[...] the company hired men to provoke pickets at one door so nonunion workers could be ushered in through another. The union accused RCA of importing 700 strikebreakers, hundreds of whom were in violation of the new interstate antistrike breaking law recently signed by President Roosevelt. On many days the police hauled away hundreds of workers-both men and women- "clubbing and jailing the pickets as if they were handling so many cattle." The behavior of the police, according to the union, made it appear "as if the RCA company had purchased the City of Camden outright, and was trying to develop cowboys from the city police." As RCA's own former chief investigator later explained, authorities "would grab people out of the picket line at different times, just for no good reason at all." An emergency telegram from the strike committee to John L. Lewis captured the urgency: "siTUATION SERIOUS ... WHOLESALE ARRESTS STRIKERS DENIED ELEMENTARY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS LOCAL AUTHORITIES UNITED WITH COMPANY IN SYSTEM OF TERROR AND BRUTALITY .... WE URGE YOUR IMMEDIATE HELP."