Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 26, 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts – Mothers and Children Attacked by Militia
From The Kansas City Star of February 24, 1912:
Lawrence, Mass., Feb. 24.-Heads were broken today in a riot which resulted from an attempt to send thirty children of striking textile workers to Philadelphia, contrary to orders from the authorities. Police and military took the children into custody and arrested several persons.
Anticipating a possible attempt to rescue the children four companies of infantry and a squad of cavalry surrounded the railroad station when they were taken into custody.
The action was taken as a result of the order issued last Saturday by Colonel Sweetser, commander of the militia doing patrol duty here, forbidding the exportation by the strike committee of the Industrial Workers of the World of additional parties of children to other cities in an endeavor to create sympathy in the cause of the strikers without permission of the parents.
When they learned that their children had been taken into custody the parents rushed to the police station to rescue them, but a big squad of special policemen was thrown about the building and the parents were arrested when they entered the station.
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DASTARDLY, UNION MEN SAY. [United Mine Workers of America, District 12] ———- Resolutions Adopted Regarding the Actions Of Soldiers at Lawrence
SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Feb. 24.–Announcement of the action of the Lawrence, Mass., authorities in preventing children of the textile strikers from leaving the city brought a storm of protest from the convention of the Illinois mine workers here today.Resolutions were adopted denouncing the authorities for what the resolutions termed “a most dastardly outrage.”
“By such acts as these are the McNamara outrages prompted, and those in charge of the affairs, as well as the mill owners, should be charged with the most contemptible of crimes, which will hasten the day of the torch and the bomb, if an enlightened people do not at once rise up in their might and once and for all put an end to these Russianized methods.” the resolution says.
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[Emphasis added.]
From The Boston Daily Globe, Evening Edition, of February 24, 1912:
Husbands of Women Arrested, Waiting Outside Lawrence Police Station for Their Wives and Children.
From The Boston Sunday Globe of February 25, 1912:
Top: Women Arrested for Picketing Being Taken from the Lawrence Police Station to Jail. They Having Refused to Pay Fines. Bottom: Some of the Children Detained at the Station House in Lawrence Looking Out a Window, Later They Were Taken to the City Farm.
The Survey Journal of Constructive Philanthropy Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, 1912 (search: children strike lawrence second week february) Note: use pages. Pages 1791-4 (Feb 24, 1912), “Children of a Strike.” Page 1822, (Mar 2, 1912), “The Embargo on the Children.” https://books.google.com/books?id=FvUh3_L-yTQC
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