The second injunction order, a widening economic recession, and the falling price of newsprint produced a shift in union rhetoric. By early 1922 the central reason used to justify the strike by the unions ceased to be the issue of wages and instead became the open shop, as strikers increasingly indicated a willingness to accept wage reductions. Strikers were now willing to return to work and accept International Paper's reduced wage scale, but only if the Company would come to the bargaining table and agree to a settlement in a contract. Many strikers, particularly those within the Palmer locals, by insisting on a contract for the reduced wage scale, were indicating that they were determined not to return to pre-1910 conditions when most paperworkers labored without a wage agreement.

Allen Curtis, 1921

Several third parties were enlisted to arrange a meeting bewteen the Compnay and the unions to discuss a contract, including International Paper Vice-President, Allen Curtis, who was the son of Warren Curtis, the founder of Corinth's Hudson River Pulp and Paper Company. Allen Curtis was born and schooled in Corinth, had gone to work for International Paper soon after graduation from college. By 1921 he had attained the position of Manufacturing Manager and was a Director of the Company. It is not clear exactly how Allen Curtis was approached with the request to mediate the issue, or what his views were, but he failed to provide the support that the locals expected.

Labor activists in Corinth were forced to work within a more challenging local environment beginning in early 1922. Nine months of unemployment and the harsh winter of 1921-22 had produced a serious relief crisis within the community. Requests for clothing, food and fuel from strikers increased to the point that IBPSPMW local President Bat Doody asked John Burke to raise Local No. 7's weekly strike disbursement from $500 to $700. With the treasury of his local depleted, Doody made it clear to Burke that providing for the essential needs in the community was crucial if Palmer strikers were to keep their ranks intact.

John P. Burke Working at IBPSPMW Office, 1920's

The plea for strike relief by Doody corresponds in time with the increase in scabbing by Hudson River Mill strikers that had begun in December. By mid-February 1922, thirty of the 643 Palmer strikers had returned to the Mill to work. While representing only a fraction of the Palmer work force, these initial defections prompted a transition in the way the strike was conducted. Before scabbing began, strikers had been able to focus their resistance on strikebreakers and Company management, but now the opposition included neighbors, in-laws and even former co-workers.

The initial defection of strikers created a perceptible fault line within the community. Increasingly, the struggle against International Paper was contested within the heart of the Corinth community. Wives, children and the relatives of scabbing strikers became the object of public ridicule, and acts of aggression on citizens became commonplace. A striker who decided to scab could expect to have his barn or garage dynamited, or his front porch set on fire. So dangerous were the streets of the Village, and so prepared for violence were those who traveled through the community, that in March 1922 Saratoga County Judge Lawrence McKelvey ordered a moratorium on the issuance of hand-gun permits to Corinth residents, arguing that too many people in the community were walking the streets armed.

Post-card view of Palmer Avenue

The initial scabbing by strikers at the Hudson River Mill, and the community debate that followed Maurice Jones' effort to exploit the cases of typhoid within the Mill's 226-bed worker dormitory, coincided with the 1922 Village elections. The incumbent President was quickly re-nominated by Republicans. Inspired by what was perceived as a growing anti-Jones sentiment within the community, some Village Democrats tried to nominate a candidate to challenge Jones. After strikers among the Democrats thwarted the nomination effort, virtually overnight a new community force - calling itself the Union Party - emerged on the local political landscape.

The issue in the 1922 Village election, its candidates argued, was not whether the community would continue to support the strike against International Paper, but whether Corinthians wanted to be governed by law or by force. The Union Party's law and order platform sought the complete disengagement of organized labor from Village interests, arguing that the conduct of Village affairs was being managed from the union headquarters in Ft. Edward and Albany. The mean-spirited and personal attacks against both candidates that characterized the election, that served only to further polarize Corinthians around the issue of the social costs to the community for its support for the strike, ended with Maurice Jones being reelected Village President and Chief of Police by a two-to-one margin.

Maurice Jones Family, 1921

While Corinth strikers continued to believe in the spring of 1922 that a victory might still be won, IBPSPMW President John Burke was writing privately that he believed the strike to be fruitless. International Paper was still losing money in 1922, but Burke understood that the Company was fiercely committed to the American Plan and that it had the financial resources to outlast the unions. For Burke, the situation became even more problematic when a group of paper manufacturers, led by St. Regis Corporation President, Floyd Carlisle, moved to implement the open shop in its mills in 1922. The Carlyle group of companies was willing to sign a contract with the IBPM, but refused to do so with the lesser skilled IBPSPMW members. By the summer of 1922, the largest and most powerful companies in the paper industry had succeeded in both sharply reducing wages and dividing the union movement.

Several of the striking International Paper Company locals remained defiant through 1922, but the fiercest and most consistent opposition was arguably centered in Corinth. The Hudson River Mill - both the largest total tonnage producer among International Paper's plants and the site of the Company's Principal Office - had been the object of considerable effort by the Company to resume normal operations after July 5th, 1921. While social and political affairs in Corinth remained explosive, by early 1922 local labor activists had begun to shift their energies to fight International Paper through the actions of the IBPM and IBPSPMW.

John Cernek and Family

The concerted efforts that were made by the Hudson River Mill locals to participate in and influence the agenda of the Internationals was a way to compensate for the loss of local power that was a consequence of the two injunctions in Corinth. But increased activity within the Internationals was also a means to voice consistnet opposition to any proposal that might be advanced to end the strike. A close reading of IBPM and IBPSPMW conference reports and proceedings after 1921 shows the attendance of large delegations from the Palmer locals, with consistent vocal participation recorded by Maurice Jones, Bat Doody and John Connolly. Letters by Palmer Mill strikers that were written to the Editor of The Paper Maker's Journal and subsequently published - particularly those contributed by Maurice Jones - presented the operative rationale for continuing the strike and provided numerous arguments as to why resistance to International Paper should be maintained. Strikers from the Hudson River Mill played a key role in continuing the strike against International Paper.