Tag: American Federation of Labor

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for March 1918, Part I: Found in Kansas and Iowa Speaking at UMW District Conventions

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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She is the same dear little old Mother Jones
and if she has lost any vigor
in the past two years I can’t see it.
-An Iowa Miner, 1918

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday April 19, 1918
Mother Jones News for March 1918: Found in Kansas and Iowa

Mother Jones Fire Eater, Lg Crpd, St L Str, Aug 23, 1917

 

We begin our Mother Jones news round-up for March 1918 with a report of Mother listening to A. F. of L. President Samuel Gompers pleading for the Eight Hour Day before the Chicago Alschuler Hearings. We next find her speaking before district conventions of the United Mine Workers held in Kansas and in Iowa.

From Springfield’s Illinois State Register of March 1, 1918:

GOMPERS SAYS SHORTER DAYS WILL WIN WAR
—–
Long Hours and Low Wages Drive Men to Drink,
Is Plea of Labor Chief at Chicago
—–

MOTHER JONES LISTENS
—–

Chicago, Feb. 28.-Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor made a stirring appeal today in behalf of an eight-hour day for employes in the meat packing industry at the stockyards wage arbitration. He appeared as a witness for the employes and his testimony was eagerly listened to by “Mother” Mary Jones, an organizer for the United Mine Workers and several hundred other representatives of organized labor from all sections of the country…..

From the Kansas Pittsburg Daily Headlight of March 11, 1918:

DISTRICT MINERS’ CONVENTION STARTS
—–

MOTHER JONES IS ON HAND TO ADDRESS
KANSAS COAL DIGGERS
—–
President Howat’s Report Was Read
at Opening Session-
Excluded Two Papers From Hall.
—–

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for March 1918, Part I: Found in Kansas and Iowa Speaking at UMW District Conventions” →

Hellraisers Journal: William Z Foster on the Alschuler Award: “How Life Has Been Brought into the Stockyards,” Part III

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote WZF, re Walsh closing for Packinghouse Workers, LnL, April 1918

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday April 7, 1918
Victory! for Packinghouse Workers by William Z. Foster, Part III

From Life and Labor of April 1918:

HOW LIFE HAS BEEN BROUGHT
INTO THE STOCKYARDS
A Story of the Reorganization of the Packing Industry

William Z. Foster
Secretary Chicago Stockyards Labor Council

The main questions, touching wages, hours and conditions of labor, involved in the Stockyards arbitration hearing before Judge Alschuler, and his decision concerning them, are of overwhelming importance, both in principle and in consequence. Just how far-reaching will be the results of the decision one cannot now forecast. But lips stiffened by poverty will perhaps now learn to smile, and thousands of families will for the first time taste of life.

[Part III]

THE SHORTER WORKDAY

Chicago Stockyards, WZF, LnL p71, April 1918

A big battle raged around the question of the eight hour day. In this measure’ the packers saw typified the victory so earnestly sought by the workers. They bent every effort to defeat it. Although compelled to admit the justice, economy and inevitability of the eight hour day as a general proposition, they exhausted every pretext to prevent its consideration, for very obvious reasons, till after the war.

Their strong argument was that, due to the irregular supply of cattle, sheep and hogs, and the limited capacities of the plants, introduction of the eight hour day could only be brought about after months and years of rebuilding and other preparation. To establish it suddenly now would be disastrous. It would reduce the production of vitally necessary foodstuffs full 20 per cent. This would involve starvation for the boys in the trenches and very possibly the loss of the war.

To establish this contention the brainiest superintendents in the packing business piled complexities upon complications. But their efforts were in vain. The workers met and defeated them at every point. Samuel Gompers and Victor A. Olander made the general argument for the shorter workday, and a masterful one it was. Dennis Lane, John Kennedy, Martin Murphy, Tim McCreash, John Joyce and Joseph Selkirk, all skilled butchers, applied it to the packing houses. These union workers destroyed every technical objection raised by the superintendents, checking them one by one. Once, in the midst of the arbitration, they even went to Kansas City to ascertain the exact capacity of certain departments of the packing plants in that city. They routed the experts, horse, foot and dragoons, and proved beyond all question of doubt the practicability and economy of immediately establishing the eight hour day in the packing industry. At the first hour, seeing they were defeated, the packers urged the administrator in case he saw fit to shorten the workday, to make it apply only to the skilled trades—an insidious attack on the unions that did not pass without thorough exposure.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: William Z Foster on the Alschuler Award: “How Life Has Been Brought into the Stockyards,” Part III” →

Hellraisers Journal: William Z Foster on the Alschuler Award: “How Life Has Been Brought into the Stockyards,” Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote WZF, re Organizing Packinghouse Workers, LnL, April 1918

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday April 5, 1918
Victory! for Packinghouse Workers by William Z. Foster, Part I

From Life and Labor of April 1918:

Life and Labor, Editors, and WZF, April 1918

The main questions, touching wages, hours and conditions of labor, involved in the Stockyards arbitration hearing before Judge Alschuler, and his decision concerning them, are of overwhelming importance, both in principle and in consequence. Just how far-reaching will be the results of the decision one cannot now forecast. But lips stiffened by poverty will perhaps now learn to smile, and thousands of families will for the first time taste of life.

[Part I of III.]

Chicago Stockyards, WZF, LnL p63, April 1918

EIGHT MONTHS ago the vast army of packing house workers throughout the country were among America’s most helpless and hopeless toilers. Practically destitute of organization, they worked excessively long hours under abominable conditions for miserably low wages. Hope for them indeed seemed dead. But today all this is changed. Like magic splendid organizations have sprung up in all the packing centers. The eight hour day has been established, working conditions have been improved and wages greatly increased. From being one of the worst industries in the country for the workers the packing industry has suddenly become one of the best.

The bringing about of these revolutionary changes constitutes one of the greatest achievements of the Trade Union movement in recent years. A detailed recital of how it occurred is well worth while.

Since the great, ill-fated strike of 1904 the packing trades unions had put forth much effort to re-establish themselves. But, working upon the plan of each union fighting its own battle and paying little or no heed to the struggles of the rest, they achieved no better success than have other unions applying this old-fashioned and unscientific method in the big industries. Complete failure attended their efforts. No sooner would one of them gain a foothold than the mighty packers, almost without trying, would destroy it.

The logic of the situation was plain. Individual action had failed. Possibility of success lay only in the direction of united action. Common sense dictated that all the unions should pool their strength and make a concerted drive for organization. Therefore, when on Friday, July 13, 1917, exactly thirteen years after the calling of the big strike, Local No. 453 of the Railway Carmen proposed to Local No. 87 of the Butcher Workmen that a joint campaign of organization be started in the Chicago packing houses, the latter agreed at once. The two unions drafted a resolution asking the Chicago Federation of Labor to call together the interested trades and to take charge of the proposed campaign.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: William Z Foster on the Alschuler Award: “How Life Has Been Brought into the Stockyards,” Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for February 1918: Found in Chicago Supporting Packers at Alschuler Arbitration Hearings

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Drive Out Bloodsuckers, OR Dly Jr, Feb 27, 1918

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday March 15, 1918
Mother Jones News for February 1918: Found at Hearings in Chicago

Towards the end of February, we found Mother in attendance at the Alschuler Hearings in Chicago. Federal Judge Samuel B. Alschuler was appointed by President Wilson to arbitrate differences between Packinghouse Workers, now in the midst of a massive organizing campaign, and the Stockyard Employers. The Alschuler Hearings were held in Chicago from February 11th until March 7th and a ruling is expect soon.

From the Oregon Daily Journal of February 27, 1918:

Mother Jones Fire Eater, Lg Crpd, St L Str, Aug 23, 1917

Chicago, Feb 27.-(I. N. S.)…..

Like a clap of thunder from a clear sky. “Mother” Jones of labor strike fame, came into the midst of representatives of the packers Tuesday during a five-minute recess in the hearing.

“Why am I here-why?” she exclaimed in a high pitched voice that penetrated the courtroom.

I’m here to tell you bloodsuckers where you get off at. I’m here to help drive out you crooks. I’ll not let up-I’ll not let up.

She directed her attack against John E. O’Hern, general superintendent of Armour & Co. plants, and others. Louis F. Swift, standing back some distance, heard her fiery statements.

A fist fight was threatened when Frank P. Walsh, counsel for the workers, read a series of letters indicating the packers sought to spike corrective legislation in various states.

———-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for February 1918: Found in Chicago Supporting Packers at Alschuler Arbitration Hearings” →

Hellraisers Journal: Honeymoon of Elizabeth Flynn & Jack Jones Halted, Will Rejoin Comrade Husband in Spring

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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Hellraisers Journal, Friday February 14, 1908
New York, New York – Young Socialist Returns to Parent’s Home

For the past few weeks, the news of the arrest of the husband of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn has been published in newspapers across the nation. For example, we have this item from Alabama’s Centreville Press of February 13th:

Socialist’s Husband Arrested.

John A. Jones, husband of Elizabeth Flynn, the girl Socialist agitator, was arrested at Aurora, Minn., on a charge of incendiarism.

—–

At this time Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is in New York City and her husband, Jack Jones, is out of jail and has recently been interviewed by a reporter for the Duluth News Tribune.

From Mississippi’s Vicksburg Evening Post of February 3, 1908:

PRISON HALTS HONEYMOON OF GIRL
—–

EGF, DEN (ca) p 21, crpd, Sept 21, 1907

New York, Feb. 3.-With a romance written in suffering, a lifetime crowded into a few months, through which the divine fire of a cause gleams like a beacon light, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the girl Socialist agitator whose words have at seventeen made her known across a continent, has returned ill and exhausted to her father’s home in New York City.

It is just two years ago since Miss Flynn, then a student in the Morris Heights High School, became affiliated with the Socialist movement. Gifted with a quick brain and a facile oratory, she seized upon the dramatic possibilities of the great struggle of labor and capital and spoke as one inspired.

The Flynns are New England folk, the father of a Bowdoin College man and civil engineer, whose difficulties with a company which refused him the money he had earned first aroused the thoughtful Elizabeth, eldest of a brood of four, to interest in the situation. When the Flynns left their Connecticut home to come to New York the girl, already deep in socialist literature, became associated with the leaders in this city. But she was a child, too young to become a member of the association, therefore she was permitted to speak from their platform only as an affiliated agitator.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Honeymoon of Elizabeth Flynn & Jack Jones Halted, Will Rejoin Comrade Husband in Spring” →

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Found in New York City Supporting Strike of Young Millinery Workers

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Thursday February 13, 1908
New York, New York – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Stands with Strikers

Since her marriage in Minnesota, in early January, to I. W. W. organizer Jack Jones, his arrest and her subsequent return to her parent’s home in New York, we have not heard much from Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. But we did find this item in the New York Sun of February 7th:

GIRL SOCIALIST TO STRIKERS
—–

ELIZABETH FLYNN ENLIVENS A MEETING OF MILLINERS
—–
Commends the Workers to the Socialist Trades Unions
and Describes Hearst as a Middle Class Reformer
-As for Roosevelt, What’s He to Labor?

EGF, DEN (ca) p 21, crpd, Sept 21, 1907

The mantle which Thomas W. Lawson discarded when he announced that so far as he was concerned the “System” might work out its own destruction has fallen upon the shoulders of Miss Elizabeth Flynn. She wore it last night most becomingly and effectively at a mass meeting of milliners in Teutonia Hall, 66 Essex street.

Miss Flynn is 17 and slim, with big Irish blue eyes, nut brown hair and the milk white skin that betokens a Killarney ancestry. Her voice is clear, soft and coaxing, with a carrying power and a staying quality that the average Madison Square Garden orator would be glad to attain at almost any cost.

The crusader against capital spoke for one hour and a quarter and at the end of that period seemed fresher and more enthusiastic than when she began. As for what she didn’t say about the robbers who stole from the poor working man his country, the tools and materials and the finished product of his labor, and even annexed his inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it would be difficult for the most ingenious opponent of the “System” to conceive.

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Hellraisers Journal: James P. Thomas on Revolutionary Industrial Unionism, Part I: Craft Unionism Creates Union Scabs

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Solidarity Forever
For the Union makes us strong.
-Ralph Chaplin

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Hellraisers Journal, Sunday January 27, 1918
From the International Socialist Review: Revolutionary Industrial Unionism

From the January edition of the Review, we find the testimony of James P. Thompson given before the Commission on Industrial Relations at Seattle, Washington, on August 12, 1914.

Industrial Unionism:
What It Is

By JAMES P. THOMPSON
[Part I.]

James P Thompson, IWW, ISR p366, Feb 1918

CALLED as a witness, before the Federal Industrial Relation Commission, he testified as follows: Mr. O. W. Thompson, Council for the Commission: Will you please give us your name? Answer: Mr. J. P. Thompson: James P. Thompson. Question: And your business address? Answer: 208 Second Avenue S., Seattle. Question: And your occupation? Answer: Organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World. Question: That is the organization with headquarters in Chicago? Answer: Chicago. Question: Of which Mr. Vincent St. John is general secretary ? Answer: Yes, sir. Question: How long have you been an organizer of the Industrial Workers of the World? Answer: I have been an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, that is drawing a salary from them as an organizer, since 1906. I was one of those who worked for it before it was born, I mean I helped organize it. Question: You say you helped work for it before it was born; you mean as a similar organization? Answer: I mean I was one of those who worked to have it formed and took steps in starting it. Question: How long have you been engaged in the work of propagation or agitation or whatever you want to call it, along that line? Answer: Well, let me see, I think I got to be a sort of an agitator when I was a fireman on the Great Lakes when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. Question: As you look over the labor field and look into the condition of the workers and look at the organization then in existence, what was in your mind that gave you the idea that a new organization should be formed? What was the reason that led you to that conclusion?

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Hellraisers Journal: “The Truth About the I. W. W.” by Harold Callender, Part II from the International Socialist Review

Janet RayeFrank Little
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Don’t worry, Fellow Worker,
all we’re going to need
from now on is guts.
-Frank Little

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Hellraisers Journal, Saturday January 5, 1918
Reprinted from The Masses: Part II-Harold Callender on the I. W. W.

From the International Socialist Review of January 1918:

The Truth About the I. W. W.

By HAROLD CALLENDER

EDITOR’S NOTE: Harold Callender investigated the Bisbee deportations for the National Labor Defense Council. He did it in so judicial and poised and truth-telling a manner that we engaged him to go and find out for us the truth about the I. W. W., and all the other things that are called “I. W. W.” by those who wish to destroy them in the northwest.-The Masses.

[Part II]
—–

WWIR, IWW WNF Truth, ISR Jan 1918

—–

Perhaps the funeral tribute to Little by the working people of Butte may be considered the reply to the warning which the lynching constituted. About 7,000 marched to the cemetery, representing most of the labor unions of the city. As the casket was lowered into the ground the last thing seen was a pennant of the Industrial Workers, bearing the words, “One big union,” lying across the coffin. At the headquarters of the mine union there hangs a photograph of Little, and under it, “Frank Little, victim of the copper trust, whom we shall never forget.” When I saw James Rowan, secretary of the Lumber Workers’ Industrial Union, in the county jail at Spokane, Wash., he wore on a lapel of his coat a button bearing a picture of Little and the motto: “Solidarity.” Behind him sat a youth in khaki, fingering a rifle and watching him as he talked.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Truth About the I. W. W.” by Harold Callender, Part II from the International Socialist Review” →

Hellraisers Journal: “The Truth About the I. W. W.” by Harold Callender, Part I from the International Socialist Review

Janet RayeFrank Little
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Don’t worry, Fellow Worker,
all we’re going to need
from now on is guts.
-Frank Little

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Friday January 4, 1918
Reprinted from The Masses: Part I-Harold Callender on the I. W. W.

From the International Socialist Review of January 1918:

The Truth About the I. W. W.

By HAROLD CALLENDER

EDITOR’S NOTE: Harold Callender investigated the Bisbee deportations for the National Labor Defense Council. He did it in so judicial and poised and truth-telling a manner that we engaged him to go and find out for us the truth about the I. W. W., and all the other things that are called “I. W. W.” by those who wish to destroy them in the northwest.-The Masses.

[Part I]
—–

WWIR, IWW Thompson, Hardy, Foss, W Smith, McDonald, Lloyd, Doran, ISR Jan 1918

—–

ACCORDING to the newspapers, the I. W. W. is engaged in treason and terrorism. The organization is supposed to have caused every forest fire in the West—where, by the way, there have been fewer forest fires this season than ever before. Driving spikes in lumber before it is sent to the sawmill, pinching the fruit in orchards so that it will spoil, crippling the copper, lumber and shipbuilding industries out of spite against the government, are commonly repeated charges against them. It is supposed to be for this reason that the states are being urged to pass stringent laws making their activities and propaganda impossible; or, in the absence of such laws, to encourage the police, soldiers and citizens to raid, lynch and drive them out of the community.

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Hellraisers Journal: “GIRL WITH A MISSION,” Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks to Packed House in Duluth, Minnesota

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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EGF Quote, I fell in love with my country, RG 96

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday November 27, 1907
Duluth, Minnesota – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks to Packed House

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of November 23, 1907:

THE GIRL WITH A MISSION
—–
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Addresses a Packed House
at Duluth on Industrial Unionism

EGF, DEN (ca) p 21, crpd, Sept 21, 1907

The visit of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn to Minnesota in behalf of the Industrial Workers of the World is arousing great interest among the workers of that state. She spoke on Sunday night, November 17, at Duluth, to an audience that filled Odd Fellows’ hall. From an interesting report of the meeting in the Duluth Harald we take the following extracts:

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is nothing if not earnest. Socialistic fervor seems to emanate from her expressive eyes, and even from her red dress. She is a girl with a “mission,” with a big “M,” and she delivered her sweeping generalities with perfect indifference as to where they hit.

She spoke to an audience which packed Odd Fellows’ hall last evening. There were a few labor leaders there out of curiosity; a scattering of women who were curious to see this strange school girl with the strange mission in life, and a large number of followers of the Socialistic doctrines expressed.

Characterizing the American Federation of Labor as organized scabbery, and branding it as a labor trust working injury to the majority of laborers for the benefit of the minority, the girl orator was evidently voicing the sentiments of many of her Socialistic followers in the room, but her statements in this respect made the several local labor leaders present hitch uneasily about in their chairs.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “GIRL WITH A MISSION,” Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks to Packed House in Duluth, Minnesota” →