Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Strike at Little Falls” by Phillips Russell, Illustrated, Part II

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

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 3, 1912
Little Falls, New York – Textile Workers Revolt Against Pay Cut, Part II

From the International Socialist Review of December 1912:

[Part II of II]

Shortly after [the October 30th] affair the strikers and the strike committee were holding a meeting in The Slovak Sokol Hall, the principal social center of the working population, when the door was thrown open with a crash and the police and hired guards burst in. Women, who composed the majority of the audience, were hurled right and left. Men who protested were struck on the head. Furniture was overturned. The musical instruments of the Slovak Band were broken and battered. One cop who happened to notice the framed charter of the local textile union of the Industrial Workers of the World, drove his club through the middle of it. It hangs in the hall now, its broken glass held together by an edging of red ribbon with a knot of red covering the hole made by the club. All the members of the strike committee and all persons suspected of being connected with the strike were arrested and dragged to the local lock-up, a place so vile that the State Prison Inspector has threatened the town with mandamus proceedings unless it is cleaned up.

Legere, however, could not be found. The building was searched for him and the police, not wishing to investigate the dark cellar, fired three shots into it at random, any one of which might have killed Legere had he not already been taken to a place of safety by a devoted band of workers. He went to Utica that night, got some needed printing done, sent off some messages, and then returned to Little Falls where he was immediately arrested and taken to the county jail at Herkimer, another place that has been condemned by the State Prison Inspector.

Bakeman, Hirsh, Bochino and George Vaughan of Schenectady, were already there, along with thirty-nine others, strikers and sympathizers. When visited later, some of them were still wearing the bloody shirts that they wore when arrested. They were joined by Miss Helen Schloss, a young Socialist woman of New York, who for several months had been a tenement investigator for a club of the well-to-do women of Little Falls. Despite warnings from her lady employers, Miss Schloss cast her lot with the strikers, gave up her position, joined the relief committee, and went out on the picket line with the workers. For this she incurred the enmity of the police and her spectacular arrest by Chief Long himself followed. She was put in Herkimer jail on a charge of “inciting to riot” and as a special honor was given the cell occupied by Chester Gillette, electrocuted for the murder of his sweetheart. She was finally released on bail and went right back to work in the relief kitchen.

The stories the strikers tell of their treatment by the police both before and after arrest cannot be told in print. There are any number of them who say that they were visited at night in their cells by the police and terribly beaten. They carry marks to show. One young boy, who later came to the relief kitchen but could not eat, told with starting eyes of a revolver held at his head by one police man while another wreaked vengeance upon him with a club. One ear, black with bruised blood, told the story. Women strikers fared little better. On the picket line they were daily greeted with obscenities and filthy remarks by a picked crew of special policemen.

It is worthy of mention here that five of these special policemen who carried brand new clubs and used them on the slightest excuse were members of the Jack Spinners Union of the United Textile Workers, with John Golden as president, a gentleman high in the councils of the American Federation of Labor. Mr. Golden first gained fame by offering help to the police during the Lawrence strike. Other members of this union were so indignant at the spectacle of union men acting as strong-arm men for the bosses that they came over to a meeting of the strike committee and asked to be admitted to the I. W. W.

Despite all these things the spirit of the strikers remained untamed. The night after the raid on their hall they got out their battered musical instruments and played “The Marseillaise” and “The International” while all joined round and sang as if they had not just passed through a Russian pogrom. Nothing seemed to daunt them. The fiercer the assaults upon them the higher rose their songs of revolution. The darker seemed their prospects, the more intense became their devotion. A wonderful, wonderful band! No one who ever saw will ever forget them.

Though a little upset for the moment, those who remained unjailed or unbeaten sent out the word and help was soon coming. Next to arrive was Matilda Rabinowitz, a dark-eyed, magnetic little girl who knew not weakness or weariness till the strike was on its feet again. Mrs. Kruesi, Mrs. Wade and Mrs. Mullen, efficient women from Schenectady, came up to take charge of the relief and were soon feeding forty persons daily at a cost of seven cents each, besides passing out supplies for many families.

Meantime the respectable citizens of Little Falls entertained themselves by holding a mass meeting of protest against the hideous presence of the I. W. W. in their midst. Unanimously they voted approval of the firmness and moderation of the police!

Imagine their horror the next day when they learned their actions had merely served to bring the looming figure of Bill Haywood into the situation. The fright that was evident when the news got abroad was almost comic. But Bill brought nothing into the situation save peace and renewed confidence. Under his experienced counsel the new committees soon learned what to do and how to do it and spirits increased from day to day.

As this is written the strike is in its fifth week. Mayor Lunn refused to pay a $50.00 fine and has been sentenced to 50 days in jail. Owner Gilbert shows a disposition to settle but Manager McLaughlin, of whom not a citizen has been heard to speak a decent word, continues to hold out obstinately.

Meantime the strikers must be provided for and Legere, Bochino, and the others, whom the authorities will make every effort to put into the penitentiary for a term of years, must be defended. The rancor of the city authorities and the mill owners against these men is poisonous. A dollar sent to Matilda Rabinowitz, Secretary Defense Committee, Little Falls, N. Y., will be a dollar well spent.

[Emphasis added.]