On Sunday afternoon, August 31, a crowd of 2,700, 800 of them women and children, marched in sweltering heat to pack the Palestra, a "colossal oven," where Moyer encouraged them to continue early morning picketing, telling them they had the right to peacefully persuade men to stay away from work. The WFM Executive Board fully sanctioned their strike, he told them. He had told reporters that the WFM had all kinds of money, piles and stacks of it. He assured the strikers that benefits would be forthcoming: the WFM had $161,000 "in cash here"; an assessment of $2 had been levied for September on each WFM member—90,000 of them, Moyer had said, doubling the actual membership figure. The $161,000 had included the loans he hoped to procure, but he did not tell them that. Rather, he depicted a financially secure WFM, ready and able to finance the strike, a characterization that was most unreal. The strikers passed resolutions calling for a Senate investigation, protesting the militia, and denouncing the deputies.