You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Tuesday June 13, 1916
From the American Socialist: Special Report from Pittsburgh, Part II
Yesterday Hellraisers presented Part One of a special report from Pittsburgh which described the round up of unionists following the Braddock Massacre of May 2nd. Today’s Hellraisers continues with Part II of that report in which we find Unionists and Socialist held in the bastiles of Pittsburgh and facing many years in the penitentiary.
Part I of the report ended with this description of the sheriff arriving at the scene of the Braddock Massacre, not for the purpose of arresting the coal and iron guards, nor to take from them their automatic rifles:
When some of the boys, as stated, and men became aggravated by the killing of their companion some of them rushed forward toward the transport office. A company man, with a repeating magazine rifle, fired a number of shots, killing another working man, and another volley was fired killing another, and wounding four so severely that their lives were despaired off, some of them being in the hospital at the present time. In addition to this about 30 more were wounded to a lesser degree. The crowd then disbanded. J. H. Hall and Edgar Donaldson got into an automobile at some distance from the trouble and drove to the sheriff’s office where they went to report this outrageous murdering of workingmen. The sheriff proceeded to the scene, buy did not arrest deputies, coal and iron guards or the special policemen, or take away from them their automatic rifles or automatic riot guns.
From the American Socialist of June 10, 1916-
The report from Pittsburgh continues:
LABOR BEING CRUCIFIED IN
PITTSBURGH AGAIN
—–(SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE.)[Part II.]
Make Wholesale Arrests.He [the sheriff], obedient to his steel trust masters, proceeded to arrest and incarcerate the friends, associates and even some of the workingmen who had been shot. A drag-net was thrown out and the president of the union, J. H. Hall, who was not on the spot near the shooting or had any participation in it, was lodged in jail. Members of the executive committee of the union, and all the officials of the union were immediately hustled off to jail.
Then bystanders and strangers, not members of the union, were jailed. It did not stop here. The coroner and sheriff arrested one woman, who had a child, because she was seen in the parade the day before. They arrested Bridget Kenney whose sole offense was that she ran a restaurant and some of the employes of the Westinghouse company had taken their meals there. Miss Kenney went with a reporter of the Pittsburgh Leader, at his request, up to within a couple of blocks of where the shooting took place. She knew some of the men and the streets and was assisting him, and while standing in an automobile some distance from the shooting she heard some of the volleys fired.
A witness before the coroner’s inquest stated that some child had come over where he was and said that parties across the street near the automobile had made the statement that a “boom” should be placed under a clubhouse. This is practically all the evidence produced against this woman, and she is indicted not only for riot but held for the Grand Jury on the charge of murder.
Anna Bell, who had no part or parcel in the disturbance on 13th Street, was indicted on the charge of murder, and 16 others, working men and women, were held without trial or bail and questioned at the end of some two weeks’ time during which 35 men and women were lodged in jail without any complaint against them and without any possibility of being admitted to bail, because Coroner Jamison maintained that he had the right to hold these people in jail as parties to the offense or as witnesses without bail. In other words, if a man accidentally was present and the Coroner thought he saw anything or heard anything, he threw him in jail and the man could not release himself by furnishing bail, the coroner insisting that he could delay the inquest and hold these people to suit his convenience, and he did so against the protest of every decent man who knew the situation.
Brutal and Brazen.This is the most brutal, dastardly and brazen attempt made for many years in this country to jail and hang people for the purpose of preventing the unionizing of a steel industry and the organization of its workers.
In West Virginia the hired thugs shot the people down but they did not jail them without legal process. In Michigan the copper kings drove the strikers from their homes but they did not attempt to jail them by the mere wish of a coroner and keep them jailed there to suit his convenience.
When prisoners are lodged in the bastile of Pittsburgh’s pious war munition community, they are not permitted to see friends, altho innocent and not held by warrant or indictment. They could see only their nearest relatives once a week, and it was under these conditions that these men and women were kept, some strikers and friends and some strangers who happened to be near the trouble zone. Some were held for participation in the riot, some were held because they were shot by steel trust thugs and refused to die, and others because they were merely looking on the massacre.
The indictments against these parties were returned into court at noontime on Saturday, 20th day of May. Saturday afternoon is a holiday; Sunday the jail was closed; Monday was the first day that attorneys could see these men and women in jail as defendants to an indictment; Tuesday the coroner’s jury commenced its session in the morning and it lasted until evening. This day the lawyers defending the indicted working men and women had no opportunity to see their clients. The Coroner’s Jury held 17 to the Grand Jury for murder upon a farcical inquest before a bossed, biased and prejudiced jury, where three dead working men were the subject of the jury’s investigation, and not a single guard or employe of the company showed even a discolored skein.
The steel trust, ripe for preparedness, procures the indictment of workingmen because the steel trust thugs murdered some of them. Remember, the indictments were returned so late on Saturday that nothing could be done; Sunday nothing could be done; Monday furnished one day; Tuesday the Grand Jury held its session, then Wednesday and Thursday, and Friday the trial commenced against defendants upon the charge of riot where the punishment may be 7 years in the penitentiary.
Tragic And Barbarous.When preparation for a defense is limited to three days, so short a time where there are thirty-three defendants, it ceases to be judicious. It is tragic and barbarous. When the district attorney comes out with a statement that he is doing it so that the men and women will not be kept in jail it becomes hideous irony. Mob law has some justice, or at least something in extenuation. It is the outbreak of savage impulses which civilization has not completely eliminated. There is far less to palliate the rushing of men and women to trial in a community inflamed by passion and prejudice where a newspaper editorially declares it opportune for a trial because the public is clamoring for a conviction.
When the papers of a presumably civilized city advocate a trial because public sentiment is ripe for a conviction, and demands it, it furnishes an irresistible reason for deliberation and eloquently shows a reason and necessity for the working class of the city, county, state and of the nation to rebel against a mis-trial and judicialized lynch law. The Grand Jury rendered its decision inside of 40 minutes after it retired. There was not one of them who could have told the names of the men who were held for the Grand Jury except by the lists that were checked off and handed to them. Their judgement and opinion were determined for them before they went into the jury box, and the introduction of the evidence was a stage setting and form a tribute which injustice and outrage pays to justice.
Victims of Greed.Those indicted and held to the Grand Jury consist of a boy of about 16 or 17 who threw a rock; Rudolph Blum, 20 years of age, Secretary of the County Committee of the Socialist Party, his infamy being that he held up one end of a banner, another comrade carried the other end, with the words requesting an 8-hour day; J. H. Hall, who tried to organize, and Fred H. Merrick, the speaker of protest among the working people of this district; Miss Kenney, who runs a restaurant to secure a meagre livelihood.
Steph Ergoris was arrested. He was taken from his home by thugs of the company, over to the office of the plant. He was made to stand up and sit down, to stand up and sit down. He had been shot in the head and therefore his condition was dangerous. He did not confess shooting or trying to injure any of the guards or the property of the company under this process of rising and sitting, so they promptly slugged him so that one leg was swollen twice its normal size. Great black and blue marks were on his back, so that the doctor administered treatment to him. The scars and discoloration were easily discernable 20 days after this brutal assault. It is almost impossible for a person to credit the outrages perpetrated, only a portion of which space will permit us to enumerate, that can easily be verified in detail and without sleuthing.
The Martyred Dead.The names of the three murdered workingmen are John Vargo, Michael Havrilka, and Alexander Lasok.
Seymour Stedman, the noted labor attorney of Chicago, is in charge of the case; with him are associated William Brennen, labor attorney of Pittsburgh, and some ten or twelve other lawyers. So many men have never before been indicted on so flimsy evidence; their chief crime is loyalty to the working class. But the prosecution is so vigorous and the determination of the employing class to have vengeance, and to teach a lesson, so relentless, that there is grave danger that at least some of these men will be railroaded to the penitentiary for long terms. They are fighting your battle as well as their own. Send contributions to Socialist Party Defense Committee for Westinghouse Strikers, 205 Lyceum Building, Pittsburgh, Pa.
[Emphasis added.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCE
American Socialist
(Chicago, Illinois)
-June 10, 1916
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/american-socialist/v2n48-jun-10-1916-TAS.pdf
IMAGE
We Never Forget: Braddock Massacre by JayRaye
http://caucus99percent.com/content/we-never-forget-pittsburgh-steel-strike-and-braddock-massacre-may-2-1916
See also:
C99 Tag: Braddock Massacre of 1916
http://caucus99percent.com/tags/braddock-massacre-1916
C99 Tag: Pittsburgh Steel Strike of 1916
http://caucus99percent.com/tags/pittsburgh-steel-strike-1916
Father Was Killed By The Pinkerton Men
Lyrics by William W. Delaney
‘Twas in a Pennsylvania town not very long ago
Men struck against reduction of their pay
Their millionaire employer with philanthropic show
Had closed the works till starved they would obey.
They fought for home and right to live where they had toiled so long
But ere the sun had set some were laid low;
There’re hearts now sadly grieving by that sad and bitter wrong
God help them for it was a cruel blow.
Chorus
God help them tonight in their hour of affliction
Praying for him whom they’ll ne’er see again
Hear the poor orphans tell their sad story
“Father was killed by the Pinkerton men.”
Ye prating politicians, who boast protection creed,
Go to Homestead and stop the orphans’ cry.
Protection for the rich man ye pander to his greed,
His workmen they are cattle and may die.
The freedom of the city in Scotland far away
Is presented to the millionaire suave,
But here in Free America with protection in full sway
His workmen get the freedom of the grave.
Chorus
This link leads to link for tune:
Traditional Music
SOURCE
American labor songs of the nineteenth century
-ed by Philip Sheldon Foner
University of Illinois Press, 1975
https://books.google.com/books/about/American_labor_songs_of_the_nineteenth_c.html?id=2xRXAAAAMAAJ
See also:
The Musical Saga of Homestead
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5322/