In Lawrence, policemen busted heads every day for weeks--many students left Harvard to serve in the militia, and, by one report, "all seemed to enjoy a good fling." But the strike committee, with representatives of 24 nationalities, held the strike together. After pictures and newspaper accounts of the violence and the victory, the scene shifts to Angelo Rocco, an old man now. Standing on the banks of the Merrimack, he points across to the brick mills, now abandoned, and says in a heavy accent, "They called us un-American, but I really disagree with that. We were born in a foreign country, sure, but we love America much more than the owners of the mills did."

SO TIMES CHANGE, and conditions get better, and what was once a brutal but necessary struggle is now a pleasant memory, a film history for the United Auto Workers to underwrite. Right--except that the mills in Lawrence are empty for a reason: everyone went down South, where there are no unions, only brown lung, bad money, and the "right to work." Sure--except the AFLCIO, the Teamsters and the rest have become more toadyish than ever, barely squawking when plants close down, doing nothing when presidents decide to put the lower class on welfare so the middle class won't have to suffer inflation. Lane Kirkland, the new George Meany, collects art. Doug Fraser, UAW, sits on the board of Chrysler.

There's this song the Wobbly lumberjacks used to sing:

Oh, we hate this rotten system more than any mortals do.

Our aim is not to patch it up but build it all anew.

And what we'll have for government whenever we are through

Is one big industrial union.

We're gaining shop democracy and liberty and bread

With one big industrial union

Don't worry; they haven't sung that since 1920.