on alert. The picketers pulled back, unwilling to take on armed soldiers in an uneven fight, and trucks and trains began moving without interference. Bridges asked the San Francisco Labor Council to meet that Saturday, July 7, to authorize a general strike. The Alameda County Central Labor Council in Oakland considered the same action. Teamsters in both San Francisco and Oakland voted to strike, over the objections of their leaders, on Sunday, July 8. Funerals and general strike The following day, several thousand strikers, families and sympathizers took part in a funeral procession down Market Street, stretching more than a mile and a half, for Nicholas Bordoise and Howard Sperry, the two persons killed on "Bloody Thursday". The police were wholly absent from the scene. The march made an enormous impact on San Franciscans, making a general strike, which had formerly been "the visionary dream of a small group of the most radical workers, became ... a practical and realizable objective." After dozens of Bay Area unions voted for a general strike over the next few days, the San Francisco Labor Council voted on July 14 to call a general strike. The Teamsters had already been out for two days by that point. San Francisco Mayor Angelo Rossi declared a state of emergency. Some federal officials, particularly Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, were more skeptical. Roosevelt later recalled that some persons were urging him to steer the USS Houston, which was carrying him to Hawaii, "into San Francisco Bay, all flags flying and guns double-shotted, and end the strike." Roosevelt rejected the suggestion. The general strike began on the 16th, involving some 150,000 workers. On the 17th the police arrested more than 300 "radicals, subversives, and communists" while systematically smashing furniture and equipment of organizations related to the strike; the same day, General Hugh S. Johnson as head of the National Recovery Administration spoke at UC Berkeley to denounce the general strike as "a menace to the government". The strike lasted four days. Non-union truck drivers joined the first day; the movie theaters and night clubs closed down. While food deliveries continued with the permission of the strike committee, many small businesses closed, posting signs in support of the strikers. Reports that unions in Portland and Seattle would also begin general strikes picked up currency. End of the strike The calling of a general strike had an unexpected result: it