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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 4, 1910
New Castle, Pennsylvania – Big Bill Haywood on the Jailing of Solidarity
From the International Socialist Review of June 1910:
“Leading exponent of Revolutionary Unionism east of the Rockies.”
—–
“Solidarity in Prison” by William D. Haywood
[Part I of II.]
CTIVITY in the socialist movement presents some complex situations, some unusual rewards.
There are socialists in jail in New Castle. There are socialists in office at Milwaukee.
If the opportunity of the individuals concerned could be reversed, it is certain that Comrade Emil Seidel, mayor of Milwaukee, and his colleagues, would bear with fortitude the gloomy ignominy of the cells in Lawrence County Jail. It is likewise true that comrades McCarty, Stirton, Williams, Jacobs, Fix and Moore, the manager and editorial staff of Solidarity, could administer the affairs of a municipality with honor to the party, and credit to themselves. But those who know the boys in jail, know that neither would voluntarily change places. All are filling their present positions, in upholstered, revolving office chairs or hard rough benches for the same great cause.
The imprisonment of our fellow-workers in New Castle is an incident in the strike against the American Sheet and Tin Plate Co., which has been on since last July.
This branch of the U. S. Steel trust declared for an open shop, thus precipitating a strike among a comparatively few men who were members of the Amalgamated Association.
Invention and the introduction of modern machinery had reduced thousands of men to a common level of labor, be low the standard of eligibility required in a pure and simple trade union. These men were organized by the Industrial Workers of the World.
The Free Press, published by the socialist locals of Lawrence county, took up the fight of the striking workers and was the only medium through which their side of questions involved could be presented to the public. Every Sunday morning the paper went as a messenger of truth into the homes of the workers conveying a word of hope and cheer such as had never been heard in pulpits or read in the capitalist press. It was the voice of the strikers to the strikers. They were loyal to themselves.
The fight was on. The U. S. Steel trust resorted to methods and tactics that are old in the battle against labor. Police, deputies, the state constabulary and court injunctions were their instruments of warfare. Strike breakers were shipped in and the mills resumed operations in a crippled condition.
The Free Press kept up a vigorous political agitation resulting in the election of Charles H. McKeever, manager of the paper, as City Councilman.
It was about this time that Comrade A. M. Stirton, who had for some years previously edited the Wage Slave in Michigan, a paper well and favorably known throughout the country as an advocate of industrial unionism, went to New Castle, where Solidarity was started to help in the battles of the workers in the iron and steel district. C. H. McCarty became manager of the paper and Comrade Stirton editor.
The paper adopted a policy comprehensive, constructive and international in scope. It grew rapidly in circulation and influence and is much feared by the employing class in the coal and iron district, of Pennsylvania, speaking as it does for the unemployed, the unskilled, and the despised of labor for whom no voice had ever been raised. Since the Carnegie massacre at Homestead in 1892, no efforts had been made to organize these men.
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCE & IMAGES
Quote BBH, Win Workers to Revolution, ISR p1096, June 1910
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA1096
The International Socialist Review, Volume 10
(Chicago, Illinois)
-July 1909-June 1910
C. H. Kerr & Company, 1910
https://books.google.com/books?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009034160
ISR of June 1910
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA1057
page 1065 – Sol in Prison by BBH
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA1065
Solidarity Ns, AD, Eds Stirton n Goff, ISR p1134, June 1910
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MVhIAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA1134
See also:
Solidarity (Industrial Workers of the World)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_(Industrial_Workers_of_the_World)
Tag: Solidarity Newspaper
https://weneverforget.org/tag/solidarity-newspaper/
Solidarity (New Castle, Pa.) 1909-1917
https://www.loc.gov/item/sn92060406
For names of Jacobs, Moore and Fix, see:
Community in Conflict
A Working-class History of the 1913-14 Michigan Copper Strike
and the Italian Hall Tragedy
by Gary Kaunonen and Aaron Goings
MSU Press, Jul 1, 2013
(search: jacobs moore fix)
https://books.google.com/books?id=mNRoAwAAQBAJ
IWW Newspapers
https://depts.washington.edu/iww/newspapers.shtml
Emil Seidel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Seidel
Tag: McKees Rocks Pressed Steel Car Strike of 1909
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mckees-rocks-pressed-steel-car-strike-of-1909/
Tag: New Castle Free Press
https://weneverforget.org/tag/new-castle-free-press/
Tag: New Castle PA
https://weneverforget.org/tag/new-castle-pa/
For more on Homestead Strike of 1892, see:
Battle of Homestead Foundation
-re Battle of Homestead of July 6, 1892
Homestead
A Complete History of the Struggle of July, 1892,
Between the Carnegie Steel Company, Limited, and
the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers
by Arthur G. Burgoyne
Pittsburgh PA, 1893
https://books.google.com/books?id=XycZAAAAYAAJ
“Fort Frick,” Or the Siege of Homestead
A History of the Famous Struggle Between
the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers
and the Carnegie Steel Co. (Limited) of Pittsburg, Pa
-by Myron R. Stowell
Pittsburg Printing Company, 1893
https://books.google.com/books?id=ILN-AAAAMAAJ
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Homestead Strike Song – Joe Glazer
Lyrics: “Song of a Strike” by George Swetnam
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5322/
Can you wonder why all honest hearts
with indignation burn,
And why the slimy worm that treads the earth
when trod upon will turn?