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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 6, 1919
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Carlo Tresca Speaks to Strikers
From the Boston Evening Globe of May 3, 1919:
SMUGGLE TRESCA IN AND OUT OF LAWRENCE
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I. W. W. Agitator Addresses Strikers After
Dodging the Police in Search
—–Special Dispatch to the Globe
LAWRENCE, May 3-Carlo Tresca, noted I. W. W. advocate and prominent leader of the strike in 1912, addressed an enthusiastic mass meeting of the strikers behind locked doors in Lexington Hall, last night. Tresca was accorded a great reception. Leaders pleaded with the strikers to restrain from demonstrations for fear of police interference.
One speaker, the police were informed, advised the strikers to go out and shoot every policeman that interfered with them.
Tresca was smuggled into Lawrence late Wednesday afternoon. His presence in the city was closely guarded because the strike leaders knew the police would not tolerate his presence.
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Secreted Under the Stage
At 6 he was taken to the hall in a closed automobile. He was secreted beneath the stage, and only a few knew that he was there. At 7:30 the hall was filled to capacity, and hundreds on the outside clamored for admission, it having been stated that there was to be a prominent speaker.
At 7:30 Anthony Capraro of the general strike committee, and chairman of the meeting, told the audience that the had a great surprise for them and that he was going to introduce a speaker they loved and for whom they were clamoring. He then called Tresca on to the stage.
In the course of his remarks Tresca, it is said, congratulated the Lawrence strikers for the manner in which they were conducting their fight, and flayed the police for their alleged oppression. When he concluded all doors were guarded and no one was allowed to leave the hall for 20 minutes after Tresca had departed. This was done so as to cover Tresca’s tracks in leaving the city.
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Dodged the Police on Watch
The police were informed yesterday afternoon that Tresca was to address a mass meeting in Lexington Hall. Every road leading to Lawrence was guarded, and no auto permitted into the city without a search. They kept watch until 9:30.
This morning Capraro said that the strikers had scored a great victory by the presence of Tresca. The police did not want Tresca here and for that reason his presence at the hall was guarded very closely.
We knew that if the police were informed that Tresca was in the hall they would try to arrest him. They would have never got him last night, for there would have been a terrible slaughter.
Tresca will be brought to Lawrence, the leaders say, to address another meeting in the near future. The advisability of bringing him to the city has been discussed by the strike committee several days. The radicals wanted him to come while the more conservative members were strongly opposed. The majority, it is declared, were against bringing him. This opinion was ignored.
Other speakers at the meeting last night were Frank M. Coco, local strike leader out on bail on a charge of inciting to riot; Joseph Falerno and a young man named Presse of Boston.
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[Photograph added.]
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones Raising Hell, NYT p1, Oct 6, 1916
Mother speaks to wives of street car strikers, blamed for riot.
Boston Evening Globe
(Boston, Massachusetts)
-May 3, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/430846116
IMAGE
Carlo Tresca, ISR, Oct 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA205
See also:
Carlo Tresca
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Tresca
Tag: Carlo Tresca
https://weneverforget.org/tag/carlo-tresca/page/4/
“The Return of the Jedi: The Lawrence Textile Strike of 1919”
https://www.ofaplace.com/home/the-return-of-the-jedi-the-lawrence-textile-strike-of-1919
The American Labor Year Book, Volume 3
-ed by Alexander Trachtenberg
Rand School of Social Science, 1920
https://books.google.com/books?id=PWQdAAAAYAAJ
“The Lawrence Textile Strike of 1919”
-by Harvell L. Rotzel
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=PWQdAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA172
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Bread and Roses Strike 100th Anniversary