Hellraisers Journal: Walsh Blames “Brutal Slave Driving Methods” of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil for Trouble at Bayonne

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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday November 7, 1916
New York, New York – Frank P. Walsh on Bayonne Strike

From The Labor World of November 4, 1916:

BAYONNE TROUBLE FAULT OF OIL CO. SAYS FRANK WALSH
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Frank P Walsh from Harper's Weekly of Sept 27, 1913

NEW YORK, Nov. 2.-“Wherever there is a big Rockefeller interest, there you find brutal slave driving methods in the treatment of underpaid workers,” declared Frank P. Walsh, chairman of the Committee on Industrial Relations, in New York, at the height of the Bayonne strike.

[Mr. Walsh continued:]

The most dangerous as well as brutal feature of the Rockefeller treatment of labor, is the close control that the Rockefeller concerns gain over the police and other public authorities. With the mayor of Bayonne confessing that he is a hired attorney for the Rockefeller interests, and with the police department using its full force, and hundreds of special deputies [deputized company gunthugs] to beat and kill the revolting strikers, the American public has its latest demonstration of what Rockefellerism means.

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Hellraisers Journal: George P. West Reports: Strikebreaking Agencies Import Criminal Gunthugs, Often Deputized

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There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Saturday October 28, 1916
From the Everett Labor Journal: Criminal Strikebreakers

EX-CONVICTS PREFERRED AS STRIKEBREAKERS
—–

Rockefeller, God save my dollars, Minor, ISR Sept 1915 “God save my dollars.”

The following relating to strike-breaking methods in New York will show to what lengths open shop advocates will go to accomplish their ends:

Dante Barton, of the Industrial Relations Committee, in a statement just issued, points out the record of the strike-breaking firm of Bergoff Bros. & Waddell, which is supplying the traction trust with strike-breakers. The statement follows:

Bergoff Bros. & Waddell, who have supplied the thousands of strikebreakers now being housed in car houses and shop buildings by the Interboro, is today the largest and most notorious strike-breaking agency in the United States. It is an amalgamation of Bergoff Bros. and the old firm of Waddell-Mahone.

Almost exactly a year ago this firm was investigated by the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, in connection with an investigation of the strike at the Bayonne refinery of the Standard Oil Company. The investigation was conducted by George P. West and C. L. Chenery, agents of the commission.

In a statement issued recently by the now unofficial Committee on Industrial Relations, Mr. West said:

Waddell, the most experienced member of this firm, admitted to Mr. Chenery and me that he had no prejudice against ex-convicts, but on the contrary, finds many of them particularly valuable for the work in hand.

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Hellraisers Journal: Bloody Strike in Bayonne Broken; American-Born Workers Abandon Foreign-Born Brothers

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MJ Quote Solidarity

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Hellraisers Journal, Monday October 23, 1916
Bayonne, New Jersey – Strikers Return to Work Defeated

BAYONNE STANDARD OIL STRIKE BROKEN

The arrival in Bayonne, on October 18th, of the Federal Mediators, John A. Moffitt and John A. Smythe from the Department of Labor, proved to be of no benefit to the strikers’ cause. The strike was broken by the defection of the American workers who abandoned their foreign-born fellow workers and returned to work on October 19th. The foreign-born workers, mostly Polish speaking, were forced to give up the fight for a living wage on Friday October 20th.

From the New York Call of October 21, 1916:

Ryan Walker on Bayonne, NY Call, Oct 21, 1916

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Hellraisers Journal: Men like the Rockefellers and Morgans “are sowing the wind and they will reap the whirlwind.”

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Bayonne Strike, Reap the Whirlwind, Dante Barton, NY Call, Oct 12, 1916

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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 17, 1916
From the New York Call: A Warning from Dante Barton

Henry Dubb Crucify Agitator, R Walker, NY Call Oct 15, 1916

The New York Call (Socialist) of October 12th published a warning to the American people regarding the strike situation in Bayonne, New Jersey, from Dante Barton of the Committee on Industrial Relations:

As for the American people:

Is it not time that the American people should awaken to the essential brutality of millionaires and billionaires running their business on the principle that they cannot and will not pay their hardest-worked workers enough to give them a decent living? Ought we any longer to have business on terms in which it is considered respectable for that sort of treatment to be given to workers? The majority of these Polish workers receive now $2.50 a day, which, with the increased cost of living, does not give them enough for a profitable living.

And as for big business:

When these Polish workers have the ambition and the fine qualities to strike against that degraded condition in life, gunmen and special policemen, armed with guns and machine guns, are rushed against them, and the workers are abused because they have manhood and courage.

This sort of industrial injustice, if it is not cured and overthrown, must necessarily lead to the kind of revolutionary disorder that men like the Rockefellers and Morgans consider so terrible. Men like these are sowing the wind and they will reap the whirlwind.

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Hellraisers Journal: Standard Oil Strikers Yet Again Shot Down in the Streets of Bayonne, New Jersey

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

Hellraisers Journal, Monday October 16, 1916
Bayonne, New Jersey – Strikers Shot Down Yet Again

From the Duluth Labor World of October 14, 1916:

Bayonne Strikers Killed, Labor World, Oct 14, 1916

EIGHT OIL STRIKERS
AND FOUR GUARDS ARE KILLED
—–

Bayonne by Robert Minor, Mother Earth, Aug 1915

BAYONNE, N. J., Oct. 12.-Police, armed with Winchesters, automatics and sawed off shotguns patrolled the “hook district,” near the Standard Oil company’s plants, where eight strikers and four police men were wounded during a clash between the armed guards and employes of the company, yesterday.

The fighting occurred when several hundred strikers pushed a flat car across a street car track in an attempt to block traffic and isolate the entire industrial district, at the lower end of the long peninsula on which the city lies. Eighty guards, armed with Winchesters and sawed-off shotguns, rushed the strikers in an attempt to remove the car.

Throughout the district, which was a storm center in a similar strike of Standard Oil workers, years ago [July 1915], when six strikers were killed, police and strikers alike, attempted to draw picket lines today.

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