Category: Hellraisers Journal

Hellraisers Journal: “Oklahoma Kate” Calls for Marriage and Motherhood Strike until Industrial Conditions for Women Improve

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote T Roosevelt Letter re Race Suicide to Marie Van Horst Oct 18, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 26, 1912
Boston, Massachusetts – Kate Barnard Calls for Strike on Matrimony and Motherhood

From the Duluth Labor World of December 21, 1912:

TOO MANY BABIES IN AMERICA NOW?
———-
Oklahoma Kate Tells Effete Boston There Is
No Need for More Race As It Is Now.
———-

OVER-WORKED MOTHERS FIRST
CAUSE OF CRIME
———-
Calls Strike On Matrimony and Motherhood Until
Women Are Granted Better Conditions.
———-

Kate Barnard, Marriage Strike, NY Eve Wld p24, Dec 19, 1912

BOSTON, Dec. 19.—”Don’t get married, girls; go on a mother strike until industrial conditions for women are better,” was the appeal made here today by Miss Kate Barnard, prison commissioner of Oklahoma, where she is sometimes called “Oklahoma Kate.”

[Miss Barnard declared:]

We have no need for more of our race as it is at present. I have decided not to marry until women are far better off industrially and politically, and I’m not an old woman, either.

Miss Barnard is—well, perhaps she might be 30—or thereabouts—and she is very pretty.

Where Crime Starts.

[Said Miss Barnard;]

The first cause of crime is the overworking of mothers and those who some day will be mothers.

She told how Oklahoma got its child labor law, which has been a model for 17 states since, and said this and the compulsory education law were aimed directly at conservation of humanity and reduction of crime.

[She declared:]

It’s a farce to pass a child labor law or a compulsory education law unless you provide against poverty, keeping children out of school.

She told how her bill provides that if a widow has children at work, they can be taken from the mill and sent to school and the state will pay their wages, just as though they were at work. There are 5,461 children now at school in Oklahoma under this provision.

”Last” But Five Years.

Miss Barnard described child labor in glass factories where little workers “last” from three to five years.

[She cried:]

And I say that the American girls have no time for matrimony until this is changed. We don’t need any more of the race until we can clear up what we have.

Ida Tarbell, the well known magazine writer, also spoke. She has concluded that married women and girls who enter industrial life without pressing need form one of the worst dangers to civilization in this coun­try.

Miss Tarbell has been paying special attention to the question of the minimum wage for women and to­day declared:

The minimum wage for women in Boston should be set at $9 while in New York it should be $1 higher. I’d hate to have any girl I cared about working in New York for less than $10.

Discussing the observations she has made while gathering material for a new series of articles on the new business ethics of today. Miss Tarbell said:

How They Live a Mystery.

Plenty of girls in New York are living on $6 a week and are keeping straight on it, too. It can be done, but how the girls do it is a mystery. Those girls living on those few meager dollars and living right are the heroines of the age.

The girl who lives at home and accepts a position for $5 or $6 a week is the girl who makes it hard for the homeless and self-supporting girl to make a living—makes it hard for her to remain a good girl.

The woman who works for less than a living wage is the woman who marries and continues to work. She is the most vicious element in a workaday world. We’ve got to realize that marriage and the home are something more than two people living together and supporting themselves. We’ve got to realize what a function it is in the great scheme of things.

The whole basis, of our social development is the family. In the first place there are children to be considered. A woman must give up her work or race suicide is the result. Of course from the economic view point the couple are much better off if the woman stays at home and the man works. If they are both working the aggregate earnings are more, but the aggregate expenses are comparatively greater also and there is no conserving done; none of the countless things that make a dollar have a dollar’s purchasing power.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Oklahoma Kate” Calls for Marriage and Motherhood Strike until Industrial Conditions for Women Improve” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Coming Nation-Alfred Segal: Striking Miners Are Winning the Fight at Eskdale, West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Revolution Is Here, Speech Cton WV, Sept 21, 1912, Steel Speeches p116—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 23, 1912
American Flag Stands Tall Over Miners’ Tent Colony at Eskdale, West Virginia

From The Coming Nation of December 7, 1912:

Winning the Fight at Eskdale
———-

By Alfred Segal
———-

WV Eskdale Tents Flag, Cmg Ntn p5, Dec 7, 1912

THERE was a tremendous excitement in the little village of Eskdale, W. Va.

An American flag waves over the main street of Eskdale (perhaps to give assurance that Eskdale is really in America and not in Russia); but on the same street you see little children barefoot, now in November, because they haven’t any shoes, and you see the families of striking miners, evicted and driven into the highways by the Coal Dukes, living under tents because they have no homes. You are ashamed to enjoy the meager comforts of your hotel room after you have lived a day with the misery of Eskdale.

Two rods from the tents stand the coal hills with their fabulous wealth-the fine tables set by nature for all her children and yet within sight of the feast they are starving.

Well, the heart of Eskdale was beating like a trip-hammer. Word had come down through the hills that the governor had declared martial law over the strike district and that the soldiers were coming.

The echoes of gun-shots were rolling down into the valley. They came into Eskdale like the rumble of cannon. Somewhere up in the hills there was another battle on between miners and mine guards-one of those fights that make the quickly-dug, rude graves that you can find in lonely places in the coal hills.

Oh, yes, it’s lawlessness all right. But you can see it and hear it and some people can understand it. For years and years West Virginia has been ruled by respectable, invisible lawlessness which controlled courts, ran the legislatures and elected United States senators and is now responsible for the barefoot little children and the homeless exiles in the tents.

The soldiers were coming.

It runs through Eskdale’s mind that what it wants is a living wage, justice and fair-dealing and here the governor was sending the soldiers.

The shot echoes crashed without pause down the valley, waking sleeping babies under the tents and arousing strange stirrings in the hearts of the men and women of Eskdale, needing bread, but hungering only for freedom.

And then the distant toot of the engine which was pulling the martial law special and the soldiers, broke upon the village. Eskdale crowded to the railroad track. The train rumbled past toward the depot.

In the first car were the soldiers, guns held firmly in front of them, ready for work.

And in the second car-

“Scab, scab,” cried a boy, shrill-voiced.

He pointed at a window in the second car-at a face, soiled, weary-eyed, unshaven, crowned with a battered hat. And behind this face there was another and another-a whole car-load of such faces.

“Scab, scab”-the men and women took up the cry. They could not understand that these men were like themselves the dupes of the system.

Martial law had come into the strike zone with a shipment of strike-breakers whom it was protecting, with orders to shoot to kill if one of them was molested. The state of West Virginia had become a strike-breaking agency.

And to the inhabitants of its hills, the state had given so little protection through all these years. They had asked for laws that would emancipate them from the tyranny of the mine guard system-and had been denied. They had asked for compensation laws that would protect their families against the consequences of fatal accident in the mines-and had been denied.

And here were the strike-breakers come to take their jobs and to live upon their hills under protection of their militia.

“Scab, scab,” they jeered.

[Hunger Squad Pitched Against Hunger Squad]

I was there and spoke to the strike-breakers-men and boys recruited from the hunger squads of the East Side of New York, none of them miners, weary with the futile search for work at their trades, and desperate enough to throw themselves at adventure as strike-breakers for the sake of a job.

The despair of hunger, you see, knows no state lines. It recruits the strike-breaker in New York. It scourges to violence the striking miner of West Virginia. Hunger squad is pitched against hunger squad.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Coming Nation-Alfred Segal: Striking Miners Are Winning the Fight at Eskdale, West Virginia” →

Hellraisers Journal: Testimony of Miners, Wives and Children, of Pennsylvania Anthracite, Brings Commissioners to Tears

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Evicted Miners Baby Dies on Roadside, Evl Jr Ns p3, Sept 28, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 21, 1902
Scranton, Pennsylvania – Misery of Miners’ Lives Describe Before Coal Commission

From the Butte Labor World of December 19, 1902:

PA Miners Slave Pens, Btt Lbr Wld p1, Dec 19, 1902

The other day members of the strike commission wept when a miner told his simple, straightforward story of incredible ill-treatment-of inhumanity that astounded the judges.

The veil was raised a few inches higher-and the commissioners were astonished as they looked beyond. Bishop Spalding swung around in his chair, turning his back upon the courtroom to hide his tears. Assistant Recorder Mosely made no attempt to hide his. Judge Gray’s face was white and there were hard, indignant lines about his mouth as he echoed the words of the coal trust lawyer: “Yes, that is all,” adding, “and it is enough!”

If there be lower depth of human misery than those in which these miners live they have never been fathomed.

Millions have wept over the sorrows that plied upon Jean Valjean, but Victor Hugo’s hero was never a more heartrending type of misery than was old Henry Coll [Call] as he told how he had bent his back under the brutal yoke of men who have posed before the country as philanthropists and claimed a God-given right to this positions as employers of labor.

Coll had had every bone in his body, except his neck, broken in the service of these people; and after the strike had been turned out of his house-a poor place, it is true, but the only home he knew-with a sick wife, her hundred-year-old mother, his son and the children to two comrades who had been killed at work, and with whom he in his charity had shared his home. They had been turned out at a moment’s notice into the cold street to perish. His wife had died as the result of the exposure and he had just come from burying her to tell his story.

Then there was the tale of Kate Burns. Her husband had been killed also working for these taskmasters, and to live she had sent her little boys to the breakers. There they had slaved for 78 cents a day, but never received a cent of pay in fourteen years, their earnings being applied by the company to paying the rent, while she, by washing and scrubbing, had earned barely enough to support the little family.

It is the rich men who imposed hardships like these upon those who work for them that refused to arbitrate and insulted the president when he suggested it.

But the veil is up and the horrors behind it are being laid bare for all the world to see.-N. Y. American.

—————

MARKLE’S SLAVES TELL OF THE EVILS
———-

Tuesday, December 9, was a day of horrors at Scranton, Pa., for those who listened to the evidence before the strike commission. The pathetic stories of the former witnesses were almost forgotten as the stories of still more unfortunate slaves of the miners were told.

John Markle, who had almost achieved the reputation as the philanthropist of the coal field, was not present to contradict, the stories of his employes, nor was there any legal representative to attempt to discredit these stories or to soften their influence upon the members of the commission…..

[Emphasis added.]

Note: the article goes on to describe testimony from:

Mrs. Kate Burns, widow: husband killed in mines, children forced to work in mines,  forced to go to work washing and cleaning as soon as baby born.

Henry Coll: Evicted with wife, children and very elderly mother-in-law, had been severely injured in mines, wife ill when family evicted and died shortly thereafter.

Michael Baker: age 18, had frequently been clubbed, beaten and sworn at by breaker boss.

Ella Chippe [Chippa], widow: husband died in mines, son (Andrew) forced to work as breaker boy, son’s pay taken to pay debts, baby born after death of husband.

Mary Ann Raber, widow: husband killed in mines with Mrs. Chippe’s husband, four children to support, son sent to work in mines,

Testimony given by miners proves that they are over-charged for doctor’s fees, for powder, and underpaid for the coal they mined due to coal cars continually increasing in size. Price of groceries increased by 30% since 1900.

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Testimony of Miners, Wives and Children, of Pennsylvania Anthracite, Brings Commissioners to Tears” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Oklahoma Leader: “Ghost of Ricardo Flores Magon Has Appeared in Front of the White House”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Freedom Ricardo Flores Magon,-Speech re Prisoners of Texas, May 31, 1914—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 20, 1922
Washington, D. C. – Women’s Amnesty Committee Pickets White House

From the Oklahoma Leader of December 19, 1922:

MAGON DEATH MAY HASTEN AMNESTY
———-

(By the Federated Press.)

Mexican Revolution, Ricardo Flores Magon, SF Call p21, Sept 29, 1907
Ricardo Flores Magón

WASHINGTON.-The ghost of Ricardo Flores Magon has appeared in front of the White House [Monday November 27th], demanding of his recent jailers that other friends of freedom still shut behind American prison bars be set free before they perish.

Magon still living, and racked by disease in his cell at Leavenworth, was no burden on the official conscience. But when death a week ago commuted his 21-year sentence for saying the war was an evil thing it released forces which brought embarrassment to the White House gates.

Outraged by the crucifixion of Magon, Mrs. Elizabeth Glendower Evans, Boston; Mrs. Nathalie B. Ellis, Baltimore; Mrs. Marguerite Tucker, New York, and Mary LaFollette Tucker, Washington, appeared before the executive mansion with banners which read:

Ricardo Flores Magon, Political Prisoner, Died for Freedom, Leavenworth Prison, Nov. 21, 1922.

Mr. President, Another Political Prisoner Released, Death Is More Merciful Than the Administration, Magon Died in Leavenworth, Other Political Prisoners Are Dying From Consumption.

Mr. President, Charles W. Morse Did Not Die in Jail, Harry M Daugherty Was His Attorney, Ricardo Flores Magon, Political Prisoner, Died in Leavenworth, Attorney General Daugherty Was His Jailer.

The only crime ever committed by Magon was the writing of an anti-war article for which he was given the maximum sentence by the federal court of the southern district of California. The reason given for the failure to consider this case was on the grounds that Magon was not repentant-in other words, that he refused to renounce his views.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Oklahoma Leader: “Ghost of Ricardo Flores Magon Has Appeared in Front of the White House”” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1902, Part II: Found in Baltimore, Maryland, and with Striking Miners of West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones to Wayland fr WV Wind Blows Cold, AtR p4, Nov 1, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 19, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1902, Part II
Found in Baltimore, Maryland, and in New River Strike Zone of West Virginia

From the Baltimore Sun of November 21, 1902:

MOTHER JONES IN TOWN
———-
Miners’ Friend Calls On Officials
To Stop Immigration.

Mother Jones at Cooper Un, Ryan Walker, Comrade p28, Nov 1902

Mother Jones, the friend of the coal miners, arrived in Baltimore yesterday unannounced. She proceeded at once to hunt up Mr. Thomas A. Smith, chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, introduced herself and started to make known the object of her visit.

[She said:]

I have come here for the purpose of putting a stop to immigrants being brought into this country and employed by coal operators to take the places of the regular miners in the New River district of West Virginia.

Chief Smith laid aside his eyeglasses and took a quiet survey of Mother Jones, who had seated herself in a chair and was tapping the floor impatiently with her foot. Before Mr. Smith could make any statement Mother Jones began to give him and his assistant, Mr. Jacob Schoufarber, a full detailed account of the alleged indignities suffered by the miners at the hands of the operators. After she had finished he statement Mother Jones was referred to the office of the United States Immigration Bureau at the Custom House.

Mother Jones reached the Custom House in due time and was met by Assistant Commissioner Stump. To Mr. Stump she repeated her complaint, and Mr. Stump told her that if she could furnish the bureau with the names of immigrants who had been employed on the other side by the coal miners he would be very glad to look into the case.

“The proper course for you to pursue, madam,” he said, “is to write to Commissioner General F. P. Sargent, giving him all the data you can obtain in the matter.”

“Yes,” said Mother Jones with a long sigh, “that is just what I was told to do with Mr. Powderly when he was in office, and Powderly is a pretty good chap and I believe he kept his seat warm while he was in office.”

“But Mr. Powderly is not there now,” said Mr. Stump, “Mr. Sargent Is in charge.”

[Said Mother Jones:]

Oh, yes, I know him too; he is a jolly old chap, but he has let more immigrants into this country than even Powderly did. These mine owners are a sharp crowd to deal with. They have their agents on the other side and they coach the immigrants what to say when they come here. They are not shipped direct to the coal mines, but are sent in through Wheeling and other points, and when they get there they are herded in stockades with guards all around them and we cannot get anywhere near them.

Mr. Stump reminded his visitor that the proper person to receive her complaint would be Commissioner-General Sargent. She then left the office.

Mother Jones is a little woman, short, but stockily built, with iron gray hair, and speaks very forcibly. She has been called “Mother Jones” by reason of her interest in the welfare of the miners.

[Photograph added.]

From The Chattanooga News of November 27, 1902:

STRIKERS BRACE UP
———-
“Mother” Jones Puts New Heart and Life
Into West Virginia Coal Miners.
———-

Charleston, W. Va., Nov. 27.-The strikers in the New River mining field are making their last stand, encouraged by the magnetism of Mother Jones, who arrived there from Scranton, Pa., where she had expected to testify before the anthracite strike commission.

The West Virginia strike began June 7. It fizzled in the Fairmont field because of the federal injunctions issued by Judge Jackson. A few months ago settlements were reached in the Pocahontas and Kanawha regions, where the men gained notable concessions.

It would be hard to find a more determined band of men than the New River strikers. It was to this field Gov. White sent state troops during the summer and there followed the evictions of thousands of families. The cold weather has been a severe test, but the men are determined to win.

New River has a larger output than any other in West Virginia field and at least 5,000 men are involved in the strike. The United Mine Workers’ Union is caring for them and President Mitchell may soon assume direct charge.

John Richards, president of district No. 17, United Mine Workers, has tendered his resignation, it is understood, under pressure from his conferees, who represented to him that he was the only man who had stood between the miners and operators. The operators absolutely refused to treat with Richards, but intimated that a settlement could be reached if he were out of the way.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1902, Part II: Found in Baltimore, Maryland, and with Striking Miners of West Virginia” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1902, Part I: Found Speaking in New York City, Standing with Strikers in West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones to Wayland fr WV Wind Blows Cold, AtR p4, Nov 1, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 18, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for November 1902, Part I
Found Speaking in New York City and Standing with Striking Miners of West Virginia

From The Comrade of November 1902:

Mother Jones at Cooper Un, Ryan Walker, Comrade p28, Nov 1902
Mother Jones at Cooper Union, New York City, October 18, 1902
by Ryan Walker

———-

Sieverman n Mother Jones, Comrade p28, Nov 1902Frank Sieverman and Mother Jones

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of November 1, 1902:

MOTHER JONES’S LECTURE.
———-
Discussed Social and Political Topics
at the Criterion Theater.
———-

“Mother” Jones lectured before a good sized audience last evening in the Criterion Theater on social and political topics. The audience was evidently in sympathy wiih her views, for she was frequently interrupted with applause and her introduction was the signal for an ovation that must have been flattering to the venerable organizer.

“Mother” Jones is a well preserved woman of perhaps 60 years, with bright blue eyes and clear complexion, and she speaks with great force and earnestness.

Dr. Charles Furman presided at the meeting and introduced “Mother” Jones. Some enthusiastic socialist leaped up on his seat and called for three cheers for the speaker and they were given with a will.

“Mother” Jones began her address by saying the movement of the present day was along lines of progression laid down by the sages years ago, and everywhere along the line of battle the cry was forward. “To move forward is the object of socialism, and to help you in this movement is why I am here to-night.”

In referring to the recent coal miners’ strike in Pennsylvania “Mother” Jones said John Mitchell was one of God’s own noblemen and she flayed the operators in no uncertain tone. Referring to her arrest and incarceration in West Virginia, “Mother” Jones said she had been blamed by a great many people because she shook hands with the judge who sentenced her to jail. “Why shouldn’t I do so?” she cried. “The judge was not to blame. He was a victim of environment and had to perform his sworn duty to carry out the laws as he found them.” Continuing, the speaker said neither of the old parties could be trusted because both were capitalistic.

In many respects her address was disappointing. She presented no new arguments and her discourse did not differ mainly from the usual pronouncements of socialists-that is, condemnation of capital. J. P. Morgan came in for a good share of the speaker’s attention and many of her witty sallies in reference to him evoked hearty applause.

From the Appeal to Reason of November 1, 1902:

All newspaper reports to the contrary notwithstanding, the miners’ strike in West Virginia is by no means over, and a hard fight is being made in a number of districts where the operators refuse to make any concessions. “Mother” Jones writes from Montgomery, W. Va, that the utmost suffering prevails there, in consequence of the harsh measures taken by the “Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of this country.” She says: “We have fifteen hundred families of coal miners thrown out of their homes by the capitalist cannibals, and now camping on the highway. We should not talk so much about evictions in Ireland. Free America eclipses Ireland.”

—————

From Mother Jones.
Montgomery, West Va., Oct 5, 1902.

Dear Wayland: Here I am in the midst of industrial warfare with all its horrors. The wind blows cold this morning, but these cruel coal barons do not feel the winter blast; their babes, nay even their poodles dogs, are warm and have a comfortable breakfast, while these slaves of the caves, who in the past have moved the commerce of the world, are out on the highways without clothes or shelter. Nearly 3,000 families have been thrown out of the corporation shacks to face the cold blasts of winter weather. Children look into your face and their looks ask, is this what we are here for?

Is this the doctrine Jesus taught? Is this what he agonized for that frightful night in the Garden of Gethsemane 2.000 years ago? When you look at this picture of suffering, and then look into the homes of the Barons, with their joy and pleasures that these helpless people have given, then I ask Bishop Potter how he can howl “all for Jesus” on Sunday and on Monday morning drink wine at $35.00 a bottle, and sing all for Baer and Morgan.

In Pennsylvania its “shoot to kill,” in Virginia, it’s injunction them to death: Everywhere you go, you step on an injunction. Step on the Monstrous injunction. There yells a corporation lap dog, if you step on the R. R. T. the R. R. Detective yells, “Get off here, on injunction company property.” If you go into the river some one yells out “I own half that River.” Well, said I, for God’s sake give me a chance to make a deal with Peter, perhaps he might lend a rope down and swing me in the air. They will have an injunction on that soon. If you go on the public highways, to say “all for Jesus,” with a crowd of strikers, it is an unlawful assemblage-no one can do that but Potter and Morgan-you must be a sky pilot, an looking for Morgan.

MOTHER JONES.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for November 1902, Part I: Found Speaking in New York City, Standing with Strikers in West Virginia” →

Hellraisers Journal: Striking Miners of Southwestern Counties of Pennsylvania, Evicted for Joining UMWA, Live in Tents

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Mother Jones, Coming of the Lord, Cnc Pst p6, July 23, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 17, 1922
Evicted Miners of Southwestern Counties of Pennsylvania Survive in Tents

From the United Mine Workers Journal of December 15, 1922:

SW PA UMW Strike, Mendak Family in Tent Fayette Co, UMWJ p9, Dec 15, 1922

—–

UMW Strike SW PA, Tent Denbo Miners Wife Milks Cow, UMWJ p16, Dec 15, 1922

—–

UMW SW PA Strike, Uniformed Gunthugs, UMWJ p14, Dec 15, 1922

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Striking Miners of Southwestern Counties of Pennsylvania, Evicted for Joining UMWA, Live in Tents” →

Hellraisers Journal: Little Falls Strikers Ask for Protection; Police Seek to Establish Insanity Case Against Nurse Schloss

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Helen Schloss, Women w Hungry Souls, Black Hills Dly Rg p2, July 15, 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 16, 1912
Little Falls, New York – Strikers Seek Protection; Insanity Case Fails Against Nurse

From the Grant County Socialist (Medford, Oklahoma) of December 14, 1912:

STRIKERS APPEAL TO GOV. DIX
FOR STATE MILITIA
———-
Only Resort Little Falls Workers Can See
———-
Bosses Would Establish Case of Insanity
to Incarcerate Helen Schloss.
———-

Little Falls NY Jail Hell Hole, H Schloss Arrested, Bghm Prs Sun Bltn p10, Dec 5, 1912
Binghamton Press and Leader (New York)
December 5, 1912

Little Falls, N. Y., Dec. 6.-“Send the State militia to Little Falls!” is the appeal to Governor Dix that the striking textile workers of this city sent out today.

This is the only avenue of escape from the inhuman and brutal persecution of the local police and the company’s hired thugs that the strikers think they have left.

The strike is now in its eighth week, and the solidarity of the workers is second only to that demonstrated by the 22,000 textile workers in the historic Lawrence strike. There’s nothing that can break the united spirit of the men and women and children that are fighting for bread except the atrocious activities of the hirelings of the mill owners. It is their high-handed methods in stifling the rebellious spirit of the workers that have driven the strikers to appeal for the state militia.

[…..]

How Miss Schloss Was Hounded

Helen Schloss, the city nurse, who, after seeing the condition of the strikers, decided to give up her position in order to be better able to help the strikers, today told the story of how the special police persecuted her in an effort to discourage her activities in the strike.

Not being able to persuade her to withdraw from the strikers’ ranks, they determined to find out some way of getting her out of the  way, at least till the strike is over. Without knowing anything Miss Schloss was subjected to an examination of her state of mind by 3 local physicians. For two long hours they questioned her in a manner that would put the much heard of third degree to shame. All this in an effort to establish the fact of her insanity.

Miss Schloss, however, stood the test, and at times it looked as if the doctors who investigated her mental status were not er rational themselves. They finally gave up the job in disgust.

[Newsclip and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Little Falls Strikers Ask for Protection; Police Seek to Establish Insanity Case Against Nurse Schloss” →