Joe Krause, excerpted from the Textile Trade Union, December 3, 1982

Joe Krause has written our December 2024 monthly memoir. Joe's son-in-law, William A. Greenberg of North Brunswick, N.J., was kind enough to submit Joe's entry for consideration to the JHSNJ  

My name is Joe Krause and I lived in Paterson for 64 years, and as part of the liberal Jewish community there, most of my activities were involved with the textile trade union and the Workmen’s Circle.  I would say that the majority of Paterson’s Jews were connected with the textile industry, either as workers, employers, suppliers, or in other textile allied businesses.

Since Paterson was a well-known textile center, many Jews who had textile experience gravitated to Paterson.  Since they came to this strange new land with its foreign language, new and bewildering customs and alien culture, they tended to band together and live as neighbors and to join organizations that reminded them of their heritage and espoused their beliefs and ideals.  The Workmen’s Circle was such an organization that provided such a haven.  
 
The Workmen’s Circle – the Arbiter Ring – is a Jewish fraternal organization steeped in the Socialist traditions.  It champions civil and human rights.  It supports trade unions.  It is active in political, social and charitable causes and endorses liberal causes.  The newly arrived Jews of like mind eagerly joined the Workmen’s Circle.  My father was among them.
 
The Workmen’s Circle always gave financial and moral aid to the labor unions and is known as the Red Cross to the labor movement.  It has been cited for its outstanding humanitarian achievements and dedication to many democratic causes by many United States presidents, labor leaders and civil rights leaders.  In its prime, Paterson had many branches, including a women’s branch, and had thousands of members.

The Jewish textile worker in those early days often labored 12 hours or more a day, from sunrise past sunset for cheap wages and terribly arduous, hazardous and unsanitary working conditions.  He found spiritual and recreational release in programs sponsored by the Workmen’s Circle, such as concerts, lectures, dramatic offerings and readings, debates and discussions.  The most famous musical artists, the outstanding political, social, and nationally renowned personages would appear at Central High School, Eastside High School, and the “Y” at Van Houten Street.  The Workmen’s Circle also offered its members sick benefits, life insurance, medical clinics, tuberculosis sanitariums and funeral and cemetery provisions.
 
It is relevant to record the economic, social, and humanitarian differences of the textile worker’s situation before and after he entered the trade union.  He gained the right to bargain and negotiate with his employer to establish his wages, improve his working conditions, and to process his grievances peacefully and to properly take them to their final and logical conclusion—binding arbitration.  Of paramount importance, the worker achieved the priceless peace of mind of job security through seniority and the grievance procedure.  Now the worker is protected by hospital, medical, surgical, and life insurances.  He also has severance pay and other fringe benefits.  The union has improved the textile worker’s quality of life immeasurably.

The Workmen’s Circle branches used to meet in halls on River Street, Governor Street, and Bridge Street.  In the 1930s, the Paterson Workmen’s Circle built their own building on Carroll Street and
12the Avenue and they named it the Labor Lyceum.  They now had a nice new building and one central, convenient place to hold their meetings and social functions.  November 1, 1936, my wife and I were the first couple to be married in the Labor Lyceum.  As the city’s neighborhoods changed, the Workmen’s Circle, in the 1960s, bought a house on East 29th Street and 12th Avenue for their headquarters. 

Several years ago, as their membership dwindled and only one branch remained in Paterson, they also sold that building.  Now, only Branch 121 is left and that branch meets periodically at Temple Emanuel, Paterson. {This information was correct in 1982.}