Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 29, 1913 New York, New York – Waiters’ Strike Collapses Under Policemen’s Clubs
From the Honesdale Citizen (Pennsylvania) of January 28, 1913:
WAITERS’ STRIKE COLLAPSES. ———- Lack of Public Sympathy and Police Clubs Causes of Failure.
New York, Jan. 27.-The general strike of the hotel workers, which was promoted and nursed by the agitators of the big Bill Haywood organization, the Industrial Workers of the World, has collapsed. The strike leaders admitted that the fighting spirit had oozed out of their followers and that within twenty-four hours waiters and cooks and others would be scrambling for their old jobs.
The organizers sent by the Industrial Workers of the World to show the hotel workers how to fight according to the tactics of Haywood and Ettor were the first to admit defeat. Patrick Quinlan, the general organizer, and Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the principal speechmaker, were hard at work trying to convince the leaders of the International Hotel Workers’ union that he who fights and runs away can live to fight another day.
Less astute perhaps than the professionals of the Industrial Workers of the World, the leaders of the Hotel Workers’ union were struggling at the executive committee meeting to prolong the strike, but they were told frankly by the Industrial Workers of the World strategists that the battle was lost and that terms had better be made as quickly as possible. There were a number of causes for the failure of the strike. Among them were an absence of public sympathy, the lukewarm attitude of 75 per cent of the union waiters satisfied with their pay and the discovery of the strikers that the police were not afraid to use their clubs.
After three days of window smashing, of assaults on nonunion waiters and of noisy demonstrations there was less work last night for the police and the private guards by whom most of the hotels and restaurants were heavily guarded.
[Newsclip added from YorkDaily (Pennsylvania) of January 28, 1913.]
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday January 2, 1913 “On the Picket Line at Little Falls, New York” by Big Bill Haywood, Part II
From the InternationalSocialistReview of January 1913:
On the Picket Line at Little Falls, New York
-by William D. Haywood
[Part II of II]
Victims of Law and Order. Members of the I. W. W. in Jail at Little Falls. Red Banner Shown in Picture was Made in a Cell.
The many arrests, the brutality shown the prisoners after they were thrown into jail and other outrages by the police and hired thugs of the company, caused a state of excitement among the strikers that was only subdued by the arrival of Matilda Rabinowitz. She came from Bridgeport, Conn., formerly Russia. It was she who reorganized the shattered forces and got the committees in working order, electing others to take the places of those imprisoned. Miss Rabinowitz is as small in person as the smallest striker, yet disciplined as she is in the Industrial Workers of the World principles, she is shaping the mighty force that means victory. A book could be written about Matilda.
Others came, among them Jessie Ashley, a lawyer and sterling friend of the oppressed. She came from New York City as counsel to prepare for the legal end of the battle, paying her own expenses and contributing $100 to the strikers’ fund, making $1,100, and more, that she has contributed to the strikers at Lawrence and elsewhere.
The Socialists of Schenectady, Mayor Lunn, Robert Bakeman and John Mullin and others were on the job from the beginning. Comrades Kruise, Wade and Mullin came early, rolled up their sleeves and entered the culinary department, known in the strike quarters as the soup kitchen.
Money, supplies, groceries and clothing have been abundantly contributed by the Relief committee organized among the Socialists of Schenectady. The Citizen, a Socialist paper, has given publicity to the disgraceful conditions at Little Falls. All of which the strikers deeply appreciate and, while they cannot vote, as most of them are women and children, still they are in the vanguard, and on the picket line. They are marching to the music of the Marseillaise, onward to industrial freedom.
M. Helen Schloss, who is shown behind the bars on the cover, is a woman of Spartan mold, a Socialist of four years’ standing; well known at the Rand school in New York. She came to Little Falls and took a position with the Twentieth Century Club, a fashionable charity association, to investigate tuberculosis, which is prevalent among the mill workers. When the strike began, she took up the cause of the women on the firing line and joined forces with them. This lost her a salaried position and landed her in jail where she was held for eleven days. She was charged with inciting to riot and is only now enjoying her freedom under bond of $2,000.
Recently she has been arrested again while investigating the cases of some strikers who had been thrown into jail without warrant. Her unusual activity on behalf of the oppressed caused her to be looked upon with suspicion by the authorities who are under the control of the mill owners. A board of physicians, appointed by the chief of police, known as “Bully” Long, discovered nothing more serious the matter with her than a brilliant mind, a sterling character and a warm heart.
In spite of all the bitter persecution, which Miss Schloss has endured, she is still lending her strength to the strikers’ cause.
Out of the West comes the young blood of the revolution, ever willing to fight for the political right of freedom of speech, always giving more than they take, but willing, if broke, to live providing Algernon Lee will permit them on a one 7-cent meal a day until they are privileged to go to jail for the cause of labor.
After all it is the strikers themselves who are making the real struggle. They revolted against a reduction of wages that came when the 54-hour law went into effect, reducing their meagre incomes from 50 cents to $2.00 a week. As a direct result of the firm stand made by the Little Falls strikers, wages of other men, women and children employed in similar industries at Utica, Cohoes and other knitting mill centers have been restored and even the strikers at Little Falls have been promised 60 hours’ pay for 54 hours’ work, but they are demanding a 10 per cent increase and a 15 per cent increase for night work. This is what the employer gets when he drives his workers to organize in the Industrial Workers of the World.
If you want to help the mill slaves at Little Falls in this struggle for better condition, follow the example of Helen Keller, Jessie Ashley and Helen Schloss. Send your contributions to Matilda Rabinowitz, Box 458, Little Falls, N. Y.
Later, Chief of Police “Bully Long” has closed up the strikers’ soup kitchens in order to force them back to work. This wrought great hardship on the women and children. But Schenectady threw open her municipal doors and buildings and gathered in some of the children. These and more will be cared for by Socialist “strike parents” till the strike is won.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 1, 1913 “On the Picket Line at Little Falls, New York” by Big Bill Haywood, Part I
From the InternationalSocialistReview of January 1913:
[Part I of II.]
WITH facts for a fulcrum and sentiment for a lever, we can move the world!
The world of labor is being slowly moved by economic conditions such as present themselves at Little Falls, N. Y., where women and children and men are struggling for bread. The facts regarding the situation there inspired Helen Keller, the world’s prodigy, to give voice to the heart pulses expressed in the letter printed on the opposite page.
By the rarest good chance John Macy, whose wife is the teacher and companion of Helen Keller, came to Little Falls. A member of the Industrial Workers of the World, he took up his part of the battle by getting the books and accounts of the strikers in shape, by writing articles and reports.It was through him and other mediums that the details of the strike and its attendant miseries reached the blind girl at her pleasant home at Wrentham, Mass. Sitting at her desk and surveying the mysterious lines in “The Hand of the World,” she sees what philosophers, politicians and priests cannot see; have never seen. She reads unerringly the destiny of labor. Understanding the need of toil, she reaches out and puts in the hand of the world, not a dole of charity but a token of love-part of labor’s own.
John Macy read her letter to the strikers at a regular meeting held at Slavoc Sokel hall. Helen Keller has never spoken to such an audience before. There were none but workers there, men and women, boys and girls, who knew but little English and were of many tongues.
It was explained to them that they were listening to the words of a girl who was deaf and blind; one who had overcome afflictions more severe than their own. They could not understand the meaning of many of her words. But they were like a mother’s crooning, soothing a wounded child. The letter was a heartfelt greeting from a sincere friend. They felt the sentiment and the sympathy it contained. Their eyes streamed with tears. They burst into a hearty cheer. Helen Keller will get a set of resolutions signed by the strikers in many languages.
She may never see the embossed words or names attached to the resolutions, but she will know their meaning-they are written by “The Hand of the World.”
Other remarkable letters were received by the strikers, one from a “friend” who had been saving his money to buy an overcoat. He had laid by ten dollars. He sent it all to the strikers saying he could get along without an overcoat if the money would help the strikers to win more bread. It is such sentiment and support that has instilled in the Little Falls strikers the spirit of solidarity that knows no defeat.
Some who sympathize with the Industrial Workers of the World principles and methods have sent letters with money and others have come in person to render what assistance they can to the strikers.
After the trouble precipitated by the police on October 30th, last, the organizers on the ground, Ben J. Legere and Phillipo Bocchino, with nearly all the members of the strike committee, were thrown into jail where they have been held ever since, awaiting the action of of the grand jury.
After a farcical hearing, Legere and Bocchino were committed to jail and held for bail of $15,000. Murlando, one of the strikers, was held in the sum of $10,000 and the others in some instances ranging from $50 to $5,000. The story of the so-called riot was told in the following proclamation issued by the strikers:
The blood-thirsty, murderous cossacks have shown their hand.
Police thugs of Little Fall throw off the mask and do the dirty work for the gang of bloodsuckers who own the mills in Little Falls.
Today in Little Falls was seen a spectacle which has not been witnessed before anywhere outside of Russia.
Today the gang of fiends in human form who wear the disgraceful uniform of the police in Little Falls, deliberately went to work and started a riot.
It was the most brutal, cold-blooded act ever done in these parts. Nothing under heaven can ever justify it and the soul of the degenerate brute who started it will shrivel in hell long, long before the workers will ever forget this day.
The workers in the mills of Little Falls have been on strike for four weeks against an inhuman oppression of the mill-bosses. An incompetent law has been used by these mill-owners to reduce the wages of the workers from fifty cents to two dollars a week.
Hundreds of these workers were already existing on a starvation wage averaging about $7 per week.
They resisted this robbery by the mill-owners.
They went on strike.
The police showed at the beginning that the filthy money of the mill-owners can corrupt all authority by attempting to suppress free speech in Little Falls. Several speakers were arrested. Then the strikers organized in the Industrial Workers of the World.
They began peaceful picketing at the mills where many American workers, mostly girls, were playing the part of scabs.
The strikers, with a band and banners bearing appeals for support, began to parade each morning before the mills to encourage the other workers to come out. They did not interfere with the scabs in any way and by this means of peaceful demonstration the strikers won over every day some of those who were working.
The mill-bosses were baffled. They could not understand this new and peaceful mode of picketing. As the strikers kept moving at all times the police could find no excuse to interfere. But today the craven brutes MADE an excuse.
Every day more workers joined the picket-line. The first day one of these blood-thirsty police animals tried to start a riot by slugging a girl who stepped from the line to speak to a friend. He was number three who showed his cowardice and animal ferocity today by cruelly clubbing helpless prisoners and defenseless strikers.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 3, 1912 Little Falls, New York – Textile Workers Revolt Against Pay Cut, Part II
From the InternationalSocialistReview of December 1912:
[Part II of II]
Shortly after [the October 30th] affair the strikers and the strike committee were holding a meeting in The Slovak Sokol Hall, the principal social center of the working population, when the door was thrown open with a crash and the police and hired guards burst in. Women, who composed the majority of the audience, were hurled right and left. Men who protested were struck on the head. Furniture was overturned. The musical instruments of the Slovak Band were broken and battered. One cop who happened to notice the framed charter of the local textile union of the Industrial Workers of the World, drove his club through the middle of it. It hangs in the hall now, its broken glass held together by an edging of red ribbon with a knot of red covering the hole made by the club. All the members of the strike committee and all persons suspected of being connected with the strike were arrested and dragged to the local lock-up, a place so vile that the State Prison Inspector has threatened the town with mandamus proceedings unless it is cleaned up.
Legere, however, could not be found. The building was searched for him and the police, not wishing to investigate the dark cellar, fired three shots into it at random, any one of which might have killed Legere had he not already been taken to a place of safety by a devoted band of workers. He went to Utica that night, got some needed printing done, sent off some messages, and then returned to Little Falls where he was immediately arrested and taken to the county jail at Herkimer, another place that has been condemned by the State Prison Inspector.
Bakeman, Hirsh, Bochino and George Vaughan of Schenectady, were already there, along with thirty-nine others, strikers and sympathizers. When visited later, some of them were still wearing the bloody shirts that they wore when arrested. They were joined by Miss Helen Schloss, a young Socialist woman of New York, who for several months had been a tenement investigator for a club of the well-to-do women of Little Falls. Despite warnings from her lady employers, Miss Schloss cast her lot with the strikers, gave up her position, joined the relief committee, and went out on the picket line with the workers. For this she incurred the enmity of the police and her spectacular arrest by Chief Long himself followed. She was put in Herkimer jail on a charge of “inciting to riot” and as a special honor was given the cell occupied by Chester Gillette, electrocuted for the murder of his sweetheart. She was finally released on bail and went right back to work in the relief kitchen.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 18, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for October 1902, Part IV Boston, Massachusetts – Found Speaking on Behalf of Striking Coal Miners
From The Boston Globe of October 20, 1902:
“Mother” Jones, who has become famous all over the country as a result of her work in behalf of the coal miners, addressed a gathering of more than 7000 yesterday afternoon at the open-air meeting at Apollo garden, Roxbury. The meeting was in behalf of the striking miners, and was under the auspices of the general committee of the socialist party.
It is said that more than 8000 tickets were sold and a good sum was realized, which will be forwarded for the assistance of the strikers. The meeting was also addressed by Representative James F. Carey and Ex-Mayor Chase of Haverhill, the latter socialist candidate for governor.
The meeting was an enthusiastic one and every telling point scored by the speakers brought forth ready approval. In the gathering was a fair sprinkling of women. The speakers stood on the balcony of the old house, which had been decorated free of charge, and the grove was given free of charge also.
The principal interest centered about the appearance of “Mother” Jones. She sat on the balcony while the other speakers were talking. She was dressed in a plain gown of black cloth and wore no hat. She looks to be more than 50 years old, and her hair is almost snow white. Her keen, small eyes look out from under rather heavy brows, and she has a voice of remarkable power, her address easily being heard at the other side of the grove.
She is a fighter for her “boys,” as she terms the men who work in the mines, and it was easy for those in the audience to see how she has come by the loving term of “mother.”
She told in a quiet, easy manner of her work among the miners, of their toil in the bowels of the earth, their attempts to keep their little families from starving, and of their grinding down by the coal barons. “Mother” Jones evidently knows whereof she speaks, for she told of her visits to the mines underground, and her control over the miners was illustrated by a story she told of a recent occurrence in the present strike, when she led a gathering of 7000 strikers and many women over the mountains in the coal region and their meeting with the armed militia.
———-
Respects the Law.
The keynote of her address was that the people had made the government, and must obey the law and abide by its decisions. When she was being introduced by the presiding officer, Patrick Mahoney, a man on the balcony interpolated the remark that “She also defied Judge Jackson.” She was hardly on her feet before she made a denial of the statement, saying that Judge Jackson represented the law, and she never defied the law.
Representative James F. Carey of Haverhill was the first speaker. He said the coal strike would have been a failure but for the fact that it has taught the miners a lesson. It has opened the eyes of the people. The class in economic power, he continued, always controls the government, and socialists, knowing that, have tried to bring to the attention of the voters the absurdity of voting for the representatives of capital…..
John C. Chase, socialist candidate for governor, was received with cheers. He said that if the strikers had to go back without gaining a single thing it would show one thing, and that is that the working class must stand together in industrial matters and politics…..
“Mother” Jones was the next speaker, and there was a wave of applause as she came forward. She spoke clearly and distinctly and rather slowly. At no time till she grow heated, but the pathos of her voice showed clearly that the interests of the striking miners were her interests.
She said she largely was responsible for the miners’ organization.
[She said:] For ages men had been struggling to right the wrongs of the world. In this country we first had the civil struggle, and we settled that. Now at the beginning of the 20th century we have the industrial struggle.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 6, 1902 Eugene V. Debs Describes the Western Labor Movement
From the International Socialist Review of November 1902:
The Western Labor Movement [by Eugene V. Debs] ———-
There seems to be considerable misapprehension, especially among Socialists, in regard to the trade union movement of the Western states, whose delegates, recently assembled in national convention, adopted the platform of the Socialist Party and pledged the support of their organizations to the International Socialist movement. This radical departure from the effete and reactionary non-political policy of the American Federation of Labor, so long and so earnestly striven for by the Western leaders, and so entirely compatible with the Socialist conception of class-conscious and progressive trade unionism, should have been met with the prompt and hearty approbation of every unionist and every Socialist in the land. That such was not the case, the lukewarm comment and half-approving, half-condemning tone of the Socialist Party press, with but one or two exceptions, bear convincing testimony, while the uncalled for, unwise, and wholly unaccountable official pronunciamento of the St. Louis “Quorum,” purporting to speak for the National Committee, capped the climax of unfairness and injustice to the Western movement. [See REVIEW of October 1902]
Stripped of unnecessary verbiage and free from subterfuge, the Socialist Party has been placed in the attitude of turning its back upon the young, virile, class-conscious union movement of the West, and fawning at the feet of the “pure and simple” movement of the East, and this anomalous thing has been done by men who are supposed to stand sponsor to the party and whose utterance is credited with being ex cathedra upon party affairs.
They may congratulate themselves that upon this point at least they are in perfect accord with the capitalist press, and also with the “labor lieutenants,” the henchmen, and the heelers, whose duty it is to warn the union against Socialism and guard its members against working class political action.
The writer takes issue with these comrades upon this vital proposition; and first of all insists that they (including the members of the Quorum) speak for themselves alone, as they undoubtedly have the right to do, and that their declaration in reference to the American Labor Union is in no sense a party expression, nor is it in any matter binding upon the party, nor is the party to be held responsible for the same.
As a matter of fact the rank and file of the Socialist Party, at least so far as I have been able to observe, rejoice in the action of the Denver convention, hail it as a happy augury for the future, and welcome with open arms the Western comrades to fellowship in the party.
“Why didn’t they stay in the Federation of Labor and carry on their agitation there? Why split the labor movement?” This is made the burden of the opposition to the Western unionists, who refused to be assimilated by Mark Hanna’s “Civic Federation”-the pretext for the scant, half-hearted recognition of their stalwart working class organization and their ringing declaration in favor of Socialism and in support of the Socialist Party.
And this objection may be dismissed with a single sentence. Why did not those who urge it remain in the Socialist Labor Party and carry on their agitation there? Why split the Socialist movement?
It is not true that the Western unionists set up a rival organization from geographical or sectional considerations, or to antagonize the Federation; and they who aver the contrary know little or nothing about the Western movement, nor about the causes that brought it into existence. A brief review of these may throw some light on the subject.
In 1896 the annual convention of the Federation of Labor was held in Cincinnati. The Western Federation of Miners, at that time an affiliated organization, was represented by President Edward Boyce and Patrick Clifford, of Colorado. The strike of the Leadville [Colorado] miners, more than 3,000 in number, one of the bloodiest and costliest labor battles ever fought, was then in progress and had been for several months. The drain and strain on the resources of the Western Federation had been enormous. They needed help and they needed it sorely. They had always poured out their treasure liberally when help was needed by other organization, East as well as West, and now that they had reached their limit, they naturally expected prompt and substantial aid from affiliated organizations. Boyce and Clifford appealed to the delegates. To use their own language they were “turned down,” receiving but vague promises which, little as they meant, were never fulfilled. At the close of the convention they left for home, disappointed and disgusted. They stopped off at Terre Haute to urge me to go to Leadville to lend a helping hand to the striking miners, which I proceeded to do as soon as I could get ready for the journey. It was here that they told me that the convention was a sore surprise to them, that 3 or 4 men had votes enough to practically control the whole affair, and that the dilatory and reactionary proceedings had destroyed their confidence in the Federation.
Afterward I was told by the officers in charge of the strike that no aid of the least value, or even encouragement, had been rendered by the Federation of Labor and that the financial contributions were scarcely sufficient to cover the expense of the canvass for same.
It was not long after this that the Western miners withdrew from the Federation and a couple of years later, conceiving the necessity of organizing all classes of labor in the Western states, which as yet had received but scant attention, the American Labor Union was organized, the Western Federation of Miners being the first organization in affiliation with the new central body.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 3, 1912
Brotherhood of Timber Workers Organizing Campaign in Louisiana
From the International Socialist Review of August 1912:
[Part II of II]
Before the campaign of organization [Brotherhood of Timber Worker] now inaugurated by the Industrial Workers of the World is closed the lumber barons of Dixieland will have learned that it is impossible to fell trees with rifles and saw lumber with six shooters.
It should be mentioned here that of the nine men arrested four are non-union men, two of them, John and Paul Galloway, being owners of the Lumber Company. All are charged with murder. This, perhaps, indicates that the Trust has not entirely corralled the officialdom of Louisiana. It is certain that they are in bad repute with the business element in nearly all of the towns as their commissaries have been the means of controlling nearly the entire earnings of their employees, who are compelled to trade with the companies or lose the only means they have of making a living.
To maintain their absolute control of the camps the lumber companies, with the aid of their thugs, patrolled the towns, in some places inclosures were built around the mills and shacks. Notices were posted warning away union men, peddlers and Socialists.
Only a few days ago, H. G. Creel, one of the Rip-Saw editors on a lecture tour, was roughly handled at Oakdale and DeRidder, La. He was compelled to leave the first-named place, being threatened and intimidated by gun-men.
The small merchant realizes that if the workers are allowed to trade where they choose some of their money would pass over their counters and they know if wages are increased there would be a corresponding increase in their day’s receipts. This will account for the fact that the small business man and farmer have given their sympathy and a measure of support to the growing union of timber workers.
Arthur L. Emerson and Jay Smith, both Southern born, are the men around whom interest centers. They are the men who organized the Brotherhood of Timber Workers. Emerson had made two trips to the West-one to the Lumber District to the Southwest and the other to the Northwest. It was during the time that he worked with the lumber jacks of the Pacific Coast that he learned the need of organization. This thought was especially developed when he came in contact with the Lumber Workers’ Union of St. Regis and other points in the Bitter Root Range of Mountains. Being a practical lumber jack and saw mill hand and mill-wright himself, he saw at once the discrepancy in wages between the Pacific Coast and the Gulf States and upon his return to Dixieland he immediately took up the burden of organizing the workers as the only possible means of bringing up their wages and conditions to the level of the already too-low Western scale.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 2, 1912 Lake Charles, Louisiana – A. L Emerson, President of B. T. W., in Jail
From the International Socialist Review of August 1912:
[Part I of II]
A. L. EMERSON, President of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers, is in jail at Lake Charles, La. He was arrested following the shooting at Grabow, La., where three union men and one company hireling were killed outright and nearly two score of men were more or less seriously wounded.
The shooting is the outcome of the bitter war waged against the members of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers by the Lumber Trust for the last eighteen months. The scene of the tragedy that occurred on Sunday, July seventh, is a typical Southern lumber camp. The mill at this place is operated by the Galloway Lumber Company. In common with all others, it is surrounded by the miserable houses where the workers find habitation, the commissary store of the Company being the largest place of business in the towns. A strike has been on at this place since the middle of last May. The single demand on the part of the union men was for a bi-weekly pay day. Heretofore the pay days have been at long intervals-usually a month apart.
During the intervening weeks, when the men were in need of money to meet the necessities of life, they could secure advances on their pay but not in real money. They were compelled to accept Company Scrip payable only in merchandise and exchangeable only at the company commissary. If accepted elsewhere it is uniformly discounted from 10 to 25 per cent on the dollar.
In the commissary stores where the cash prices are always from 20 to 50 per cent higher than at the independent stores, the company has established another means of graft by making two prices-the coupon or scrip price being much higher than that exacted for real cash.
The conditions at Grabow can be used as an illustration of nearly all of the other lumber camps of the South.
The commissary store is not the only iniquity imposed upon the Timber Workers. For miserable shacks they [are] compelled to pay exorbitant rents; sewerage there is none; there is no pretense at sanitation ; the outhouses are open vaults. For these accommodations families pay from $5 to $20 a month. In one camp worn-out box cars are rented by R. A. Long, the Kansas City philanthropist, for $4 a month. Insurance fees are arbitrarily collected from every worker, for which he receives practically nothing in return, but whether his time be long or short-one day or a month-with the company, the fee is deducted. The same is true of the doctor fee and the hospital fee, which, in all places, is an imaginary institution. The nearest thing to a hospital that the writer saw was an uncompleted foundation at DeRidder, the place visited a few days prior to the Grabow tragedy. The gunmen and deputy sheriffs are an expensive innovation in the manufacture of lumber. These miserable tools are to be found everywhere and are used to browbeat and coerce the workers.
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