Hellraisers Journal: Fifteen Years Since 1886, Chicago Tribune Reports May Day Strikes for Eight-Hour Day in Many Cities

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Quote Albert Parsons, Chicago, Nov 11, Alarm p1, Nov 19, 1887—————

Hellraisers Journal Thursday May 2, 1901
Fifteen Years Since May Day 1886, Nation’s Workers Strike for Eight-Hour Day

Albert and Lucy Parsons, Leaders in Chicago during
1886 Nationwide May Day Strike for  Eight-Hour Day:

Albert n Lucy Parsons, Essex Co Hld p1, Nov 18, 1887, Rck Isl Dly Arg p2, Mar 10, 1887

From The Chicago Daily Tribune of May 2, 1901:

WORKERS STRIKE IN MANY CITIES.
———-
May Day Marked by Walkout of
Union Men of Varied Crafts.
—–

EIGHT-HOUR DAY ASKED.
———-
Building Trades Most Affected, the Employes
Demanding Increases in Pay.
—–

BIG PLAN OF MACHINISTS.
—–

May day strikes of union workers in all parts of the country were numerous, yesterday, although there was no general walkout in any line of skilled labor. In nearly all cases the points at issue were local differences respecting hours or wages. The eight-hour and Saturday half holiday movements showed gains in strength, many unions insisting that the shorter day be granted at once. The one strike most menacing is that of the machinists at Buffalo, N. Y., where a 9-hour day with no decrease in pay was demanded. It is claimed that this fight will be taken up by the local organizations throughout the United States, Canada. and Mexico, and that a general walkout is likely on May 20.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Misery in Porto Rico, Labor Delegate Brings a Tale of Woe, Will Present Petition to the President”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EVD, Starve Quietly, Phl GS Speech IA, Mar 19, 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 29, 1901
Delegate Santiago Iglesias Tells of the Misery of the Workers of Porto Rico

From the Appeal to Reason of April 27, 1901:

Misery in Porto Rico, AtR p4, Apr 27, 1901

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: “Child Labor” -a Poem by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote, Child Labor Man of Six Snuff Sniffer—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday April 28, 1911
“Child Labor” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of April 27, 1911:

POEM Child Labor, by CP Gilman, IW p2, Apr 26, 1911

“Little Spinner” by Lewis Hine, North Carolina , December 1908:

Child Labor ed, L Hine, Spinner, Whitnel Cotton Mill, NC, Dec 1908

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Hellraisers Journal: The Leavenworth Times: “Prison Welcomes Twenty Wobblies to Its Rock Pile.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Ralph Chaplin Mourn Not the Dead, Bars and Shadows, 1922———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 27, 1921
Leavenworth, Kansas – Fellow Workers Report to Prison Voluntarily 

From The Leavenworth Times of April 26, 1921:

PRISON WELCOMES TWENTY
WOBBLIES TO ITS ROCK PILE.
———-

INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF WORLD
REPORTED VOLUNTARILY YESTERDAY.
———-

SAY ‘HAYWOOD IS COMING’
———-

Charles Ashleigh, Oxford Graduate, Ralph H. Chaplin, Artist-Poet,
Ben Fletcher, Walking Delegate and Other “Leading Lights”
Among Those Who Re-Entered Federal Penitentiary
-Several Refuse to Believe “Big Bill” Fled to Escape Sentence.
———-

IWW Chg Class War Prisoners bf Leaving for Leavenworth, Late Apr 1921, with Names fr Messenger p235, Aug 1921

Twenty of the forty-six Industrial Workers of the World, convicted for violation of the espionage law and obliged to return to the Federal penitentiary because the United States supreme court denied an appeal on a trial review, reported voluntarily yesterday.

“Haywood will be here soon,” declared most of the “wobblies,” who reported yesterday. They refuse to believe that “Big Bill,” their international secretary and chieftain, fled to Russia to escape the prison sentence of five to twenty years.

Stanley J. Clark, Chicago attorney, under sentence of ten years, was the first to report. He arrived yesterday morning from Fort Worth, Tex. Charles Bennett, also under sentence of ten years, was the twentieth man to report, being “dressed in” at 5 o’clock yesterday evening.

Twelve “wobblies” marched through the prison gates in one group. Among the twelve were Ben Fletcher, walking delegate for the I. W, W. and the only colored man in the entire consignment Charles Ashleigh, Englishman and graduate of Oxford University, and Ralph H. Chaplin, artist and poet, who was detailed by the “wobblies” to investigate the Centralia, Wash., conspiracy. Nizra Pietro [Pietro Nigra], who drew the shortest sentence, only ten months, also reported.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for March 1921: Found in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Willing to Swear If Required to Make Her Point

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Quote Mother Jones, Praying Swearing, UMWC, Jan 17, 1918———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 26, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for March 1921
-Found in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Will Swear as Needed

From The Grand Rapids Press of March 15, 1921:

MOTHER JONES WILL SWEAR
IF IT IS REQUIRED
———-

Mother Jones, ed WDC Tx p2, Aug 29, 1920“Mother” Jones, for many years a labor leader of national repute, arrived in Grand Rapids Tuesday noon for her first visit to this city in 20 years. She was a guest at the Eagle hotel and lunched at noon with a group of local labor leaders and their wives. During the afternoon she spoke at Trades and Labor council hall on general labor conditions in the United States, being introduced to the Grand Rapids audience by D. B. Hovey. Tuesday evening she will give another address at the Railway Workers’ union.

Grand Rapids labor circles greeted the venerated leader in a spirit of tribute for her many years of service in the cause of labor. She is a picturesque figure, but in spite of her flat bonnet and old-fashioned dress the impression the white haired old lady gives is not that of quaintness but of power, for the lines of her face are very strong and certainly she has a mind of her own. Though 85 years old she is more active than many persons much younger.

Mother Jones said she never knows what she is going to say to an audience until she faces it.

[She said:]

I’m not one of those orators that prepare a speech beforehand. I have to see what the folks I’m going to talk to look like first. If they’re a lot of roughnecks like us not I’ll swear at ’em.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for February 1921: Journalist Claims Mother Jones Helping to Make Mexico Safe for American Business

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote Mother Jones PAFL Congress, p72, Jan 13, 1921———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 25, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1921
-C. H. Newell Claims Mother Jones is Helping to Make Mexico Safe

From the Salt Lake Telegram of February 1, 1921:

MAKING MEXICO SAFE PLACE FOR ALL
———-
Obregon, Villareal, Gompers and
“Mother Jones” Fight Bolshevism
———

By C. H. NEWELL

Mother Jones, ed WDC Tx p2, Aug 29, 1920

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 1.-Mexico’s “big four” are Obregon, Gompers, Villareal and Mother Jones.

They’re making Mexico safe for Americans and American business.

The great American drive to capture the immensely rich Mexican trade is on full blast…..

“MOTHER” IS HELPING.

Mother Jones, America’s 90-year-young labor leader, is helping to put the skids under bolshevism in Mexico.

Her visit to Mexico, at first hailed with glee by Communist party organizers, has resolved itself into a characteristic crusade for trade union organization.

This means, employers and government officials say, a better chance for the Obregon administration to get the country back on a productive basis.

[Mother Jones says:]

Education is the fundamental need of Mexico. I’m down here to preach the gospel of education for workers.

When they get education they will know how to act to achieve full industrial as well as political rights. And the agency through which they will make the most rapid, peaceful progress is the Pan-America Labor federation, backed as it is by the American Federation of Labor.

This is what Mother Jones told the communists at the labor convention:

SAYS IT IS BEST.

Uncle Sam’s government may not be perfect, but it is the best one on earth today. So you rats may just as well understand that if you open your mouths against my country, I will grab you by the collar, drag you out of your hole, and shake hell out of you.

Mother Jones is the personal guest of General Antonio Villareal, who, as secretary of agriculture, is trying to restore farming and ranching pursuits, with real success.

Several years ago an effort was being made by mining and timber interests of northern Mexico have Villareal deported from the United States. His deportation would have meant his death.

Mother Jones made a trip to Washington in his behalf and he was not deported.

Villareal has been one of the foremost in restoring mail, wire, railway and ship service, so all important lines of communication are now open in the country.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Outlook: “The Factory Girl’s Danger” by Miriam Finn Scott -Stories from the Triangle Fire

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Hellraisers Journal: Metropolitan Opera House: Rose Schneiderman Speaks to Public: “We Have Found You Wanting”—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 24, 1911
Stories from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

From The Outlook of April 15, 1911:

THE FACTORY GIRL’S DANGER

BY MIRIAM FINN SCOTT

On Friday evening, March 24, two young sisters walked down the stairways from the ninth floor where they were employed and joined the horde of workers that nightly surges homeward into New York’s East Side. Since eight o’clock they had been bending over shirt-waists of silk and lace, tensely guiding the valuable fabrics through their swift machines, with hundreds of power driven machines whirring madly about them; and now the two were very weary, and were filled with that despondency which comes after a day of exhausting routine, when the next day, and the next week, and the next year, hold promise of nothing better than just this same monotonous strain.

Triangle Fire, One of Hundred by TAD, NY Eve Jr Mar 26 to 28, 1911, Lbr Arts, Cornell U, Wiki
“Operators Wanted. Inquire Ninth Floor.”

They were moodily silent when they sat down to supper in the three-room tenement apartment where they boarded. At last their landlady (who told me of that evening’s talk, indelibly stamped upon her mind) inquired if they were feeling unwell.

“Oh, I wish we could quit the shop!” burst out Becky, the younger sister, aged eighteen. “That place is going to kill us some day.”

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Hellraisers Journal: “Golden Princes” Blanck and Harris Indicted in Connection with Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Morris Rosenfeld fr Triangle Requiem, JDF Mar 29, 1911, L Stein 1962———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 23, 1911
New York, New York – Blanck and Harris Indicted for Manslaughter

From The Outlook of April 22, 1911:

Indictments in the Asch Fire Case

Triangle Fire, Blanck n Harris Indicted, Tacoma Tx p1, Apr 19, 1911

Last week the Grand Jury of New York found indictments against the proprietors of the Triangle Waist Company, Issac Harris and Max Blanck. These two men constitute the firm who employed the factory operatives of whom 143 [146] lost their lives in the terrible disaster in Washington Place, New York, on March 25. The indictments against them are for manslaughter in the first and second degree, and they are based, so the District Attorney states, on what he believes to be strong evidence that some at least of the doors through which the girls might have escaped were habitually kept locked and were locked at the time of the fire.

The law requires that doors in such a factory shall open outwardly where practicable, and shall not be locked, bolted, or fastened during working hours. The evidence before the coroner’s jury has been conflicting on this point, but the Grand Jury, it is asserted, had before it a fragment of a tightly locked door. Meanwhile, Mr. Whitman, the District Attorney, laid before the Grand Jury the testimony of witnesses who stated that the doors on the Washington Place side of the building were kept locked, and the Italian Consul is reported to have taken affidavits of many Italian girls who swore that the Washington Place doors were locked and never used for exit.

It is further asserted that it is capable of proof that two girls in particular lost their lives directly because these doors were locked.

We need not point out that the men accused are entitled to a suspension of opinion until they are actually tried. Whatever may be the facts in this case, there is considerable evidence that it is deplorably common custom for doors in similar establishments to be locked.

Immediately after the fire The Outlook quoted from the report of a special committee made up from the Cloakmakers’ Union and the Cloak Manufacturers’ Association. It stated that they had found twenty-two shops in which the doors leading to the hall and stairways were locked during the day, while other provisions of law were constantly violated in a much larger number of shops.

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