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Hellraisers Journal –Thursday October 16, 1919
Mother Jones News for August 1919, Part I
Clairton, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Stands with Steel Workers
From The Quarry Workers Journal of August 1919:
[T]he same spirit [of liberty] that impelled men to fight for freedom in other times is not dead now. Mother Jones, gray-haired, stooped and bent under the load of her 89 years of fighting for labor, but with a soul on fire and the flash of her eyes undimmed, hearing of the outrages [against union organizers] in North Clairton, sent a wire demanding that she be billed for a speech in North Clairton on Sunday, Aug. 10. Her offer has been accepted. Thousands of mine workers, in grateful remembrance of the many sacrifices Mother Jones has made for them, insist that they too are going to be in North Clairton and if she is going to be dragged to jail by the brutal Carnegie Steel Co police with the sanction of the municipal authorities, they want to be eye-witnesses’ to the depths to which corporate hirelings can sink.
The spirt of liberty still lives! The American Federation of Labor proposes to plant its banner in every steel center in western Pennsylvania. Other national figures in the labor movement will follow Mother Jones. Wires are pouring into the office of the national committee for organizing iron and steel workers announcing the names of men who wish to enlist “for the duration of the war.” North Clairton and other autocratic boroughs will have to back up. Democracy is on the ascendency. Justice for labor is the cry that is encircling the world and wise men will heed this cry.
[Photograph added.]
Full from The Quarry Workers Journal:
ORGANIZING IRON AND STEEL WORKERS
—–The struggle to secure the rights of free speech and free assembly in western Pennsylvania has been an unending, discouraging one. Yet the national committee for organizing iron and steel workers has made some progress. For, in spite of numerous arrests and the other harassing tactics resorted to by the street trust hirelings occupying official positions, it is now possible to hold meetings unmolested in McKeesport, Rankin, Braddock and Homestead. In all of these places the greatest labor meetings ever seen in this section are being held, and men are swarming into the unions by the thousands.
But, surrounding Pittsburg are boroughs and boroughs. Nearly all are important steel centers and all are bad. Some are worse than others. The worst one so far discovered is North Clairton.
North Clairton is a typical one-man steel town. It is a place where the steel trust has always had its own sweet unhampered, autocratic way. The casual visitor to the Pittsburg section would not likely ever hear of North Clairton. Yet, within its tyrannical borders, some four thousand steel workers live out their miserable existence working in ten and fourteen hour shifts with its, crushing, killing twenty-four hour shifts at the weekly changes. The national committee could not ignore the plea of organization on the part of these enslaved human beings.
More than three weeks ago an application to the Burges of North Clairton for a permit to hold a meeting was made, It was instantly and. insultingly refused. Repeated but unsuccessful attempts were made to rent a hall. Hall owners in some cases were sympathetic, but the terrible reprisals against those who ignore the edicts of the steel trust have left a fearful memory behind, and they did not dare.
P. H. Brogan owns a lot in North Clairton. He is local secretary for the national committee in that place. He is a fighting man who fights. “Hold your meeting on my lot,” he suggested. So it was arranged for Sunday afternoon, Aug. 3. Secretary Brogan had a sign which he had fastened over his little office torn down and destroyed. He suffered many other indignities. But he fights and all this made him mad. He was arrested for handing out bills advertising the meeting that he had arranged for on his lot. But the arrangements were completed, and just before the first speaker was ready to tell the story to the workers, Constable White and Burgess Williams came on the lot, came on the private property of Secretary Brogan and forbade the meeting. “It is against the state law,” said the Burgess. “Holding in the meeting at your peril,” warned the constable.
The meeting was opened by organizer J. G. Brown, but at the end of a couple of minutes the constable, accompanied by a half-dozen Carnegie Steel company police, blustered up through the enormous crowd and arrested the speaker. Then the constable completely lost his head. But there was another head there. Captain Bowen, chief of the Carnegie Steel Co., police, was on hand. He was one of the scabs of the great Homestead strike of 1892. His brutal tendencies, his hatred of unions has been developing in each of the 27 years since that time. He took charge of the situation. He pointed out six other organizers as by instinct. Organizer Joe Manley of the Structural Iron Workers was arrested for coming from Pittsburg; Secretary Foster as “a suspicious character”; A. F. of L. Organizer J. L. Beaghen “for being along”; A. A. Lassich, organizer of the Mine, Mill land Smelter Workers [formerly Western Federation of Miners] was asked if he was “a member of the American Federation of Labor.” He admitted it and was immediately arrested. R. L. Hall, organizer of the International Association of Machinists, was accused and convicted by Captain Bowen of “doing nothing,” and taken in. Secretary Brogan was yanked to jail without explanation.
All the men were marched by the heavily armed company gunmen up the big hill, through the streets of the town, across lots to the city jail in Clairton, a mile away. Upon arrival, a demand was made to know the amount of bail required. The demand was ignored and all the men thrown summarily into the filthy cells of the suffocating jail. This jail has cells, so ingeniously constructed that a fair-sized man can neither stand up nor lay down straight. One can only sit in a humped-up position. Each was furnished with cell, a toilet that had apparently seen much use and little attention. The stench on a hot day like Aug. [3] was sickening.
A friend, seeing the door from the office open for a moment came in and asked the prisoners if he could be of service. One of them asked for a drink. At the same moment, an officer of the Clairton police force stuck his head in the door. “Come out of there,” he thundered. The friend explained that he was only giving one of the men a drink. “They are always wanting some thing. Let them alone,” he commanded.
All the organizers were kept in the unspeakable jail till night, unable to communicate with either friends or their attorney, bail refused, and would have undoubtedly have had to spend the night there had it not been for the activities of some labor men from Pittsburg who happened along just as the so-called arrests were being made. They raced ground town, located the Burgess and forced him to fix the bail, furnished it, and just before dark the men were released.
Thus, these men were in jail for hours without a charge being place against them. Their money refused for bail, they were made sport of by the small boys of the town, humiliated and sneered at by the hired gunmen of the Carnegie Steel Co.
All this happened in a state where men took their lives in their hands when they signed a declaration setting forth the fundamental principles for the establishment of a free government, and just following the world’s greatest war, during which millions of lives were sacrificed in the cause of liberty and democracy.
But the same spirit that impelled men to fight for freedom in other times is not dead now. Mother Jones, gray-haired, stooped and bent under the load of her 89 years of fighting for labor, but with a soul on fire and the flash of her eyes undimmed, hearing of the outrages in North Clairton, sent a wire demanding that she be billed for a speech in North Clairton on Sunday, Aug. 10. Her offer has been accepted. Thousands of mine workers, in grateful remembrance of the many sacrifices Mother Jones has made for them, insist that they too are going to be in North Clairton and if she is going to be dragged to jail by the brutal Carnegie Steel Co police with the sanction of the municipal authorities, they want to be eye-witnesses’ to the depths to which corporate hirelings can sink.
The spirt of liberty still lives! The American Federation of Labor proposes to plant its banner in every steel center in western Pennsylvania. Other national figures in the labor movement will follow Mother Jones. Wires are pouring into the office of the national committee for organizing iron and steel workers announcing the names of men who wish to enlist “for the duration of the war.” North Clairton and other autocratic boroughs will have to back up. Democracy is on the ascendency. Justice for labor is the cry that is encircling the world and wise men will heed this cry.
From The Pittsburgh Post of August 4, 1919:
Union Men Arrested In North Clairton
—–Seven organizers of the American Federation of Labor’s National committee on organization of the mill industry were arrested while holding a meeting on a lot on State street, North Clairton, said to be owned by one of their number. The arrests were ordered by Burgess Thomas Williams on a charge of violating a borough ordinance requiring permits for meetings. The men were retained for three hours and then released on forfeits of $15 each.
Following their release William Z. Foster, one of those arrested, sent a telegram to Governor William C. Sproul protesting the action. Despite the arrests Foster said that another meeting is scheduled in North Clairton next Sunday [August 10], when Mother Jones will speak. Foster also said that the strike vote to be taken by the federation among the unorganized workers will begin tonight at a meeting in Rankin. The vote will be taken nightly in other iron and steel sections for a period of a week and the first results will be announced next Monday night.
From the Pittsburgh Gazette Times of August 4, 1919:
Aroused by the arrests, which were made on a lot owned by [B]rogan], who is local secretary of the national committee, Secretary Foster of that committee dispatched this telegram to Gov. Sproul at Harrisburg:
Peaceful, orderly meeting of the American Federation of Labor, North Clairton, Pa., held on private property by invitation of owner was summarily suppressed by borough officials. All speakers and organizers jailed. Is there not some power in Pennsylvania that can secure your citizen the opportunity to freely exercise their fundamental rights?
From The Pittsburgh Post of August 11, 1919:
1,500 ATTEND LABOR MEETING IN CLAIRTON
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Burgess Authorizes Gathering and Aids Leaders.
—–“MOTHER” JONES SPEAKS
—–Overcoming official opposition in almost the last town in Allegheny county, the American Federation of Labor’s National committee organizing the iron and steel workers, yesterday afternoon [August 10] held a meeting on the Commons in North Clairton, at which Mother Jones addressed 1,500 mill workers and their families.
Burgess Thomas E. Williams of North Clairton, who stopped an organizing meeting Sunday afternoon, August 3, and arrested the organizers, authorized yesterday’s meeting, and provided for the purpose the use of the Commons, which accommodated a bigger crowd than the lot in Main street, which the organizers had picked for their meeting.
PEOPLE’S CENTURY.
Mother Jones spoke nearly two hours and was applauded when she said that a prophecy Victor Hugo made was coming true, that the twentieth century would be the peoples’ century.
Throughout her address Mother Jones spoke under an American flag, draping the platform, and, pointing to this at one time, she declared:
There are no foreigners in America. As soon as an immigrant enters America’s gates that day he becomes an American citizen. We all belong to Uncle Sam.
People attended the meeting from many towns surrounding North Clairton and several family parties came in their automobiles. Sharing the speech-making with Mother Jones, veteran of many organizing campaigns in coal fields, were J. G. Brown, timber workers, Seattle, Wash,; William Z. Foster, secretary of the National committee, Pittsburgh, and John Klinski, United Mine Workers, Pittsburgh.
STRIKE VOTE SUNDAY.
Organizer Brown, who presided, told the audience no effort would be made to take applications for union membership at the meeting, despite the fact that when Mother Jones asked how many were ready to join nearly every hand went up.
Brown announced that local headquarters of the national committee, with P. H. [B]rogan in charge as local secretary, would be opened in Main street, North Clairton, and that applications would be taken there. He also said a strike vote the national committee is taking among the iron and steel workers throughout the country will be taken in North Clairton at the meeting next Sunday afternoon.
Secretary Foster of the National committee, said that the organizing campaign throughout the Pittsburgh district is “going over big.” He said that three organizers working as fast as they could were kept busy for four hours in Homestead last week making out applications for union membership.
From Hellraisers Journal of August 12, 1919:
North Clairton, Pennsylvania – Iron and Steel Organizers Arrested
-From the Duluth Labor World of August 9, 1919:
PITTSBURGH, Aug. 7.-When President Samuel Gompers and other officers and organizers at the Atlantic City convention all arose and pledged themselves to go to jail if necessary to unionize the iron and steel workers of the country they evidently were fully aware of the extremes to which the steel barons would go to prevent their men from organizing.
Last Sunday [Aug. 3rd], the first arrests were made at North Clairton, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Secretary Foster [Secretary of the National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers] and several other organizes were thrown into jail and a union meeting held on a private lot, the owner of which presided at the meeting, was broken up….
From Hellraisers Journal of August 17, 1919:
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Speaks to Steel Workers
-From The Pittsburgh Post of August 15, 1919:3,000 CHEER “MOTHER” JONES ON SOUTHSIDE
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Steel Workers Crowd Hall at Organization Meeting.
—–More than 3,000 Southside iron and steel workers crowded the Falcon hall on South eighteenth street, last night, in a meeting held for the purpose of organizing the employee of the South side steel mills. There was no disorder and four patrolmen detailed from the South Thirteenth street police station had no trouble handling the crowd.
“Mother” Jones, the principal speaker of the evening was applauded lustily when she made her appearance at the hall, accompanied by J. G. Brown, general organizer of the American Federation of Labor, and John Weirencki, local organizer, who were the other speakers.
In her address “Mother” Jones derided the “spotters” who she said, were in attendance at the meeting. She told of her experiences at the miners’ strike in Fairmont, W. Va., a year ago and of being jailed for her utterances.
Following her speech, J. G. Brown, who acted as chairman of the meeting said that if a blacklist was made by any of the companies, of the names of the employes who attended last night’s meeting, and it resulted in the discharging of any of the men, the American Federation of Labor would see to it that they were reinstated with pay for the time they lost.
Weirencki addressed the meeting, which was attended largely by foreigners, in their native tongue, urging the men to join the American Federation of Labor. It was announced that permanent headquarters will be opened by the organization committee [National Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers] of the American Federation of Labor at 86 South Eighteenth street.
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Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES
The Quarry Workers Journal
(Barre, Vermont)
-Aug 1919
[date of publication=af/ Aug 3 & bf/ Aug 10]
https://www.newspapers.com/image/405049503/
Quarry Workers International Union of North America
https://www.newspapers.com/image/405049482/
The Pittsburgh Post
(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
-Aug 4, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/87647706
-Aug 11, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/87648029
The Gazette Times
(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
-Aug 4, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/85770624/
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 12, 1919
From the Duluth Labor World of August 9, 1919: Leaders of National Committee Jailed at North Clairton for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 17, 1919
From The Pittsburgh Post of August 15, 1919: Mother Jones Speaks to 3,000 Steel Workers on Southside of Pittsburgh at Falcon Hall
IMAGE
Mother Jones Women in Industry, Eve Ns Hburg PA p2, Jan 6, 1919
https://www.newspapers.com/image/57884211
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 15, 1919
Mother Jones News for July 1919, Part I
-Found Describing “Most Wonderful Progress” “We have got to march on with the great army of the world…”
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 16, 1919
Mother Jones News for July 1919, Part II
-Found Protesting Conditions at Sissonville Road Camp, Burning Hell Hole of West Virginia
Tag: Great Steel Strike of 1919
https://weneverforget.org/tag/great-steel-strike-of-1919/
The Great Steel Strike and Its Lessons
-by William Z. Foster
B. W. Huebsch, Incorporated, 1920
https://books.google.com/books?id=Hbt-AAAAMAAJ
Re Clairton, Sunday August 3, 1919
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Hbt-AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA58
Burgess Williams of North Clairton, chief of the Carnegie mill police at that point, swore dire vengeance against the free speech fighters should they come to his town. But the National Committee, choosing a lot owned by its local secretary on the main street of North Clairton, called a meeting there one bright Sunday afternoon [August 3, 1919]. But hardly had it started when, with a great flourish of clubs, the police broke up the gathering and arrested organizers J. G. Brown, J. Manley, A. A. Lassich, P. H. Brogan, J. L. Beaghen, R. L. Hall, and the writer. Later all were fined for holding a meeting on their own property. But the Burgess, learning that the speaker for the following Sunday was Mother Jones of the Miners’ Union, and that public sentiment was overwhelmingly against him, decided not to fight. Instead he provided a place on the public commons for open air meetings. The contest resulted in almost all of the local steel workers joining the unions immediately.
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The Homestead Strike – Joe Glazer