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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 19, 1913
Akron, Ohio – Big Bill Haywood Visits City, Speaks to Strikers
From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:
800 Per Cent and the Akron Strike
By Leslie H. Marcy
[Part IV of IV]
On Friday, Feb. 28, Haywood stopped off a day at Akron and several thousand strikers met him at the train and paraded through the factory and business districts of Akron. Haywood spoke to two immense strike meetings. He said in part:
The greatest weapon you can use against the rubber robbers just now is to keep your hands in your pockets. When you have your hands in your pockets, the capitalist can’t get his there, and unless the capitalist has his hands in your pockets, he has got to go to work. So during the time of this strike, let there be no violence on your part, not the destruction of one cent’s worth of property, not one cross word. You have got this strike won if you will but stand together in One Big Union.
If the boss starves you back to work then you know how to win this strike on the inside of the factory. Don’t use the speeding up, but the slowing down process. This is an up-to-date organization, and we are fighting with modern weapons. The workers who understand the program and the policy of the I. W. W. will never again be defeated. We are organized now and fighting this battle for an eight-hour day.
As I said to you this morning, if you work only eight hours that is going to make room for more men and more women, and as the unemployed come into work, then the wages are going up. Your wages are going up anyway, because you are going to stand together until we force them up. Four dollars per week, or four and one-half is altogether too little for a girl to try and live on, and live decently, and. every girl, or a large per cent of them, would live decently if they got wages enough. But it is not a question of girlhood or womanhood with the rubber trusts. What they want is cheap labor. Cheap labor means to them more profits.
Just remember, men that we are the working class and it doesn’t make any difference what our nationality may be. My father was born in this state, I was born in this country and am an American.
There are no foreigners in the working class except the capitalist. He is the fellow we are after and we are going to get him. We are going to get Mr. Seiberling. If he is too old to work, we will get his son, and put him right in the rubber factory alongside the rest of ’em.
You simply get back enough to keep alive and in shape to work. If any of you fall by the wayside, and the undertaker visits your home, it doesn’t make any difference to Mr. Seiberling. Now workingmen, it is for you to organize. This strike is your strike. The success of this strike depends on you. There is no one else to fight.
If you had a picket line out every morning representing a crowd as big as this there would not be anybody going to work. You can influence enough to prevent them going to work. Get on the job in the morning in the picket line and visit these friends of yours at night in their homes.
Get this organization so that it will be 100 per cent strong. We will try, as we did at Lawrence, to raise money enough to carry you through.
[He further said:]
I have a warning to issue here. Those in authority must forget this proposition of wearing out their clubs on the strikers’ heads. They made the laws and there are proper processes for them to follow. Let them live up to it. If a striker violates law, let them arrest him and bring him before the court.
But I want to appeal to you strikers to conduct this strike along the peaceful lines you have been. You built this city and the rubber barons are realizing that you are necessary to its prosperity. They are realizing that until you are getting better pay and better hours, their profits won’t increase.
On March 8th when the strikers were peacefully picketing before the Goodrich rubber plant, 50 police and deputy sheriffs, with billies and black-jacks, responded to Sheriff Fergusson’s command to drive strikers off that side of the street, by clubbing men, women and young girls right and left.
Those who hesitated, heard the sheriff’s cry, “Wade in and get busy if you don’t want to lose your jobs,” and rallied to do the dirty work of the rubber kings. Fortunately one patrolman, Fred Viereck, in his zeal to nail down his meal ticket, made an attempt to mow down all those who stood in his way. His club beat the air in circular fashion like a huge scythe. He looked neither to the right nor to the left and so the gods decreed that as he swung wildly at the strikers, he should give the sheriff a vicious crack over the face. They do tell how the sheriff is now going about minus a few front teeth and wearing a face that looks like a piece of raw liver.
It is a comfort to know that he received what he had given. He cast his bread upon the waters and it was returned to him. We hope that Officer Viereck will receive a raise in pay for strict adherence to duty.
Local Elyria of the S. P. of Ohio, has a splendid plan for raising funds for the strikers. The comrades persuaded Mr. Georgeople, manager of the American moving picture theater to donate the profits of his show for one evening to the strikers. When Mr. Georgeople came to turn over his profits, he went the whole way and donated the entire receipts, about $70.00. They then “held up” Fred Tunnington, manager of the Coliseum Rink, for one day’s receipts amounting to $133.62. This shows what a red local with its fighting clothes on can do.
The Cleveland reds cooperated with 20 girl strikers from Akron in pulling off a tag day and over $400.00 was collected in spite of the city authorities.
Comrade Josephine Bates, who has been actively engaged in the strike is out in the state on a collection tour with Celia Liptschitz, of Pittsburgh, and a squad of girl strikers to swell the war chest. Matilda Raboniwitz, who did splendid work in the Little Falls Fight is on the job at Akron.
The strikers are in need of funds. Every local in the country can raise $50 for their benefit, if the comrades so desire. When you send in your contribution, to Comrade ]. W. Boyd, at 140 South High street, Akron, Ohio, don’t forget to send a letter of encouragement to the strikers and tell them just how you raised the money. It is an inspiration to them to know they have the backing of the working class.
This is the first big strike in Akron. Many workers there have been too busy trying to keep up with the increasing pace set by the new stop-watch timekeepers, to realize the growing solidarity of the workers all over the world. This is a chance for you to show them.
Just a little help from each one of us and the strike will be won, and the workers of Akron will learn a lesson in class solidarity that is the first big step toward the abolition of the profit system.
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote BBH One Fist, ISR p458, Feb 1911
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=8-05AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA458
International Socialist Review
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Apr 1913, pages Cover, 722-724
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v13n10-apr-1913-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf
See also:
American Rubber Workers & Organized Labor, 1900-1941
-by Daniel Nelson
Princeton University Press, Jul 14, 2014
(search: with last names mentioned above)
https://books.google.com/books?id=LAMABAAAQBAJ
James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928
-by Bryan D. Palmer
University of Illinois Press, Oct 1, 2010
(search: with names mentioned above)
https://books.google.com/books?id=3m_97zuy6_MC
Tag: Akron Rubber Workers Strike of 1913
https://weneverforget.org/tag/akron-rubber-workers-strike-of-1913/
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What We Want – John McCutcheon
Lyrics by Joe Hill