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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 21, 1912
“General Strike” by Big Bill Haywood, New Edition
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of January 18, 1912:
Month: January 2022
Hellraisers Journal: News from Lawrence Textile Strike: Militia Attacks Strikers; Committee Appeals to All Workers
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 20, 1912
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Militia Attacks Strikers; Strike Committee Issues Appeal
From The Boston Daily Globe (Evening) of January 17, 1912:
LAWRENCE, Jan 17-Conflict between the textile strikers and State militiamen who have the mill district of the city in charge broke out afresh today. A mob of 3000 strikers who had paraded through the city was subdued only by the vigorous use of clubs and swords by members of Battery C, Light Artillery, of Lowell, when the strikers entered the mill district, within which zone martial law has been declared…
The larger part of the crowd was driven back, and the combat ceased for a moment. After being forced up Hampshire at the strikers began to bombard the soldiers with ice, bricks and tin cans, several of the militiamen being hit. None suffered serious wounds. Many of the strikers sustained injuries to heads and bodies by clubs and swords, and two had their faces badly cut in the same manner. Several children were trampled upon in the melee.
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Flag to Protect Them.
The strikers wee finally allowed to go up Canal st and when they reached the Lawrence Duck mill bridge, half a mile away, they made an attempt to cross [but Lieut. Davies] ordered the strikers to continue down Canal st without crossing the bridge.
An interesting episode occurred here. One of the strikers, who was carrying a big American flag, held it up and cried out, “This is the American flag; it can go anywhere.”…
In another moment Lieut Davis had ordered the men to “charge bayonets,” and the flag was trailed in the snow by the Italians, who had stampeded when the strikers were forced to retreat before the bristling steel. No trouble developed beyond this point, the crowd ultimately dispersing.
———-
[…..]
Appeal to Non-Strikers.
An appeal issued today to English speaking and other mill operatives not on strike through the agency of the strike committee which was distributed on the picket lines and at meetings during the day was in part as follows:
To all workers, men and women, and all those who sympathize with their aspirations for a better day:
We, striking textile workers, who in the past suffered untold exploitations, outrages and insults, have reached the limit of human resignation and endurance. We submit to a candid world in brief our grievances and reason for revolt. Our wages have been gradually reduced, machines have been speeded to the point that in order to keep up with them we have o strain to the limit of endurance.
Taking advantage of a law that was passed to reduce the long working days of women and children, the mill owners reduced our wages and average of 5 percent.
Urged to “Strike all Together.”
According to the figures of the mill owners themselves, last pay day, Jan. 11, 25,000 workers received a total wage of $150,000, or an average wage of $6 for a week’s work.
We had to rebel because we had drunk of the cup to the very dregs.
We are opposed to rioting, opposed equally and strenuously, even though it hides its brutalities under the cloak of law and order and armed with bayonets.
These reasons and others too numerous to mention are sufficient, we believe, to entitle us to the support of all fellow-workers and friends.
We urge and plead with all who wish our case well to express themselves in words and deeds in no mistaken way.
Workers, remember! An injury to one is an injury to all. Strike all together; stick together. All to victory.
(Signed)
Strike Committee.—————
Note: emphasis added throughout.
Hellraisers Journal: News from Lawrence Textile Strike: Militia Drives Back Strikers: Young Dominico Rapsardo Bayoneted
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Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 19, 1912
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Young Striker, Dominico Rapsardo, Bayoneted by Soldier
From The Boston Globe (Morning Edition) of January 16, 1912:
By JOHN W. CARBERRY.
Lawrence, Jan 15-In an attempt to prevent the operation of the woolen mills today, strikers and their sympathizers incited a riot which compelled the City Government to summon police aid from Salem, Lynn, Haverhill, Everett and Lowell, and to call into service eight companies of militia……
Today, in the clash between militiamen and those supporting the cause of the striking textile workers, one youth, Dominico Rapsardo, was stabbed in the breast by a soldier, and is seriously, though not mortally, wounded.
Many others were injured by being struck with the butts of rifles and the clubs of policemen.
More than 30 were arrested charged with damaging property and disturbing the peace…
—–
[…..]
Rapsardo Is Struck Down.
[About 10 a. m., at the Atlantic mills, militiamen with fixed bayonets, charged the strikers and drove them across the bridge at Canal st.]
In the charge Dominico Rapsardo of 51 Essex st was wounded. The crowd was packed so densely that those in front did not fall back quickly enough to suit the soldiers, and young Rapsardo received a thrust from a bayonet in his left breast. he fell fainting to the street, and was hastily driven to the General Hospital, badly injured. The bayonet had penetrated the flesh between the ribs, but doctors believed that no vital organ had been pierced.
[…..]
Hellraisers Journal: News from Lawrence Textile Strike: Joe Ettor, IWW Leader, Urges Mill Workers to Stand and Make a Fight
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 18, 1912
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Fellow Worker Joe Ettor Urges Strikers to Fight On
From The Boston Sunday Globe of Jan 14, 1912:
Mayor Scanlon Addresses Big Mass Meeting.
———-LAWRENCE, Jan. 13-Tonight sees approximately 15,000 Mill operatives out of employment and grave apprehensions are felt that this number may be further increased Monday morning. Some of the mill agents and owners contemplate a general shut down. About 4000 of the men now out are strikers and the rest have been forced out by the closing of several mills.
Joseph J. Ettor of New York, a member of the Executive Board of the Industrial Workers of the World, who has assumed the position of leader of the strikers, in an impassioned speech at a mass meeting in the City Hall this afternoon, urged his audience of 1300 men and women to bend their efforts toward preventing any secession from their ranks…..
[He exhorted:]
Monday morning you have got to close the mills that you have caused to shut down tighter than you have them now.
It is up to you to encourage all to stand by the cause of the workers and get them not to go to work Monday morning. If you want to avoid blood shed remove the cause.
You cannot win by fighting with your fists against men armed or the Militia, but you have a weapon that they have not got.
You have the weapon of labor and with that you can beat them down if you stick together.
[Mayor Scanlon warned that the strikers must obey the law, to which Ettor replied:]
Must Be Firm, Exhorts Ettor.
Leader Ettor said that he, too, was for calmness and for anything that would prevent bloodshed, but, nevertheless, he must insist that whatever blood was spilled was not on the head of the working people, but on those who ground down the laboring class.
[He declared:]
While we wish to be cool and clam, at the same time we must be determined to win the contention for which you have struck. We are here to consider your interests alone. It’s up to you to win, and to do so you must hold together.
He was enthusiastically received and when he later addressed the Italians in their natural tongue there was further demonstration.
[Gilbert Smith, secretary-treasurer of Local 20, I. W. of W., presided at the meeting. Also speaking were Joseph Langiet (French), August Detollanaere (Belgian), Charles L. Webert (Polish), Michael Rusecky (of United Mine Workers, Pittston, Penn., Lithuanian).]
At the conclusion committees were chosen to represent the different nationalities involved in the strike in arranging a plan of action to be reported to a mass meeting in Franco-Belgian Hall tomorrow evening.
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Hellraisers Journal: From the I. W. W.’s Industrial Pioneer: “The Castaway” -a Poem by Matilda Robbins
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 17, 1922
”The Castaway” -a Poem by Matilda Robbins
From The Industrial Pioneer of January 1922:
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1911, Part II: Found in Los Angeles, Predicting Brighter Day with End of Profit System
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 16, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1911, Part II
Found in Los Angeles, Interviewed by Estelle Lawton Lindsey
From The Los Angeles Record of December 21, 1911:
“MOTHER JONES” PREDICTS BRIGHTER DAY;
MEN NATURALLY GOOD IS HER BELIEF
By Estelle Lawton Lindsey.
“Some day men will go into the bowels of the earth and bring out lead to be made into type to enlighten the minds of their fellows, instead of bullets to brutalize. In that day we shall be civilized.”
The speaker was Mrs. Mary Jones, known through this land as “Mother Jones,” saint or revolutionist according to your point of view, a woman loved to adoration by 400,000 organized miners of the U. S., and who has been described as “the walking wrath of God.”
In conversation this woman, who will be 80 years old the first day of next May, and looks like a well-preserved and vigorous woman of 50, speaks little of wrath and much of love, understanding and education.
WOMEN MUST UNDERSTAND
My work is to prevent violence, to settle, peaceably, differences between employer and employed. Wherever there are strikes, wherever there may be violence—which I abhor—wherever feelings of revenge are rampant, there I go. My work is to teach men the causes of their difficulties, to show them how to remedy conditions by changing the laws and the system. My field of activity is the world.
The trouble with the average woman is that she is a sentimentalist. She is ignorant of the causes of our industrial disturbance. She cannot realize that as long as we have oppression we shall have violent reaction in the minds and feelings of the oppressed; and that such feelings are the root of violence. The thinker who understands the cause knows all violence can be done away with. Soon women will understand, then they will give the world better men.
My work is to keep people from getting into conflicts to get them to think instead of fighting; and to show others how to think. I believe in education; and through education I believe we can so change our forms of government that feelings of revenge will die of inanition.
In that day we will not devote millions, wrung from those least able to pay, to chaining human beings like beasts for being what the government has made them.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1911, Part I: Found in Berkeley, California, Receiving News of McNamaras’ Confession
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 15, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1911, Part I
Found in Berkeley, California; Learns of Confession of McNamara Brothers
From the Richmond (California) Daily Independent of December 1, 1911:
MOTHER JONES TO SPEAK.
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Mother Jones, the mother of the working men, will speak at the Building Trades Temple on Fourth and Macdonald avenue, Friday evening at 8:15. Her subject will be “McNamara Defense.” The public is cordially invited to attend.
[Photograph added.]
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From the Richmond Daily Independent of December 2,1911:
MCNAMARA CONFESSION
CREATES COMMOTION
———-
At First Held Ridiculous Here. But Mother Jones
Meeting at Trades Hall Is Postponed–Many
See Political Move in Los Angeles Election.
———-The blood-red extra of the Oakland Tribune last evening set the Richmond world ablaze. Its headlines, in letters inches long, read “J. B. McNamara Pleads Guilty,” “Admits Slaying Haggerty,” and “Brother Admit Dynamiting.” The Trib had little else save that it claimed that J. B. McNamara would be given life imprisonment and that his brother, J. J. McNamara under agreement with state, would receive fifteen years.
[…..]
The union labor forces of Richmond and the sympathizers with the McNamaras found themselves in queer position with the appearance of the evening papers. Mother Jones was announced to address the Richmond people at the Building Trades Council hall on Fourth street on the matter of aiding in the defense of the accused men.
Quite a body of people assembled to listen to the famous woman, but after a short wait, it was announced by the officials of the council that Mother Jones would not be present, as she was waiting in Berkeley for later and more reliable information from the southern city. There was nothing else to be done but postpone the meeting, and it was done. At a later date, should tho conditions at Los Angeles be different than reported last night, Mother Jones may appear here…..
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Hellraisers Journal: Textile Workers at Lawrence, Massachusetts, Stage Walk-Out Due to Short Pay; Italians Lead the Way
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 14, 1912
Lawrence Textile Workers Stage Walk-Out Due to Short Pay
From the Boston Evening Transcript of January 12, 1912:
Special to the Transcript:
Lawrence, Jan. 12-The mill district of this city was thrown into a state of great excitement today by a riotous outbreak on the part of about five hundred Italians, who left their work at the Wood, Ayer and Washington mills of the American Woolen Company because they objected to a reduction of two hours pay a week under the workings of the new 54-hour law. Before the trouble ended several persons had been injured, none seriously, a number of girl operatives had fainted and six arrests had been made by the police. The mill agents hastily looked things over and found that so many operatives had quit work through fear of the angry Italians that it was decided to close down the Wood and Ayer mills at once. The Washington mills and those of the Lawrence Duck Company, to which the disturbance extended, were kept in operation, although 800 operatives at the Washington mills and 400 at the duck mills stopped work after the riot. As the Wood mill employs 6000 hands and the Ayer mill 3500, nearly 11,000 operatives were idle this afternoon.
Just what effect today’s rioting will have on the general situation is problematical. Some of the mill agents expressed the opinion that it might make the more responsible operatives realize the dangers which would accompany a general strike and thus might make it easier to reach an amicable agreement. The union leaders were not prepared this afternoon to make any statements as to their probable attitude, but it was evident that the disturbances today had produced a sobering effect. No formal meeting of union workers had been called early this afternoon, but it was generally expected that such meetings would be held very soon to discuss the situation and decide what action would be taken. The mill agents intimated that they would open all the mills tomorrow as usual, including the Wood and Ayer mills. How many of their operatives will be on hand to go to work cannot yet be foretold. The six men arrested will appear in court tomorrow.
Two hundred operatives at the Pacific Mills quit work this afternoon, the majority of whom were employed in the examining room. At the Farwell bleachery, School Committeeman John Breen addressed a band of Syrians, this afternoon, and succeeded in inducing them to disband. About fifty Farwell bleachery employees quit work this afternoon on account of the wage reduction.
[…..]
Amazing Mixture of Races in Mills
———-Forty-Five Languages Spoken Within a Mile Radius–Only Chicago and Fall River Have as Large a Per Cent Foreign-Born–Foreign Labor Mostly Unskilled
Within a mile radius of the mills are spoken forty-five languages, including their sub-divisions, and there are people living within this area representing fifty-one different countries of Europe, Asia and Africa. It is safe to say that there are more languages spoken within the Wood or Washington mills than in any one spot of equal size in the world. Whereas Lawrence covers an area of seven and a quarter square miles, the races represented live within two square miles of area, the congested district being close to the mills. And Lawrence presents unique conditions in that all the different nationalities live close together, as many as six and seven distinct races often living in one tenement block. While in the larger cities, as in New York and Chicago, there are more races represented, they are also more widely scattered, being grouped in sections. In Lawrence they all live together even as they work together. Only Chicago and Fall River has as large a percentage of foreign-born citizens to their population as has Lawrence.
One is also impressed by the number of women in excess of men passing along the streets. The foreign-born element of women in Lawrence is thirty per cent greater than that of the men, making the town a force in the dubbing of New England a weary girl-congested land, whereas, in other countries where there are large foreign-born percentages to the population, it often happens that the men are in excess of the women of their races in the ratio of four to one.
As in Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania mining districts, Lawrence is again exceptional in that the women of the Slavic and Finnish races and those speaking the Romance languages often come here and obtain work in the mills, leaving their husbands at home with the young children. Many Italian and Syrian women are at work, aiming to bring their husbands and families later, such economic conditions being made possible by the fact that seventy per cent more woman are employed in the mills than men.
[…..]
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Haywood and Hillquit Debate: “What shall the attitude of the Socialist party be toward the economic organization of the workers?”
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 13, 1912
New York City – Haywood and Hillquit Debate Labor Question at Cooper Union
From The New York Call of January 12, 1912:
The first of a series of meetings for the discussion of the various problems confronting the Socialist party of America was held in Cooper Union last night with Julius Gerber, organizer of Local New York, which has arranged these meetings, presiding.
The big hall was jammed to the doors and the audience followed every word of the protagonists with breathless interest.
The meeting was a sort of family affair, only holders of red cards being allowed in the hall. A few Socialist Labor party men smuggled themselves into the crowd on borrowed S. P. cards. They were promptly recognized and Chairman Gerber asked that they leave the hall, which they did.
The subject of the discussion last night was “What shall the attitude of the Socialist party be toward the economic organization of the workers?”
William D. Haywood and Morris Hillquit were the debaters. Each of them was given an hour, the time being divided as follows: half an hour for the outline of the debate by each speaker, then each one got twenty minutes for rebuttal and finally ten minutes for closing the discussion.
Haywood opened the discussion. The burden of his arguments in the main was that the Socialist party should go among the workers and begin a propaganda for industrial unionism, for one big union. He assailed the American Federation of Labor and said that the Socialist party is acquiescing in the policy of the American Federation, which was a distinctly anti-Socialist and capitalist policy.
Industrial Form Superior, But-
Hillquit in his reply to Haywood said that there can be no question in the mind of any Socialist that the industrial form of organization is superior to the craft organization. But he did not believe that the Socialist should begin preaching industrialism outside of organized labor. The Socialist party, he said, should keep up its policy of trying to reach the workers in their present unions. The policy has been successful, Hillquit said, as is shown by the fact that every union affiliated with the American Federation of Labor has Socialists in important positions, as well as in the rank and file. These men have been elected to these positions by the rank and file, he said, because they were Socialists.
[…..]
Haywood’s Final Reply.
Haywood took the floor to reply in his final ten minutes.
He declared there is nothing in common between the policies of the American Federation of Labor and the Socialist party. The former, he said, is craft conscious as opposed to the class consciousness of the latter. He went on to show that by high initiation fees, curtailment of apprentices and even closing of books, membership is kept down and would-be members excluded…..
He went on to say that he had never advocated anything else but the organization of the workers as one man, and that he had believed and still believes the craft form of organization to be “ethically unjustifiable and tactically suicidal.”
At the same time he urged the necessity for political action, the political power to be used, not after the social revolution, but under present conditions, citing as an instance of its use the turning of the police against strikebreakers instead of against strikers.
Haywood explained that in criticizing the American Federation of Labor he criticized its leaders, who were members of the Knights of Columbus and of the Civic Federation executive.
Hillquit Finds Mystery Deep.
In taking the floor to close the debating. Hillquit declared that the mystery had deepened, seeing that Haywood did not oppose the rank and file of the A. F. of L. but the members of the Executive Committee of the Civic Federation…..
The difference between the speaker’s policy and Haywood’s, Hillquit declared, was that the former, while condemning the policies of Samuel Gompers, made efforts to educate the rank and file, while Haywood was ready to kick over and destroy the whole A. F. of L.
[…..]
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From the Social Democratic Herald: Eugene Debs Recalls Labor’s Battles in the “War for Freedom”
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 12, 1902
Eugene Victor Debs Recalls Bloody Scenes of Battle in Class War
From the Social Democratic Herald of January 11, 1902:
The War for Freedom.
By Eugene V. Debs.
The country we inhabit is generally supposed to have been in a state of peace since the close of the Civil War, excepting the brief period required to push the Spaniards off the western continent. And yet during this reign of so-called peace more than a score of bloody battles have been fought on American soil, in every one of which the working class were beaten to the earth, notwithstanding they outnumber their conquerors and despoilers at least ten to one, and notwithstanding in each case they asked but a modest concession that represented but a tithe of what they were justly entitled to.
To recall the bloody scenes in the Tennessee mountains, the horrors of Idaho, the tragedies of Virden, Pana, Buffalo, Chicago, Homestead, Lattimer, Leadville, and many others, is quite enough to chill the heart of a man who has such an organ, and yet above the cloud and smoke of battle there shines forever the bow of promise, and however fierce the struggle and gloomy the outlook, it is never obscured to the brave, self-reliant soul who knows that victory at last must crown the cause of labor.
Thousands have fallen before the fire of the enemy and thousands more are doubtless doomed to share the same fate, but
“Freedom’s battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, Is ever won.”The struggle in this and other lands by the children of toil is a struggle between classes which in some form or other has been waged since primitive man first captured and enslaved his weaker fellow-being. Through the long, dark night of history the man who toiled has been in fetters, and though today they are invisible, yet they bind him as securely in wage slavery as if they were forged of steel.
How the millions toil and produce! How they suffer and are despised! Is the earth forever to be a dungeon to them? Are their offspring always to be food for misery? These are questions that confront the workingmen of our day and a few of them at least understand the nature of the struggle, are conscious of their class interests, and are striving with all their energy to close up the ranks and conquer their freedom by the solidarity of labor.
In this war for freedom the organized men in the Western states have borne a conspicuous and honorable part. They have, in fact, maintained better conditions on the whole than generally prevail, and this they have done under fire that would have reduced less courageous and determined men. But, notwithstanding their organized resistance, they must perceive that in common with all others who work for wages they are losing ground before the march of capitalism.
It requires no specially sensitive nature to feel the tightening of the coils, nor prophetic vision to see the doom of labor if the government is suffered to continue in control of the capitalist class. In every crisis the shotted guns of the government are aimed at the working class. They point in but one direction. In no other way could the capitalists maintain their class supremacy. Court injunctions paralyze but one class. In fact, the government of the ruling class today has but one vital function, and that is to keep the exploited class in subjection.
