Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 16, 1912 Washington, D. C. – Lawrence Children Appear Before House Committee
From the Everett Labor Journal of March 15, 1912:
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(Republished from Los Angeles Citizen.)
“The chill hand of charity” got a severe slap a few days ago when Congressman Victor Berger grabbed a bill from a hat that was being passed for the benefit of the child textile strikers from Lawrence, Mass., who appeared before the house committee on rules, and hurled it into the face of its donor, J. H. Cox, a mill owner of Lawrence.
“We don’t want your money; it’s blood money,” cried Berger, indignantly. “We’ll take care of our own without your help.”
If it were possible to Bergerize the public conscience and cast the frown of public disapproval on the Cox kind of charity—the bribe of industrial bandits to satisfy society—Lawrence episodes would become less frequent.
In the same room in which only a month or so ago Andrew Carnegie complained bitterly because he had been paid only $320,000,000 for his properties by the steel corporation; where Judge Gary confided to a committee from congress that the steel trust had $75,000,000 in cash always ready to meet an emergency, child strikers in the mills at Lawrence laid bare their scars to pitying congressmen.
Presented by Representative Berger as an exhibit of what “one of the most highly protected industries in America does to human life by which it is served,” thirteen sallow-cheeked, thin-lipped, hollow-eyed, poorly-clad children, and six adults marched up Pennsylvania avenue and filed solmenly into the capitol.
In the room where attendants hurried to wait upon the smallest wish of Carnegie, Gary and Schwab, nobody had arranged for the comfort of these “exhibits” and they stood along the wall until Representative Henry, accompanied by his own little son, of eight, took pity on their plight.
“Get chairs for these children,” commanded Judge Henry. “Arrange them any way you want and take your time,” he added to Mr. Berger.
Before the witnesses began Chairman Wilson of the committee on labor pleaded for a federal investigation on the ground that in refusing to permit children to leave Lawrence several days ago the state authorities had violated the federal law.
“There should be no power on the part of the state,” argued Mr. Wilson, “to prevent these children being sent out of Massachusetts unless it were known they were to become a public charge. There was no such allegation in this case.”
“Wasn’t that the pretext in the case?” inquired Representative Hardwick of Georgia.
“The pretext was,” Mr. Wilson replied, “that these children were being sent out of the state without the consent of their parents. In other words, that they were being kidnaped. If that were true, this action would be indefensible and the state law would cover the case. But it was not true in any particular.”
“But aren’t they in destitute circumstances?” asked Judge Henry.
“Oh, Mr. Chairman,” replied Wilson dramatically, “they are all in destitute circumstances. No children could be more destitute than those that were left at home and the others had the consent of their parents to go.”
Samuel Lipson, who said that he is a skilled workman but at the best was unable to earn only $10 per week in the Lawrence mills, prefaced his testimony by stating that he had a family of five.
“The cost of living is so high that we don’t use butter,” explained Lipson. “We can’t afford it. We use a substitute, a sort of molasses. In fact, I don’t believe my children know the taste of butter,” he added.
“You have a family of five, you say, and you earn an average of $10 a week as a weaver?” asked Congressman Berger.
“That is right,” said Lipson. “Last summer, however, we were not allowed to work regularly and some weeks it was much less than that.”
“You pay how much rent?”
“I pay $2.50 a week,” said the striker.
“And what do eggs, meat and butter cost in Lawrence?”
“The cheap meat, such as I have to buy,” answered Lipson, “costs 18 cents a pound.”
“Why did you strike?”
“Because I could not make a living for my wife and four children. I am a skilled workman and my average wages were $9 or $10 a week. But there was so much slack time in Lawrence that some times I got only $3 and $4 and we have to live on that, myself and wife and my children.”
Lipson said that when the Massachusetts legislature cut the hours of labor the mills “speeded up” to force the same amount of work in the shorter time.
This caused the strike. When the original demand was made on the company the men were told, he said, that they could either “go back to work or get out.”
Lipson described how John Ramey, a striker, was bayoneted to death by the militia because he exhorted women and children not to return to work unless their demands were granted.
Pausing in his description of Ramey’s death, Lipson raised his voice dramatically and cried: “Carmela!” A frail girl arose from among the striking children. The greater scar stretched across her forehead. “This girl, gentlemen, is Carmela Teoli, a fourteen-year-old worker,” explained Lipson. “Two years ago she went to work in the mills. She had a beautiful head of hair. Three weeks after she began the machines were speeded up. She did not know the danger. Her hair was caught in the gear wheels and almost torn off. She has been under a doctor’s care ever since.
“Her father is a worker, too. He makes $7 a week when the mills are running regularly. Last summer there was short time and Teoli only made between $2 and $4. He has seven children, so Carmela had to go back to work and add her pittance to the family fund.”
Under guidance of Berger several witnesses corroborated Lipson as to the wages and clashes with militia and police.
In the Lawrence outrages the contempt of the police and the military for law and the rights of working people have reached the limit. It is needless to say that the press dispatches are not at all overdrawn, but rather softened to the advantage of the mill officials and their police and military aides.
Senator Poindexter of Washington, on his own initiative, visited the city of Lawrence and made a personal investigation.
“Illegal things done under the forms of law are a species of anarchy which our country cannot risk,” said the senator. “We are up against the simple question whether the constitutional guarantees are really such to the average man—whether there is such a thing as immunity from assault, false arrest, imprisonment and similar abuses when it is the case of a poor employe of a great mill company against the money and influence of the employers.”
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[Emphasis added.]
From The New York Times of March 6, 1912:
Special toThe New York Times.
WASHINGTON, March 5.-While Miss Tema Camitta, Philadelphia Sunday School teacher, was telling the House Rules Committee to-day how the strikers’ committee endeavored to pilot women and children out of Lawrence in the mill riots, Mrs. William Howard Taft, wife of the President, entered the room and became an interested observer of he proceedings . Many well-known Washington women, among them wives and daughters of Congressmen, were also present.
[Inset: Miss Tema Camitta, Philadelphia Sunday School Teacher.]
[…..]
Representative Victor Berger of Wisconsin, Socialist, had read into the record a telegram from William D. Haywood, one of the strike leaders, to the effect that two women witnesses sought by Mr. Berger could not come to Washington because of injuries received at the hands of the police in the recent rioting. One of the women, Haywood said, was in the hospital in a critical condition, while the other was confined to her home.
In the Senate, Senator Poindexter unsuccessfully sought consideration of his resolution to investigate the Lawrence strike. Senator Lodge of Massachusetts forestalled the effort by a privileged motion to take up the arbitration treaties.
The hearing will be continued to-morrow.
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[Emphasis and photograph added.]
Note: Above article also covers testimony of Simon Knebel, Philadelphia Socialist and I. W. W. organizer; Margaret Sanger of New York, and Josephine Liss, Lawrence striker.
The Strike at Lawrence, Massachusetts -Hearings Before the Committee on Rules of United States House of Representatives -March 2-7, 1912 U.S. Government Printing Office, 1912 (search separately and use pages: camitta; knebel; sanger; liss) Note: Testimony given March 5th=pages 196-275: Camitta p196, Knebel p206, Sanger p226, Liss p241.) https://books.google.com/books?id=i0wuAAAAYAAJ
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