"D.D. reviewed the struggles of the ILGWU through difficult years, as it surmounted great obstacles and fought enemies outside and inside. Sentence by sentence, he built up a compelling picture of the tremendous significance of our organization's achievements. One got a new conception of the International, of the boundless energy, stubborn devotion to an ideal, and stamina it had taken to rebuild the organization out of the wreckage left by the dual union after the disastrous 26-weeks' strike in New York in 1926. That had been our first defeat, he pointed out; it left the ILGWU saddled with a debt exceeding $2,000,000, a shameful monument to the reckless spending orgy which characterized the "left wing" administration then in power. The International had ridden out the storm and cleared the bulk of its obligations, and its 35th anniversary was being celebrated with the greatest convention it had ever held. The ILGWU membership had dropped from 110,000 in 1920, to 40,000 in January 1, 1933. Now height of nearly 200,000. At this 22nd biennial it had climbed to gathering were 369 delegates, 143 locals, and 13 joint boards, located in 73 cities in 16 states and Canada. Our president dwelt on how the union had pioneered in collective bargaining, and in labor education, enlisted the aid of public-spirited citizens and government officials in the fight to eliminate sweatshops, protected the health of the workers, participated in community activities, given aid to charitable institutions, and helped other labor organizations both in this country and abroad in their battles to uphold human rights. The International had reduced working hours in our industry to 35, won high minimum wage scales, and established the right of workers to their jobs, so they could not be discharged without review by a proper impartial tribunal. Dubinsky touched upon the 1930 industrial upheaval, when tens of thousands of our workers lost their jobs, employers forced work conditions down to the lowest possible level, and the sweatshop in its worst forms reappeared. In the three years following, garment makers were close to starvation. When the National Industrial Recovery Act came into being as a part of the New Deal, our workers benefited greatly, Dubinsky recalled, "largely because of the militancy of our union and its readiness not only to threaten to strike, but actually to resort to strikes when the occasion called for it""