However, as most workers were new immigrants who spoke English poorly or not at all, they were without effective leadership to express their demands. When dissident workers walked off the job in February 1919 only to be met by police truncheons on the picket line, Muste and two friends, also ministers, became involved. He spoke to assembled workers, assured them that he would lend whatever help he could in raising money for the relief of strikers and their families, and was soon invited to become executive secretary of the "ad hoc" strike committee that had been established by the still unorganized workers.