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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 11, 1912
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Strikers Children Sent to New York City
From The Boston Daily Globe, Evening Edition, of February 10, 1912:
Upper Picture-Strikers’ Children from Lawrence in
South Station [Boston], Waiting to Board a New York Train.
Lower Left Hand-Child of a Striker. Lower Right Hand-
Miss Florence Sawyer, with One of the Youngest in the Party.
———-One hundred and seventy-five boys and girls, children of textile strikers in Lawrence, were brought to Boston this morning on their way to New York city, where they are to be cared for by different families until the strike is settled. The children left at noon for New York. They were to have departed on the 10:03 train out of the South Station, but they reached the North Station too late to make the connection. They went to the South Station by an elevated train, and from the time of their arrival at 10:30, until their departure, at 12, made the waiting room of the great terminal building lively with their songs and pranks.
The children were in charge of five women and 10 men. The man who conducted the party described himself as being Henry Lindworth, a Frenchman, who said he was “a comrade” and was “secretary in charge of the party.” Lindworth had a pocket full of letters from Socialist Democrats and plain Socialist in New York applying for one or more of the juveniles, whom they promised to give homes during the pendency of the strike. Each of the children had pinned to his or her garments a slip of paper on which was written the name, age and address of the child.
The children ranged in age from 4 to 14, and all of them seemed to be comfortably dressed, although the clothing of most was of rather poor quality, and some of them wore patches, but the little ones all seemed happy, and looked upon their trip as a great lark. They were ever ready to burst into song when Lindworth called on them to do so, which he frequently did. The song they most sang at the South Station was “La Internationale,” which Lindworth said was the hymn of those who are opposed to society as it is now constituted.
Up in Lawrence, at the beginning of the labor trouble, the strikers used to parade daily, and then they sang “La Internationale” and the “Marseillaise.” A Globe reporter asked Lindworth this forenoon why the children didn’t sing the “Marseillaise” occasionally, and he replied: “We don’t let them sing anything but revolutionary songs. We are against the existing conditions in society and the ‘Marseillaise’ is a patriotic hymn.”
Every few minutes Mr Lindworth would call on the children to sing, and they usually responded with “La Internationale,” and at the conclusion of each verse Lindworth would shout “Viva la Revolution Sociale, viva! viva! and the juveniles, who, apparently would just as soon shout “Viva la Revolution Sociale” as anything else, would cry out “Viva! Viva!”
After some singing, and getting snapshotted by the newspaper photographer the children were herded in the waiting room and the men and women in charge of them gave them a lunch of bread and milk, and there was a little fruit. The bread was made of coarse flour, but looked wholesome, although the slices appeared to have been separated from the loaves with an ax. The children were hungry, and there was no singing for some minutes after the lunch was distributed. There seemed to be plenty of food to last them through to New York.
Mr. Lindworth said that when the children reach the Grand Central Station in New York at 5:42 this afternoon, the very smallest will be taken in motor cars to Union sq. while the older ones will march, escorted, he said, by 500,000 men, women and children who are engaged in the battle against capital, and the parade will be to Union sq.
In Labor Temple, at 84th st, tonight, there will be one of the biggest demonstrations against capital that New York has seen in years, if ever before, and at the temple the children will be distributed to those who have agreed to care for them.
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Lawrence Strike Committee, Drunk Cup to Dregs, Bst Dly Glb Eve p5, Jan 17, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/430627498/
The Boston Daily Globe, Evening
(Boston, Massachusetts)
-Feb 9, 1912, p1
https://www.newspapers.com/image/430831582/
-Feb 10, 1912, p1
https://www.newspapers.com/image/430831889/
The Boston Daily Globe, Morning
(Boston, Massachusetts)
-Feb 10, 1912, p1
https://www.newspapers.com/image/430831737/
See also:
“Children as Strikers” & “The Children’s Exodus”
Bread and Roses Strike of 1912: Two Months in Lawrence, Massachusetts, that Changed Labor History
https://dp.la/exhibitions/breadandroses/mobilizing-beyond-lawrence/the-children-as-strikers
https://dp.la/exhibitions/breadandroses/mobilizing-beyond-lawrence/childrens-exodus
Tag: Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912
https://weneverforget.org/tag/lawrence-textile-strike-of-1912/
Spokane Industrial Worker (IWW)
-re Lawrence Strike, Feb 8, 1912
“Militia Used on Strikers” -pages 1+4
“Strike Assistance Needed” -page 4
-plea to Fellow Workers from Joseph Bedard,
Secretary of Strike Committee
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/industrialworker/iw/v3n46-w150-feb-08-1912-IW.pdf
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Sing in Solidarity Virtual Choir: The Internationale