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Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 4, 1910
New York, New York – Girls Persist Despite Hunger, Cold and Beatings
From The Progressive Woman of February 1910:
How Girls Can Strike
BY WILLIAM MAILLY
“A whole lot has been published about what the rich women have done in this shirtwaist strike,” said a woman friend, “but I haven’t seen very much about what the girls themselves have done. Why isn’t something said about them?”
I had been going the rounds of the halls where the shop meetings of the strikers were held, collecting the proceeds from the Special Strike Edition of the Call. It was a dull, wet day, the East Side streets were slippery and dirty with a nasty mush consisting of a week-old snow mixed with the regular refuse that the rich metropolis is too poor to remove promptly from its working class districts. One did not walk through such streets; one slid, splashed and floundered and felt lucky to be able to do that without falling. And the cold rain soaked one through to the skin in short order.
I was leaving Astoria hall on East Fourth street when Gottlieb, the chairman of Casino hall, across the street, accosted me. He was accompanied by a young girl. She was thinly clad, her clothes were shabby, her shoes were torn and sodden, and her face and hands blue with cold.
“Mr. Mailly,” said Gottlieb, “look at this girl. I want to tell you about her. This is the worst case I have in our hall. It’s the worst case I’ve heard of. This girl is only sixteen years old—she has no father or mother living; she has no relatives or friends; she has only been in this country about six months; she can hardly talk English.
“Listen, Mr. Mailly.” Gottlieb was getting more excited as he went on.
This girl hasn’t had anything to eat all day—she is hungry-she must have something—and we can’t give it to her. Also she can not pay the rent of the room she lives in—she must get out if she cannot pay. We can do nothing; we have nothing.
And listen. Think of it. This girl, she got from a man a five-dollar bill for one copy of the Call in the Cafe Monopole on Second avenue today and she brought it in and gave it over to me. And she so hungry and with not a cent, and we needn’t have known she got that five dollars. Think of it! And she says she won’t scab-she doesn’t care what happens to her. But oh, Mr. Mailly, we must help her. You must give her something now. I have brought her to show you.
It was not my function to give out money to the strikers; it was only for me to collect it, but I gave Gottlieb two dollars from what I had collected and I saw him hand it over to the girl, who, shivering and anxious-looking, had been watching and listening as Gottlieb told her story. And she went away looking as grateful as if she had received more than what was her due, instead of much lass than enough to meet her immediately needs.
It was at Clinton hall one night about eleven, and Secretary Shindler’s office was still thronged and busy. Bertha Heitner came in and turned over the proceeds of the sale of 200 Calls. She was wet, but enthusiastic. Bertha had broken the record for Call sales the day before and she was proud of it. She had been working that second day to maintain her record. She watched Rose Schneiderman count and credit the money, her eyes shining with excitement, her cheeks flushed and her tongue rapidly relating the details of the day’s work. Bertha is not more than 18, and she is pretty, though she is no exception to the rule of the shirtwaist strikers.
It was only when she saw the amount was entered, and entered correctly, that Bertha sat down and became quiet. Then an anxious look came into her face as she relaxed. She was silent for a few moments as if she had just remembered something which demanded serious attention. Presently she got up and came over to me.
“Mr. Mailly, I want to speak to you.” We went aside.
“Listen, Mr. Mailly. What for do we sell papers?”
“Why, for the strike benefit fund, of course.”
“For the strike benefit fund, is it? But what becomes of it, eh?”
“It is given out in benefits to strikers, Bertha, you know that.”
“I know nothing. Listen.” She got excited suddenly and grasped my arm; her voice rose involuntarily. “There are girls dying with hunger-they are starving—they get nothing—I know it. Why do they get nothing?”
“They get all the union can give them,” I said. Then something in the girl’s face struck me hard.
“Tell me, Bertha,” I asked, “what about yourself? You have had nothing—you, too, are hungry.”
Her eyes dropped and she hung her head.
“I’ve had nothing to eat today,” she faltered, like a caught child.
“And you have been out selling papers in that rain and slush all day with nothing to eat. Good heavens! You must get some thing—but haven’t you asked for benefits?”
“No, I’m ashamed,” she confessed.
“Ashamed? Why be ashamed? It is perfectly honorable.”
“But there are others who need benefits, too,” she replied.
I argued with her to ask for benefits. “Do it at once. And explain to Miss Schneiderman. She understands. She will help you.”
Bertha turned away and a moment after I started for home. When I got outside I thought of something. I stepped back into the office and, catching Bertha’s eye, I signaled her to come outside into the hallway.
“Here,” I said, when she had joined me. “Take this and go out and get something at once; don’t wait for the benefit.”
She drew herself up proudly. “Thank you, Mr. Mailly, but I couldn’t take it.”
“Here, don’t be foolish, child, take it,” I coaxed.
“It is kind of you,” she said, “but I wouldn’t take it. I’m going to ask for benefits. Goodnight.”
She went back into the office. Next day Miss Schneiderman told me they had given Bertha five dollars—the first since she had come out sixteen weeks before with the Triangle Waist company girls.
[Esther’s Story.]
[Said Esther:]
There were forty-three of us in night court last night and it cost the union over $400 to pay their fines. It was a shame.
Yes, I was fined. I talked to the judge and Mr. Taylor, our lawyer, helped me out, but it did no good. I showed that the policeman couldn’t have heard me calling “Scab” even if I did it and I offered to show my arm where it is marked where the policeman pinched me. It’s black and blue, so it is. The judge just said “$10,” but he didn’t say anything to the policeman, of course.
But say, I did hate to see that money paid over to that court, when I thought of our girls who ought to be getting benefits instead. Yesterday I made up my mind I’d never let the union pay another fine for me, if I was arrested, but last night I was so tired and sick, I couldn’t just resist it.
I didn’t have anything to eat all day, you know. In the morning I’m always in such a hurry to get out to do picketing I don’t stop to eat before leaving home. I was busy all morning and Saturday, you know, the shop closes in the afternoon and we had to be around earlier than other days. Then I was arrested and taken to the station house and we had nothing to eat until we got home after coming out of night court. One of the other girls bought a five-cent cake, but, gee! what was that among a crowd like us?
They kept us waiting in that place outside the courtroom until the drunks and bums and other people from the streets were taken care of. There was a fierce crowd, being Saturday night. The officers wouldn’t let us girls sit down on the benches because we were strikers. But they let the other people, men and women, sit down. It was awful, standing there in that bad-smelling place!
One of our girls got so tired she went to crouch down to rest herself, when one of the officers came over and poked her with his club and says, “Here, stand up. Where do you think you are? In Russia?
Well, when I got before the judge I was so worn out I didn’t care what they did to me. I just let the union pay the fine and went home. But I won’t let them pay the fine next time! They can send me to jail; they can do what they like with me; but I ain’t going to let any more money be paid into the court for me, when benefits are needed by the girls.
And she meant it every word.
She came into the headquarters of the Women’s Trade Union league one morning and asked for Miss Marot, the energetic, inexhaustible and highly efficient secretary of the league. When Miss Marot appeared, the girl, who was about sixteen years old, said she wanted to speak to her alone. They went into a room together. Then the girl revealed her body covered with bruises literally from head to foot.
“However in the world did you get into that state, child?” exclaimed the shocked Miss Marot, when she could speak.
“My father and brother beat me,” was the answer. “They want me to go to work. The boss he writes letters offering me $18 a week, rides in automobiles to and from work, lunches free in the shop—all sorts of good things, if I’ll go back, and father and brother they want me to. They coax and plead and argue with me, but I won’t go. Then they beat and beat me, but I won’t go back. I won’t go to work, not if they kill me. You must take care of me, you must save me from them.”
“I have placed her in a nice home with some good people,” said Miss Marot, in telling the story afterward, “and she’ll stay there or somewhere else where she’ll be safe and comfortable. And I don’t think her father and brother will care to hunt for her after what they have done….But, oh, these girls! Did you ever see the like of them for devotion and bravery! They are the greatest ever!”
[Cartoon added is from New York Call of December 29, 1909.]
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCE
The Progressive Woman
(Girard, Kansas)
-Mar 1909 to May 1911
(note: some issues missing)
https://books.google.com/books?id=Zo1EAQAAIAAJ
-Feb 1910
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Zo1EAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA16-IA129
“How Girls Can Strike” by Mailly
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Zo1EAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA16-IA134
IMAGE
Uprising Scab Scared of Girl Strikers, New York Call p4, Dec 29, 1909
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-new-york-call/1909/091229-newyorkcall-shirtwaiststrikespecial.pdf
See also:
Tag: NYC Waistmakers Uprising of 1909-1910
https://weneverforget.org/tag/nyc-waistmakers-uprising-of-1909-1910/
William Mailly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mailly
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 30, 1909
New York Call Extra: “Shirtwaist Strikers Present Facts of Great Struggle to the Public of New York City”
New York Call, Shirtwaist Strike Special of Dec 29, 1909
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-new-york-call/1909/091229-newyorkcall-shirtwaiststrikespecial.pdf
Note: re The New York Call of Dec 29, 1909:
-Sadly this issue is dark and difficult to read with photos, unusable, of Mrs. Raymond Robins, National WTUL President; Mary E Dreier, President of NY WTUL; Rose Schneiderman, VP of NY WTUL; Miss Agnes Nestor of WTUL, etc.
Also note arrests of Triangle strikers:
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The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Song – Mike Stout