Speech by Rose Schneiderman at Metropolitan Opera House meeting to protest the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire April 2, 1911. From: Leon Stein, ed., Out of the Sweatshop: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy (New York: Quadrangle/New Times Book Company, 1977), pp. 196-197. First published in The Survey, April 8, 1911.
Date / time
2 April 1911
Transcript
I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting. The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these things are today; the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews are the high-powered and swift machinery close to which we must work, and the rack is here in the firetrap structures that will destroy us the minute they catch on fire.
Jewish Women's Archive. "Rose Schneiderman Speech at Metropolitan Opera House, April 2, 1911." (Viewed on April 19, 2024) <http://jwa.org/media/metropolitan-opera-house-meeting-to-protest-triangle-shirtwaist-fire-speech-by-rose-schneiderm>.