Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 19, 1912
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Young Striker, Dominico Rapsardo, Bayoneted by Soldier
From The Boston Globe (Morning Edition) of January 16, 1912:
By JOHN W. CARBERRY.
Lawrence, Jan 15-In an attempt to prevent the operation of the woolen mills today, strikers and their sympathizers incited a riot which compelled the City Government to summon police aid from Salem, Lynn, Haverhill, Everett and Lowell, and to call into service eight companies of militia……
Today, in the clash between militiamen and those supporting the cause of the striking textile workers, one youth, Dominico Rapsardo, was stabbed in the breast by a soldier, and is seriously, though not mortally, wounded.
Many others were injured by being struck with the butts of rifles and the clubs of policemen.
More than 30 were arrested charged with damaging property and disturbing the peace…
—–
[…..]
Rapsardo Is Struck Down.
[About 10 a. m., at the Atlantic mills, militiamen with fixed bayonets, charged the strikers and drove them across the bridge at Canal st.]
In the charge Dominico Rapsardo of 51 Essex st was wounded. The crowd was packed so densely that those in front did not fall back quickly enough to suit the soldiers, and young Rapsardo received a thrust from a bayonet in his left breast. he fell fainting to the street, and was hastily driven to the General Hospital, badly injured. The bayonet had penetrated the flesh between the ribs, but doctors believed that no vital organ had been pierced.
[…..]
[Mayor Scanlon and members of City Council met with Strikers at Police Headquarters at 2:30 p. m.]
Ettor Makes His Demands.
In response to a demand for a statement of the cause of the strike put by Mayor Scanlon, Mr. Ettor said the operatives were discouraged and aggrieved because their wages were reduced when the 54-hour law went into effect and because they could secure neither redress nor a hearing from the manufacturers.
[Said Mr. Ettor:]
What we want is an advance of 15 percent in wages, which means an advance of 10 percent over the rate that was being paid under the 56-hour schedule.
[Mayor Scanlon berated Fellow Worker Ettor, blamed him for the trouble in Lawrence, and told him to return to New York, to which Ettor replied:]
I am responsible for what I do, and I am responsible for what I said, I am not responsible, however, for what people do who have been provoked as these textile workers have. I am not responsible for what men do when they have been downtrodden, when their faces have been ground into the dirt so that they no longer resemble human beings
Taking the aggregate payroll of these mills and the number of men and women and children employed we find that the average weekly wage is $6. And they propose to reduce that. These men have been provoked beyond measure.
I am against violence. I tell them to be peaceful, but you cannot control men who are provoked as these men are. There would have been no trouble this morning had these men not been angered by the attack from the mills. There was no trouble until the mill agents ordered their men to turn the hose on these workers.No overt act had been committed until this display of force by the mill agents.
[Ettor further stated that:]
The corporations had robbed the men and women of their lives and it was useless to expect them to be calm, but he would do what he could to restrain them.
I shall stay here and do what I can for these people. If they see fit to arrest me, why then others will come here as soon as a wire can reach them. I will not apologize for what I have done.
[…..]
—————
MASS MEETING IN EVENING. ———-
Strikers Indorse Demands of Committee and Add to Them-Ettor Attacks Use of Militia.
LAWRENCE, Jan 15,-Amid cheers and applause a mass meeting of strikers in the City Hall tonight indorse the demands, formulated by the committee of 28, for presentation to the mill officials as a basis of settlement, and then dissolved to reconvene tomorrow afternoon at 2.
Besides the increase of 15 percent in wages, the abolition of the premium system and double pay for overtime, the report of the committee contained the recommendation that all strikers should become affiliated with Local 20, Industrial workers of the World, and in this the assemblage concurred. It was stated that an initiation fee of 25 cents would be charged, the proceeds to be devoted to a strike fund.
No discrimination in the employment of strikers was a further stipulation.
Leader Joseph Ettor presided and the hall was filled to its capacity of 1300. Ettor spoke in both English and Italian, and addresses were also made by Dr. I. A. Hajjar in Syrian, Joseph Romanousky in Lithuanian, Emil Langlot in French and Charles L. Webert in Polish.
Antipathy to the militia was manifested in the utterance of the leader, and he exhorted his hearers to give no occasion tomorrow for the exercise of authority by the brown-coated force of the State. He said there was an excuse for the part that the police and the firemen were taking in the trouble, but for the militia he could see no justification.
[He declared:]
We were refused the use of this hall this afternoon because some people believe that the mission of the working class is to labor, and when it doesn’t, then the purpose is to destroy property and human life.
[He continued:]
Order can be kept but I never saw order maintained by the glistening bayonets of soldiers. The glistening bayonets provoke trouble (cries of Bravo!). Riot and bloodshed are not to be excused, whether they hide behind the agitator who is ill advised, or under the cloak of order. Murder is murder, whether it is committed in the name of law or riot.
I want you all to understand that the cause cannot be won by spilling blood. At the same time, the other side must play equally clean. Peaceful persuasion is the only weapon advocated from this platform.
We propose to show the mill owners even if they have ground down the lives of the textile workers, if they have broken up your homes by compelling women and children to work, if they have done all that they can to make human life misery that we can make it a pleasure.
I am going to be with you on the picket line tomorrow and I am going to see that those on the other side keep as much order as you. The soldiers are doing everything that they can to provoke a riot. Remember, that you are not fighting this battle for Lawrence alone, but for the whole State of Massachusetts.
[…..]
———-
From The Boston Daily Globe (Morning) of Jan 17, 1912:
From Left to Right-Mayor Scanlon, Dudley Holman, Secretary to Gov Foss; Joseph J. Ettor, Strike Leader; John Golden of Fall River, President of United Textile Workers, and Col E. Leroy Sweetser, in Command of Militia.
AGREE TO CONFER
———-
Lawrence Strikers Willing to
Tell State Board Their Side.
———-
Officials Strive to End Trouble
While Troops Keep Peace.
———-
LAWRENCE, Jan. 16-While eight companies of Militia kept peace here today, their shining bayonets making a noticeable impression on the strikers, city and State officials were busy from morning to night trying to launch a movement to bring the contending factions together. They made a beginning.
The strikers consented to attend a conference of the parties in the presence of the state Board of Arbitration to discuss the difficulty.
Efforts to induce the mill owners met with less success…
——————–
