 476 Broadway, New York 13, N.Y.
Contents
- Foreword by N. Khanin — 3
- Greeting by Morris Kovler — 5
- Morris Goldowsky — A Complete Trade Unionist and Socialist — by Y. Fogel — 7
- Foreword by the Author — 9
- Part One: Childhood Years — 11
- Part Two: In the Russian Revolutionary Movement — 37
- Part Three: “Green Years” in America — 77
- Part Four: Building the Jewish Workers’ Movement — 111
- Part Five: Summing Up a Life — 237
(page 3)
A Foreword
I read the manuscript of our comrade Morris Goldowsky with great interest.
I am a lover of memoirs. Every book or manuscript of this kind that falls into my hands, I read with the greatest interest. I have a special interest in the memoirs of people who come from shap, or who have been and are active in the Jewish workers' movement. The reason for my special interest perhaps lies in the fact that the life they have lived through is, to a great extent, also my life.
Most of the memoirs of this kind that I have read are by people who began their activities in the Old Country in the socialist or other revolutionary movements; they later came to America, remained faithful to the workers' movement, and here continued their activities with the same socialist enthusiasm as in the Old Country.
Morris Goldowsky begins his memoirs with his childhood years. A boy from a religious Jewish home, he became a socialist; precisely at that time—and in this respect he was an exception—when socialist thought among Jewish workers was dominated by the Bund, he instead became very active in the “Gvishar” socialist movement, which among us in Lithuania was known under the name “Iskra.” According to his descriptions, he was very active and went through all the paths of a revolutionary in the Old Country: prison, Siberia, etc.
When he came to America and became a presser here, he devoted his entire life to the “International.”
When I read memoirs, it is not important to me whether all the facts are historically exact, because I am certain that he has described all the facts and events as they were reflected in him and remained in his memory. And that gives a true picture of the person and of his life.
I read every chapter with great interest. Each chapter refreshed in my memory a great many moments from our life and struggle during the past 50 years. From this standpoint alone, it is an interesting book and one that reads with great interest.
The socialists of the Old Country, the active workers in the Jewish workers' movement during the past 50 years, and also the cloakmakers, will read this book with great interest.
N. Khanin
(note: Nokhum (Nathan) Khanin (1885/86–1965), Jewish socialist, labor leader, Yiddish writer, and Workmen's Circle leader. https://congressforjewishculture.org/people/3706/Khanin-Nokhum-Nathan-Chanin )
(page 5)
A Greeting
On the occasion of the publication of this book of memoirs by our brother Morris Goldowsky, it is more than fitting that the manager of the Cloak Pressers Union, Local 35, where Goldowsky spent many years as an officer, should greet him for undertaking to describe in a book his personal life story, which is closely connected with the history of our Cloakmakers’ Union and of our Local 35.
Life endowed our brother Morris Goldowsky with the gift of being an observer with a good nature: of being able to get along with and befriend people—and to work together with them in the various trade unions and socialist organizations where he happened to be one of the leaders or active co-workers. As such, with his good qualities, I remember him as an officer of our Cloak Pressers Local 35, from which he retired from his work several years ago, after decades of activity.
It may be that Morris Goldowsky is the most suitable person to convey the historical facts of the last half-century, because during the more than four decades that I myself have been connected with Local 35, there truly was not a single important moment around us in which Goldowsky was not directly involved. Thus, one cannot pass over the great, historic Cloakmakers’ strike of 1910 without finding Goldowsky there.
(page 6)
We come to the year 1916, the year of the struggle for the existence of the Cloakmakers’ Union—and here too Goldowsky was involved. We come to the difficult and bitter period of strikes in the by-then established Cloakmakers’ Union, and here too we encounter Goldowsky. The “Jewish Gewerkschaften” [Jewish trade unions], where Goldowsky is now president, he also helped in the work on all fronts throughout the many years of their existence.
Now, as that half-century—the “golden era” of building and struggle—is being brought to a close, Morris Goldowsky appears as one who participated in every struggle for a better life here in America, just as he had begun doing in his earlier youth in Tsarist Russia . . .
Therefore we greet him here, in the name of the union and in our own name, on the publication of his book—a description of the era that has passed. This book certainly deserves that everyone who has any interest at all in that period should take the trouble to read it.
Morris Kovler, Manager of the Cloak, Suit, Skirt and Sportswear Pressers Union, Local 35, A. L. G. W. U.
(note: Hard to find anything about Kovler, but he's listed in a Cornell Archive of union correspondence: https://archives.library.cornell.edu/repositories/4/archival_objects/1483760)
(page 7)
Morris Goldowsky — A Complete Trade Unionist and Socialist
Just as Morris Goldowsky devoted a large part of his productive life to the trade-union movement, so, in describing his socialist activity, we will use an industrial comparison.
In the needle trades, such a term as section work is well known. This is a system of production in which each part of the “garment” is made by different hands. The operation can be learned in no time, and it does not require any particular skill. But the old-time tailor, who was skilled in his craft, knew the “garment” from aleph to tav [from A to Z], and he truly put a great deal of knowledge and artistry into his work.
We use this comparison when we think about Goldowsky.
His socialism is not a section-work operation. He does not fulfill his socialist obligations piecemeal; he is a complete socialist, without deviation and without excuses.
Goldowsky comes from the pressers’ room. Pressers, as is well known, are practical, prosaic fellows, and they have never been much given to the ‘sin’ of being dreamers and simply being socialists. Goldowsky, however, is a rare exception in this regard: he has always fought for practical things, and at the same time he has infused practical matters with his faith in a new socialist order.
(page 8)
He could speak enthusiastically about “raising the wages,” as cloak pressers put it, and immediately afterward speak with ecstasy at a May Day demonstration.
Goldowsky has always embodied a synthesis between the practical trade unionist and the visionary socialist. Indeed, it is these two qualities that caused our movement to put down roots in Jewish life in America.
The path Goldowsky follows throughout his entire life is, in fact, the path of the Jewish workers’ movement. It is the way of combining practicality with dreaminess, bread with roses, hard reality with the world of the future.
Goldowsky, therefore, is not a section socialist, but a complete socialist, 24 hours a day.
I am certain that his book, which contains his [substantial / rich] biography, reflects in a striking manner the whole Goldowsky.
If our trade-union movement had had more Goldowskys, perhaps the socialist spirit would not have become so diluted and flattened, because crooked paths can be avoided only when one has faith in one’s heart. That faith exists in Goldowsky’s heart.
Y. Fogel
(note: unsure who Y. Fogel is)
(page 9)
Foreword by the Author
With this autobiography of mine, I do not pretend to write history. I merely wanted to tell the life story of a poor Jewish boy from a religious home who, already in his earliest youth, attached himself to the liberating socialist movement; who passed through the great storms of our time—the First Russian Revolution, exile to Siberia, emigration to America, and participation in the pioneering building of the Jewish workers’ movement in America.
I have described all this here not as objective history, but as it was reflected in my life and as it forged my life. When I began writing these memoirs, I had already been active in the workers’ movement for 60 years, first in the Old Country and afterward here, in America. I was active in it continuously throughout that entire time and served it faithfully as best I could.
How much I gave to the workers’ movement I cannot judge; that can better be judged by the reader who becomes acquainted with this book. But one thing I do know: the workers’ movement personally gave me a great deal—it gave me an ideal and a rich content in life, and it helped me find a solution to many difficult moments in life.
As an expression of my loyalty to this movement, which I served throughout my life, I have written these memoirs.
(page 10)
I want to express my heartfelt thanks to my old good friends and comrades in the struggle, N. Khanin, Morris Kovler, Y. Fogel, and William Wolpert, who formed the committee to publish my book. I thank them for their friendly words with which they open this book, and for their help in general, without which this book could not have seen the light of day.
Finally, I want to express my hope that these memoirs of mine will be a useful contribution to the great and glorious history of the Jewish workers’ movement on both sides of the ocean.
M. G.
(note: William Wolpert — United Hebrew Trades labor leader; later president/executive director of the United Hebrew Trades)
(page 11)
