Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 17, 1916
From the New York Call: A Warning from Dante Barton
The New York Call (Socialist) of October 12th published a warning to the American people regarding the strike situation in Bayonne, New Jersey, from Dante Barton of the Committee on Industrial Relations:
As for the American people:
Is it not time that the American people should awaken to the essential brutality of millionaires and billionaires running their business on the principle that they cannot and will not pay their hardest-worked workers enough to give them a decent living? Ought we any longer to have business on terms in which it is considered respectable for that sort of treatment to be given to workers? The majority of these Polish workers receive now $2.50 a day, which, with the increased cost of living, does not give them enough for a profitable living.
And as for big business:
When these Polish workers have the ambition and the fine qualities to strike against that degraded condition in life, gunmen and special policemen, armed with guns and machine guns, are rushed against them, and the workers are abused because they have manhood and courage.
This sort of industrial injustice, if it is not cured and overthrown, must necessarily lead to the kind of revolutionary disorder that men like the Rockefellers and Morgans consider so terrible. Men like these are sowing the wind and they will reap the whirlwind.
Recent press reports on the Bayonne Standard Oil Strike:
The New York Times of October 13th praised the action of the police and special deputies in shooting down the Standard Oil Strikers in Bayonne, New Jersey:
The police, reinforced by 100 special deputies and 30 firemen, had ranged the district where lie the homes of the striking workers of the Standard Oil Company and other plants in the Constable Hook station, herding strikers into their homes, wrecking saloons that had disregarded the order to close and striving in every way the police knew, to fill the mob with a great fear of organized authority… The little armies marched through streets thronged with strikers. To each they gave the same order, “Get off the street!” and they emphasized it with a flourish of their weapons. At the slightest hesitancy on the part of the crowd the policemen fired. They fired into the air intentionally, but the crowds broke and fled. Even a head at a window brought a shot purposely aimed to miss but to come too close for comfort. “Get in and keep in! Keep away from the windows and off the roofs! We’ll choose to kill next time,” cried the police.
The New York Evening Post of October 13 called for even “sterner methods” against the strikers:
In dealing with the mobs of Bayonne the police of that city have used stern methods, the actual club and at least the threat of the bullet. Sterner methods yet are justified and are called for unless the disorder has been quelled… Clearing the streets, entering houses forcibly, putting down all oppositions by the force of arms are the only means of dealing with riotous mobs that refuse to yield to milder measures.
The New York Call of October 13th carried this report from A. M. Howland on Bayonne’s reign of terror against the strikers and their families:
I felt last night as though I had just gotten back from the trenches. Only the fellows in the trenches have an incalculably better chance than we had over in Bayonne yesterday afternoon. A trench would have been a most welcome article. Instead, we had to dive for any doorway that was handy, and many of the doorways were locked. Further, we were not always cheerfully admitted to those that were open . It was dangerous to admit strangers to your house over in Bayonne yesterday. Throughout the afternoon there came the sound of volley firing as the police showed no mercy to strikers or mere sympathizers.
Under orders from a Mayor [Pierre S. Garven] who is a paid attorney of the Standard Oil Company they had shot to kill. And they had killed.
New York Evening Telegram of October 14th carried the following message from the Strike Committee:
TO THE WORKERS OF STANDARD OIL CO.
Fellow Workers!
The Strike Is OnWait your committee’s decision, be in a peaceable manner, do not congregate on the streets and corners, 4000 workers of Standard Oil Co. of Bayonne are on strike. Be peaceable and maintain order.
STRIKE COMMITTEE.
The New York Evening Telegram of October 15th carried the headline:
Death to Oil Strikers the Order
The New York Call of October 15th reprinted the following telegram sent by Amos Pinchot and Dante Barton of the National Labor Defense Council to the United States Department of Labor:
We respectfully urge the Department of Labor to send conciliators or mediators immediately to Bayonne. Something should be done soon to stop the killing and wounding of strikers by policemen, deputies and gunmen in the employ of Standard Oil. Personal investigation warrants this statement. Believe you can do much to avert a reign of terror among thousands of workers who are being terrorized and infuriated by such legalized injustice.
And yesterday the Telegram reported that the Strike Committee was forced to withdraw its handbill, as even a call to peace by the strikers is not allowed by the City of Bayonne. Anyone caught with the circular in their hands is immediately arrested.
SOURCE
History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. 6
On the eve of America’s Entrance into World War I, 1915-1916
-by Philip S. Foner
International Publishers, 1982
https://books.google.com/books?id=wGPtAAAAMAAJ
IMAGE
Henry Dubb Crucify Agitator, R Walker, NY Call Oct 15, 1916
https://libcom.org/history/bloodshed-bayonne
See also:
Hellraisers Journal: Standard Oil Strikers Yet Again Shot Down in the Streets of Bayonne, New Jersey
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-standard-oil-strikers-yet-again-shot-down-in-the-streets-of-bayonne-new-jersey/
“Bloodshed in Bayonne” by Tom McDonough
https://libcom.org/history/bloodshed-bayonne
Obituary for Dante Baron in Machinist Monthly Journal of November 1917:
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=9vHNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA901
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The Internationale in Polish
The New York Glob of October 11, 1916 compared the Bayonne Strike to the Paris Commune:
“Bayonne in Grip of Commune,” read the headline, and the article continued, “Like Paris, in commune days, when men fought behind street barricades and lawlessness was in the saddle, is the city of Bayonne today…”