Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 30, 1913 Paterson, New Jersey – John Reed Sentenced to 20 Days in Passaic County Jail
From The New York Times of April 29, 1913:
WRITER SENT TO JAIL. ———- John Reed of the American Magazine Among Strike Victims. ———-
The Paterson Evening News April 28, 1913
John Reed, a writer and a member of the staff of the American Magazine, was arrested in Paterson yesterday on a charge of disorderly conduct in the silk workers’ strike. He was arraigned before Recorder James F. Carroll, who, after hearing the evidence, sentenced Reed to twenty days’ imprisonment in the Passaic County Jail. Reed gave his address as 42 Washington Square, and according to some of his friends was in Paterson getting “local color” for a magazine story dealing with the silk workers’ strike.
Reed was at the corner of Cross and Ellison Street yesterday in the centre of the strike zone, talking to three men strikers. Policeman McCormick came along and ordered the men to disperse. The strikers said they lived in the house in front of which they were standing.
“Well, get inside then,” said McCormick.
“But I don’t live in there,” said Reed.
“Well, move on, then,” said McCormick to the magazine writer.
Reed started to obey and then changed his mind and went back to where McCormick was and demanded his number.
An argument between the policeman and Reed followed which ended in the arrest of Reed on a charge of disorderly conduct. He was immediately taken to court and arraigned before Recorder Carroll.
“What’s your business?” asked the Recorder.
“Poet,” answered Reed.
“What’s your business here?” the Recorder asked again.
“None; I am a bystander,” Reed replied.
McCormick then testified that Reed had refused to move on when ordered to do so, and had insisted on questioning his authority.
The Recorder took McCormick’s view of the case and sentenced Reed to jail.
John S. Phillips, editor of The American Magazine, was asked last night if the management of that publication would interest itself in the affairs of Mr. Reed and attempt to have him released from jail on appeal or by suing out a writ of habeas corpus. Mr. Phillips replied that he did not know of any contemplated action by the magazine management and that he did not care to discuss the matter.
We Never Forget: April 24, 2013 Rana Plaza Factory Collapse
-Savar Upazila, Dhaka District, Bangladesh -1,134 killed, 2,500 injured -Suspect: Sohel Rana, Charge: Murder -“The search for the dead ended on 13 May 2013 with a death toll of 1,134.”
Photograph by Sharat Chowdhury [edited] Rana Plaza Factory Collapse of April 24, 2013, at Dhaka, Bangladesh -Board of the Missing, taken April 27, 2013
From Warehouse Workers United – Statement from Kalpona Akter on Rana Plaza Factory Collapse of April 24, 2013
Our deepest sympathies go out to the families of workers lost in this tragic event.It must be said, these tragedies can be prevented by multinational corporations like Walmart and the Gap that operate in Bangladesh. Because of these companies’ negligence and willful ignorance, garment workers are in danger every day because of the unsafe working conditions.
As we learn more details, we will better understand the brands that were manufactured in these factories, but we already know that the largest retailers in the world hold tremendous power to transform conditions for garment workers – mostly young women – in Bangladesh.
Today’s news is yet another reminder that Walmart and the Gap must immediately adopt the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement, a transparent and legally binding agreement that includes worker representation, independent building inspections, worker rights training, public disclosure and a long-overdue review of safety standards. The safety agreement is the first step toward ensuring no more lives are lost.
More from Warehouse Workers United:
Kalpona is the Executive Director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. She is a former garment worker and is currently in the United States calling on retailers like Walmart, the Gap and Disney to lead on improving working conditions and adopting fires safety standards in Bangladesh.Today, international worker rights groups are calling for immediate action from international corporations and brands following the horrific news of a deadly collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar, in Dhaka Bangladesh. The collapse of the eight story building that housed five factories and a mall, has reportedly killed at least 80 people and injured over 800[*]. For the last month Kalpona has been touring the United States with Sumi Abedin, a young garment worker who jumped out of a third story window to save her life as the Tazreen factory burned killing on 112.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 26, 1913 Clarksburg, West Virginia – Comrade John W. Brown Writes from Jail
From The Wheeling Majority of April 24, 1913:
John Brown Writes From Harrison Jail ———-
John W. Brown, who, with Charles Boswell, editor of the Charleston Labor Argus, and George F. Parsons, United Mine Workers’ organizer, have been imprisoned under the martial law anarchy system in West Virginia since last February, has written a letter to W. A. Peters, of this city, from the present abode of the three men, the Clarksburg jail.
These men, with Mother Jones and many others, were arrested by the militia and have been in jail ever since, having been tried at a farcial trial at which they were not even represented, and tried by men who had previously sworn that they believed them guilty. Their crime is defending the poor mine workers of this state from the greed of the coal barons. For this they will likely be sentenced to the penitentiary, and sent under a violation of the constitution of the state of West Virginia and the United States, for they have been denied a trial in the civil courts, before a jury.
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The Letter.
Following is the letter:
Harrison County Jail. Clarksburg W. Va., April 10, ’13.
Dear Comrade Peters:
Your kind favor of March 25 just reached me. Was mighty glad to hear from you. Nothing doing in the Haywood line for this bunch; I know of but two Haywoods in this country, and I am not one of them. As to trials and tribulations…I will tell you all about it some other time. Let it suffice to say: We are here—because we’re here.—Because we can’t get away.
We arrived here April 2 from Pt. Pleasant, where we were flooded out. And, strange as it may seem, we are treated here as human beings. We have been under arrest since Feb. 10, and up to the time we were brought here we were held “incommunicado.” Yet notwithstanding this, did not prevent us from touching an underground wire, and stinging them once in a while. Do you get the “Argus”? Did you see “Old Liberty” from the Bull Pen at Pratt or “Don’t give up the Fight” from Mason county jail?
It is impossible to say at this time what they are going to do with us. But you can take it from me that if they can get Boswell, Parsons and myself, we will sure go. I am looking for about five years. They couldn’t get us for a day in the civil-courts.
As to matters personal, there is nothing the comrades can do for us other than to demand a trial in the civil courts. It’s a great opportunity for the [Socialist] party, but unfortunately, the party is not taking advantage of it.
They made a mistake in bringing us here. Evidently the jailer told them he was running this jail, as we are getting our mail, and outgoing mail is not censored, besides we can see “everybody”, and there is someone here about all the time. The boys hold a meeting every night in front of the court house and every day they bring us in a good dinner.
We have been corraled in box cars, passenger cars, churches, freight depots, old stores and three jails in three different counties. I am afraid the comrades here are going to spoil our “playhouse,” and in that case they may take us to Wheeling.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 25, 1913 Martial Law/Strike Zone, West Virginia – Cora Older Speaks with Mother Jones
From Collier’s National Weekly of April 19, 1913:
Answering a Question
By MRS. FREMONT OLDER
Mrs. Older is the wife of Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco “Bulletin,’’ who was one of the citizen leaders responsible for the overthrow of the Schmitz boodle gang and for the conviction of Abe Ruef. But Mr. Older is a newspaper man before he is a reformer. Hence his question-which herewith Mrs. Older answers.
———-
MOTHER JONES and forty-eight men were on trial before a military court in Paint Creek Junction, W. Va., charged with conspiracy to murder. Mother Jones and five leaders refused to plead; they would not admit that the military court had jurisdiction over civilians. It was an interesting situation, but little news came to the outside world.
“Why don’t we get news from West Virginia?” my husband asked me one morning. So I started from San Francisco to find out.
On the last day of the trial I arrived in Paint Creek Junction [Pratt], the military capital of the strike zone. A few small houses tilted toward the muddy New River. Barren brown mountains imprisoned the town.
A flag fluttered freely over the dingy village. A soldier greeted me as I got down from the train. Soldiers swarmed about the little railway station converted into a “bull pen” for strikers on trial. Through the streets at the point of guns soldiers were driving civilians. “Prisoners,” some said; “Martial law.” Former Governor Glasscock’s proclamation posted on the little green lunch counter at the station spelled it “Marital law.”
Pickles are served at breakfast in Paint Creek Junction. “Lena Rivers” is the “best seller,” but the place is filled with class hatred and suspicion. One whispers; soldiers may hear. Americans of old colonial stock sneer at the militia. “Yellow legs!” “Spies!” “Strike breakers!”
EVERY man is his own Marconi in Paint Creek Junction. In half an hour it was known that a strange woman had arrived to visit Mother Jones. A messenger tiptoed into my boarding house to say that Mother Jones and the prisoners were allowed to meet no one, especially reporters; but if I wanted to find out about conditions I’d better talk with Mother Jones’s landlady. “Go to the side door, and into the kitchen.”
By this time I felt like a conspirator. I almost tiptoed through the soldiers. Mother Jones occupied the parlor of a small white cottage. I was welcomed by the landlady. We were chatting in the kitchen when, without rapping, an officer entered and said to me: “The Provost Marshal wants you at headquarters.”
“Why?” I asked, bewildered. I did not know I was under arrest.
Martial law was in the soldier’s glance. He repeated his command. “And they call us anarchists,” commented the fiery-eyed, white-faced landlady.
Through the main street, past armed sentinels, up a flight of stairs to a large room filled with empty benches and stacked guns, we went to the Provost Marshal. Stern, unsmiling as justice, he asked me to explain my presence and my existence. I told him the truth. The Provost Marshal frowned. I wondered about the “bull pen.” I made the discovery that I am no Christian martyr. I am a sybarite hopelessly prejudiced against bull pens. I fumbled in my bag and brought forth an engraved card. I was released on good behavior.
But I was able now to answer the question which had brought me across a continent. The PROVOST MARSHAL was the ASSOCIATED PRESS CORRESPONDENT.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 24, 1903
Colorado City, Colorado –Mill and Smeltermen’s Union on Strike, Part V
From The Miners Magazine of April 1903:
THE STRIKE IN COLORADO CITY.
[Part V of V: Miners of Cripple Creek Support Smeltermen]
The Cripple Creek Press, the official organ of organized labor of the Cripple Creek district (since suspended) had the following to say in its editorial columns of March 15:
The announcement of a settlement of the differences between the Mill and Smeltermen’s Union No. 125, of Colorado City, and the managers of the Portland and Telluride mills is pleasing to the people of this district, but the failure of the United States Reduction and Refining Company to enter into the agreement made by the other mills means something which is not pleasing. It means that unless the mines shipping to the Standard mill accede to the demands made upon them by the executive board of the Western Federation of Miners, that they quit shipping their ores to the said United States Reduction and Refining Company on Monday, that the miners employed by them will be called out by the Federation. It means that when these men are called out in support of their brothers on strike against the Standard mill, they will go out and tie up those mines so tight that Manager MacNeil will have a difficult time in getting material to keep his pet scabs at Colorado City employed. The Western Federation has done everything in its power to bring about an amicable settlement, and when Manager MacNiel refuses to accept the terms made by the managers of the other mills he places himself behind the pale of public consideration and the only thing now left for the mine managers who are shipping to his mill will be to whip him into line or submit to a strike of miners employed by them. There is no middle ground with the miners on this question. They will be compelled to insist upon the demands made by them being complied with or walk out.
The governor failed to keep his promise that he would immediately withdraw the troops, and the delay of the governor in issuing his order recalling the state militia caused the following to be issued from the headquarters of the Western Federation of Miners on March 17:
The representatives of the Western Federation of Miners, since the strike was declared at Colorado City, have at all times held themselves in readiness to confer with the mill managers for the purpose of bringing about an amicable adjustment of differences. For months previous to the strike, the officers of the Federation labored early and late to bring about an honorable settlement, which would prevent any open rupture between the mill managers and their employes. The officers of the Federation have given a respectful hearing to representatives in all departments of business, and at all times have shown a disposition to submit their grievances to a board of arbitration. Had the mill managers manifested as earnest a desire to pour oil upon the troubled waters as the Western Federation of Miners, the people of the state of Colorado would never have been compelled to forward protests against the executive of the state for his loyalty to corporate interests.
Had the mill managers exhibited even the slightest disposition to act in a spirit of justice to their employes the strike would have been averted and the treasury of the state would not have become a graft for military officials who are “bug house” when clothed with the uniform of blue. The militia of the state has been used for the purpose of inciting riot, but with all the infamous schemes concocted by Bell and Brown, the strikers have remained unruffled, and have shown to the people of Colorado that they are law-abiding, and that even uniformed ruffians could not goad them to acts of violence. The sheriff of El Paso county has demonstrated that he has been a willing auxiliary in the hands of the mill managers to exaggerate the conditions of the situation at Colorado City so that corporations which refuse to arbitrate could secure the militia to perform picket duty at the expense of the state.
The governor, toward the close of the interview Sunday morning, admitted without any solicitation, that the representatives of the Western Federation of Miners had gone more than three-fourths of the way and had been more than fair in bringing about a settlement and that he would at once issue an order to withdraw the troops. The governor admitted, after his personal investigation of affairs at Colorado City, that he was unable to connect the strikers with any violation of the law. In the interview that was held Sunday at the governor’s office to arbitrate with Manager MacNeil, the governor receded from his former agreement to withdraw the troops. He asked the representatives of the Western Federation of Miners for a further concession, namely, that he would immediately withdraw the troops providing that the Federation would withdraw all suits against the officers of the state militia. The representatives of the Federation were again magnanimous and accepted the proposition of the governor.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 23, 1903 Colorado City, Colorado –Mill and Smeltermen’s Union on Strike, Part IV
From The Miners Magazine of April 1903:
THE STRIKE IN COLORADO CITY.
[Part IV of V: Reporter Talks with Wives of Strikers]
The Post in its issue of March 13, said editorially:
WHAT WOULD YOU DO, GOVERNOR, WERE YOU A MILL HAND?
Governor Peabody, do you wish to learn the difference between the men working in the strikers’ places at Colorado City and the strikers? You did not see the strikers when you visited the military camp there. You talked with the men at work in the mills.
Governor, there is a profound difference between those—and that difference represents the truth.
* * *
You talked with the men at work in the guarded mill, governor, and they told you that they had no complaints to make.
At that moment a woman, sent by The Post, was doing a natural and practical thing. She was at the homes of the strikers talking with their wives.
They were very poor, governor, so poor that the check you pay in a fashionable cafe for one meal would mean the very affluence of food for a striker’s family for one week.
And yet the men had worked very, very hard, governor. They had given every muscle and all the endurance they possessed to the mill— every bit of it—and yet their children would have shouted for joy and their wives wept over the sum of a restaurant check carried by a bowing waiter to the proud cashier of a fashionable cafe.
* * *
And then this woman, who writes for The Post, went to the homes of the “scabs” and saw their wives and children and the men when they returned gloomily home—the men who told you, governor, that they had no complaints to make.
Theirs are the homes, governor, where, after the credit at the store is cut off in the middle of the month, the women live on crusts of bread so that the men may have an egg or a bit of meat to keep up their strength to work for the mill until next pay day, when credit is restored and they can have enough to eat for another half month.
But the men are working—they have no complaint to make.
***
Governor Peabody, imagine that you were shorn of your power, your fortune, your home—imagine that you had nothing wherewith to support your family, save a chance to earn enough to keep them half alive.
And suppose, governor, that you might lose that chance by a complaint. What would you do? Possibly you would cling to it; possibly you would try to smile through the cold sweat in your face and say:
“I have no complaint to make. Let me alone!”
* * *
Or perhaps, Governor Peabody, if you found that there were beside you good and true comrades, brave men, who would stand by you, you might throw down your tools and say to your employers:
“You must pay us living wages—By God, you must!”
* * *
That is the difference, governor, between the men who are striking and those who have no complaint.
Read Dora Desmond’s story in The Post today, the story written in the laborers’ poor homes, written in the pure light of the sacrifice of their wives, written on the very heart of unrequited toil.
“Nothing to arbitrate!”
Why, Governor Peabody, don’t you know that if you and the rest of the men who sit in their artistic homes with one hand fondly caressing sweet, sunny-haired children and the other holding up the newspaper wherein they read the news of the strike, don’t you know what you and they would do were the conditions reversed?
What would the so-called “ruling classes” do if they found themselves giving their lives for one-half of a right to live?
* * *
How long would “the great conservative, intelligent citizenship” stand it? How long would the mill owners toil in weary silence? How long would you endure slavery?
Did it ever occur to you what the men would do who demand that union labor shall be crushed were they the toilers?
Did it ever occur to you, governor that they might say:
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 22, 1903
Colorado City, Colorado –Mill and Smeltermen’s Union on Strike, Part III
From The Miners Magazine of April 1903:
THE STRIKE IN COLORADO CITY.
[Part III of V: Moyer Submits Terms for Arbitration]
As soon as it became known throughout the state that the militia had been ordered to Colorado City, organized labor in every hamlet, village and city of the state, acted as a unit, in carrying out the instructions that were conveyed in the address that was issued by President Moyer and Secretary-Treasurer Haywood. The first petition that was presented to the legislature in condemnation of the governor, was laid upon the table by a vote of twenty-nine to nineteen. The members of the legislature did not seem to realize that organized labor throughout the state was thoroughly aroused, and when petition after petition came into the chambers of the law-makers, the corporation-owned lackeys of the Peabody administration felt “a change of heart.
The governor for a few days played the role of the parrot to Manager MacNeil, and echoed the slogan of the corporations: “There is nothing to arbitrate.” “Nothing to arbitrate,” exclaimed the governor, when the state militia, at an expense of $1,500 per day are located at Colorado City, to give assistance to the mill trust in binding the shackles of a more galling bondage on the limbs of the serfs, who rebelled against czarism in Colorado. Nothing to arbitrate, when mill managers ride in $14,000 automobiles, and their employes live in hovels, surrounded by squalor of the most abject poverty? Nothing to arbitrate while misery is the legacy of the mill workers, and fabulous dividends, for the trust? Governor, in the language of the street, “you are a corker.” The sentiment of the people of Colorado was expressed in the numerous petitions that poured into the state capitol, and the governor showed symptoms of receding from his former position.
* * *
Sherman Bell, the adjutant general, who was recently appointed by the governor, at the urgent request of the Mine Owners’ Association, and whose salary in the capacity of adjutant general is $1,800 per year, plus $3,200, which is to be appropriated by the Mine Owners’ Association, has assumed the attitude of a military autocrat. This imperial bum hero, who won a questionable reputation in the Spanish-American war, by crawling behind the breastworks of black men, who stormed San Juan hill, vomited the burning lava of his pent-up indignation in the following words to a correspondent of the Denver Post:
You may say for me, in the most emphatic and unqualified terms, that while President Moyer, of the Western Federation of Miners, is in Denvercarrying a white flag of truce and asking for the good offices of Governor Peabody to relieve him and his factional Coeur d’Alene followers from their present embarrassing predicament, he is acting with a double purpose here by waving a red flag under a black flag and at the same time is endeavoring to be relieved of any and all responsibility for the firing at our sentries by Moyer’s assassins and forcing his ideas of arbitration. There is nothing to arbitrate with us on this matter, and everybody concerned might just as well understand it. That is all there is to that.
Sherman Bell is not supposed to assume the duties of adjutant general until Gardner of “Wrath of God” and “Snowslide Fame,” steps down and out at the expiration of his term in the month of April. But Bell is anxious to impress the mine owners with the fact that their princely donation of $3,200 per annum in conjunction with the regular salary is duly appreciated, and that no effort will be spared on his part to fully meet their expectations in serving the interests of the corporations.
President Moyer, in the same issue of the Denver Post, which quoted the belligerent verbosity of Bell, had the following to say to a Post correspondent:
The Mill and Smeltermen’s union agreed to submit their differences to a board of arbitration, and were willing to abide by the decision of such a board. The terms submitted for arbitration by the Federation are as follows:
First—That eight hours shall constitute a day’s work in and around the mills.
Second—That all men now on strike or who shall have been discharged by the different milling companies for no reason other than that they were members of Colorado City Mill and Smeltermen’s union, be reinstated.
Third—That members of organized labor be not discriminated against, but be privileged to affiliate with a labor organization, and that they be not discharged for said affiliation.
Fourth—That the scale of wages, as set forth in the demands of the Mill and Smeltermen’s union be paid.
Fifth—The Colorado City Mill and Smeltermen’s union is willing to submit the above demands to a board of arbitration, selected as follows: The first member of the board to be selected by the governor or the mill managers; the second member to be selected by the Western Federation of Miners, and the third to be selected by the two; and the Colorado City Mill and Smeltermen’s Union No. 125, agrees to abide by the decision of the said board, providing that pending their deliberations, the state militia, armed guards, strike breakers and all pickets be withdrawn from in and around the above mentioned mills.
CHARLES MOYER, Representing Mill and Smeltermen’s Union No. 125.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 21, 1903
Colorado City, Colorado –Mill and Smeltermen’s Union on Strike, Part II
From The Miners Magazine of April 1903:
THE STRIKE IN COLORADO CITY.
[Part II of V: W. F. of M. Attempts to Negotiate]
Previous to the strike being declared, the following letter was presented to the mill managers by the Mill and Smeltermen’s union of Colorado City:
We respectfully present for your consideration a schedule relating to employment and wages in and about the mills. This schedule has been carefully considered by members of the Colorado City Mill and Smeltermen’s union No. 125, W. F. M., and they deem it a fair and reasonable minimum scale for the services in the various lines of work, and inasmuch as throughout the immediate surrounding places a like or higher scale is in effect, it is evident that both the employer and the employes regard a scale not lower than the one presented as just and equitable. Should there be any part of the schedule, however, which appears to you as not being fair and just, we will be glad to take the matter up with you, and assure you of our willingness to look at things from the company’s standpoint as well as our own, and do that which will promote harmony and justice.
We are greatly aggrieved over the discharge of individuals who have been, so far as we are informed, faithful employes of the company, and the only reason for their dismissal being the fact of their membership in this union.
We do not object to the company discharging men whose services as workmen are unsatisfactory. We are not now, nor do we intend to uphold incompetent men nor insist that they be either employed or retained in the employment of the company, but we must protect the men in their rights to belong to the union, even to the extent of discontinuing to work for any company which so discriminates against them.
Realizing that you will require some time to consider the accompanying scale, the committee will call upon you on the 25th inst. and expect a definite answer.
This letter was signed by the official committee of the union, but the letter received but little courteous consideration from the managers. When all overtures of the union failed to bring about an amicable adjustment of differences, the strike was declared as a last resort for justice. The mill managers exhausted every resource to fill the places of the strikers, but their efforts were unavailing. The governor then came to the rescue by recognizing the order of the sheriff, who wears the collar of the corporations. The Denver Post contains the following in its issue of March 6:
This is the telegram sent to the Colorado City mill managers by the Denver Post:
“Are you willing to submit to arbitration the trouble between your company and the mill workers employed by you, the arbitration board to be appointed by joint arrangement of parties involved? Please answer at our expense.
THE DENVER POST.
This is the reply:
“There is no trouble between our company and mill workers employed by us. Our employes are now and have been perfectly satisfied with wages and treatment. Wages paid by us more and hours of labor less than ore reducing plants with whom we compete. Our employes don’t ask to arbitrate. Our plants are full-handed and all our employes and plants require is protection from the violence of outsiders not employed by us. We would be pleased to have your representative visit our plants and fully investigate.
C. A. MACNEIL.
Vice President and General Manager
United States Reduction and Refining Company.
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