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Archive Transcript: Minutes

Minutes from the June 6, 1932 Meeting

SPECIAL MEETING of the GENERAL EXECUTIVE BOARD
(New York Members)

International Building

June 6, 1932

PRESENT: All the members.

Secretary Dubinsky presided and placed before the Board the business of arranging for the public funeral of President Schlesinger, who died at the Cragmor Sanatorium in Colorado Springs at 4 o'clock in the morning.

The Board, on motion duly made and seconded, delegated Vice-presidents Louis Levy and Joseph Breslaw to leave the same day for Chicago to meet the body and to escort it to New York. It was brought to the International Auditorium, there to remain all night surrounded by a guard of honor; Thursday morning the doors of the auditorium to be open from 8 to 11 A.M. for members of the International to pay their last respects and services to be held immediately thereafter. After the rites at the International building, the funeral procession is to proceed to the Forward building, where additional services will be preformed, and then on to Mt. Carmel Cemetery for interment.

On motion, duly made and seconded, it was further decided that the following announcement be made in the press, advising the membership of the death of President Schlesinger and calling upon them to participate in the funeral:

"TO ALL THE MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS' UNION

Brothers and Sisters:

President Schlesinger is dead.

The stubborn fight which the beloved leader of our Union has waged for the past three, four years for his life and the remarkable power of resistance which he displayed during that period combating the destructive maladies which had plagued and tortured him, is finally at an end.

Quite unexpectedly, at a time when his thousands of friends, co-workers and admirers had hoped that the health giving air of the Colorado mountains would mend his broken down health, the frightful news reached us that he died four days after leaving New York.

Brothers and Sisters! Our entire International, all our locals and our membership have suffered a terrible blow. Our loss is too great and the wound is still too fresh for us to be able to appraise in words the magnitude of this blow. The name Schlesinger is too closely bound up with the entire historic development of our organization, with the days of its early growth as well as with all other subsequent struggles the International has passed thru in forty years.

The heart freezes, the mind revolts at the thought that Benjamin Schlesinger, whose dynamic force has continually driven our organization on the path of unbroken achievement, whose name always served as a symbol of union force and union advancement, is no more with us.

The history of the immigrant working masses in America, the history of the American Labor movement we know will properly appraise Schlesinger's important historic role in the fight of our workers for a better life and a brighter future. At this moment, under the impact of the horrible blow which has struck us, we all stand with head bowed and spirits shattered.

Sisters and Brothers! Thursday our deceased president will be brought to his eternal rest. Arrangements have been made that the body of our president be placed upon its arrival from Chicago in the International auditorium. On Thursday, from 8 to 11 A.M. the doors of the auditorium will be open for all members of the International to come and bid him farewell for the last time. The funeral procession will begin at noon from our headquarters after eulogies will have been delivered, toward the Forward Hall, 175 East Broadway, where the general public and representatives of the Labor movement will come to take final leave of him.

In the name of the General Executive Board we call upon you to take part in this great public funeral to render the final hour to the late builder, organizer and spokesman of our organization.

  1. GENERAL EXECUTIVE BOARD
  2. David Dubinsky, General Secretary-Treasurer
  3. Salvatore Ninfo, First Vice-President
  4. Isidore Nagler
  5. Louis Levy
  6. Morris Bialis
  7. Joseph Breslaw
  8. Julius Hochman
  9. Chas. Kreindler
  10. Luigi Antonini
  11. Jacob Heller
  12. Philip Kramer
  13. Elias Reisberg
  14. George Rubin
  15. Nicholas Kirtzman
  16. Israel Feinberg
  17. Basilio Desti"

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On the funeral arrangements committee there were appointed Vice-presidents Nagler, Hochman, Kirtzman, Heller, Antonini, Desti, Secretary Dubinsky, as well as Bro. Max D. Danish, editor of "Justice", Harry Wander, manger of the out-of-town department, Bro. Crivello, secy of the Dress Joint Board, Bro. Ashbes, secretary of the Cloak Joint Board, and Bro. Perlmutter, manager of Local 10.

The meeting was thereupon adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,
David Dubinsky (SIGNED)
GENERAL SECRETARY-TREASURER