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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 12, 1913
Paterson, New Jersey – Silk Workers on Picket Line, Braving Death, Standing Firm

From the International Socialist Review of June 1913:

On the Paterson Picket Line

By William D. Haywood

[Part I of II]

FIVE o’clock every morning finds thousands of Paterson silk workers on the picket line with spirits as dauntless as ever despite the fact that after twelve weeks of struggle, starvation is staring them in the face. Some of them have been out in front of the battle for sixteen weeks.

The picket line is the modern barricade. It is there that the strike will be either lost or won. It is the picket line that has taught the Paterson silk workers the meaning of the class struggle. Here men and women daily meet the guns of hired thugs and the clubs of policemen. Braving death, suffering indignity and humiliation, nearly 800 strikers have been arrested on trumped-up charges and thrown into jail. Some of them have been jailed a number of times.

It takes courage to face a term in the Paterson bastile. It was built in 1854, before the era of alleged prison reform began. In the cellhouse where most of the strikers have been thrown the cells are narrow, with two bunks, one above the other. The ventilation is bad and the sanitation worse. The food is on a par with the usual prison fare.

Before being transferred to this county jail, the prisoners are, as a rule, compelled to spend a night in the city jail before appearing before Recorder Carroll’s court. The conditions that have been imposed on the strikers in the city jail are beyond description, reminding one of accounts of the hell-holes of Russia. Here seven and eight men have been crowded into a single cell intended to be occupied by one. No bedding of any kind is provided and no food is furnished. One group of strikers reported they were held for nineteen hours without even water.

In spite of being subjected to such indignities, the strikers are no sooner released than they go back on the picket line, there to face the assassins, detectives and thugs employed by the manufacturers. They have not been backward about firing their guns into crowds of strikers, as was shown by the case of Valentino Modestino, who was killed by two detectives who aimed at the strikers.

Modestino was on the porch of his home with one of his children in his arms when two bullets entered his back. He was carried into his home where his wife was about to give birth to a child. He died, leaving behind him three young children and this unborn babe. 

Modestino was not a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, but the strikers realized that he was an innocent victim of the class struggle, and the tribute that was paid to him by the silent tread of 20,000 silk workers who marched behind his coffin to its grave, showed they knew in Modestino a comrade had met his death.

The Red Carnation.

At the grave brief addresses were made by Carlo Tresca and the writer. After the coffin was lowered silent lines of strikers filed by and dropped into the grave a crimson carnation, symbol of the brotherhood of the workers.

[Emphasis added.]

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SOURCES & IMAGE

Quote BBH, IU Socialism w Working Clothes On, NYC Cooper Union Debate w Hillquit, Jan 11, 1912
-Sum of Jan 11 Debate w Hillquit fr NY Call p1, Jan 12
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-new-york-call/1912/120112-newyorkcall-v05n012.pdf
-Source for Quote is Jan 14 Sunday Call, Stenographic Report, per:
https://books.google.com/books?id=ili0huEKAk0C&pg=PA389&dq=hillquit+haywood+debate&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjw2s37lI_4AhWVg3IEHdjEAa0Q6AF6BAgEEAI#v=onepage&q=%22hillquit-Haywood%20debate%22&f=false

International Socialist Review
(Chicago, Illinois)
-June 1913, p847
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v13n12-jun-1913-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf

See also:

For more on the ongoing Paterson Silk Strike:

Solidarity
(Cleveland, Ohio)
-May 31, 1913
-page 1: “Greatest Meeting at Haledon” & “14th Week of Strike”
-page 1: “‘Violence in Paterson'” by Arthur Cheatle
-page 3: “Quinlan’s Conviction” by “John D”
-page 4: “Paterson” from The New Review of NYC
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/solidarity-iww/1913/v04n21-w177-may-31-1913-solidarity.pdf
-June 7, 1913
-page 1: “Who Has Paterson By The Throat?”
-page 1: “I. W. W. Pageant at Madison Square [June 7]” from NY Globe
-page 3: “The 8-Hour Day Issue at Paterson”
-page 4: “How the Paterson Strike Is Supported” by J. E.
-page 4: “Status of the Strike by J. E.
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/solidarity-iww/1913/v04n22-w178-jun-07-1913-solidarity.pdf
-June 14, 1913
-page 1: “Press Freedom [re Editor Scott]” 
-page 1: “Playing Into Our Hands”
-page 3: “Patrick I. Quinlan” 
-page 3: “The Paterson Mass Play” by Onlooker
-page 3: “The Sentence of Editor Scott” by J. E.
-page 4: “Historic [Paterson] Headquarters for I. W. W. Strikers”
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/solidarity-iww/1913/v04n23-w179-jun-14-1913-solidarity.pdf

Downtown Paterson
-June Avignone
Arcadia Publishing, Mar 1, 1999
(search: valentino)
https://books.google.com/books?id=UzV1hm6uvRIC

Tag: Paterson Silk Strike of 1913
https://weneverforget.org/tag/paterson-silk-strike-of-1913/

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There is Power in a Union – Monsieur Jack
Lyrics by Joe Hill