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Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 31, 1911
New York, New York – Some of the Young Victims of Triangle Fire
From The New York Call of March 28, 1911:
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Tag: Carrie Allen
Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “Child Slaves of the Cotton Mills” by Carrie W. Allen, Part II
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 5, 1911
Carrie W. Allen on Child Slaves of the Cotton Mills, Part II
From the International Socialist Review of March 1911:
[Part II of II.]
The Senate report already quoted gives this verbatim statement from one of the federal agents concerning a mill in North Carolina:
The mill employs many children, and the smallest I have seen working in any mills. I asked five exceptionally small ones how old each was and each answered, “I don’t know.” These children, the superintendent says, work from 6 p. m. to 6 a. m. * * * I know, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there are ten or twelve children under twelve years of age working in the mill, seven or eight of them at night.
One of the children is an emaciated little elf fifty inches high, and weighing perhaps forty-eight pounds, who works from 6 at night till 6 in the morning, and who is so tiny that she has to climb upon the spinning frame to reach the top row of spindles.
Instances might be multiplied of the criminally long hours these little victims are imprisoned in the mills, no sound reaching them except the racking whirr of the machinery, no air reaching their choked lungs except the fluff laden air of the dusty factory.
Is it any wonder that these poor little over-wrought beings under continuous nervous strain, frequently have their fingers and hands caught in the cruel cogs, which lacerate and tear and frequently cripple them? One hundred and twenty-two mills reported 1,241 accidents for a year, and it is known that these figures are only partial, as mill owners only report accidents when forced to do so.
Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “Child Slaves of the Cotton Mills” by Carrie W. Allen, Part I
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 4, 1911
Carrie W. Allen on Child Slaves of the Cotton Mills, Part I
From the International Socialist Review of March 1911:
[Part I of II.]
THE shrill scream of the factory whistle smites the chill morning air at the dawn of each new day, and obedient to its hideous call, a ghostly array of anemic children, rudely awakened from sleep, gulp down a bit of food and stumble sleepily to the factory door.
This pitiful multitude of children, whose days are completely swallowed by the cotton mills, keep up their incessant dance from one spindle to another, or from one loom to another, dizzily watching the ten, twelve or fifteen shuttles play hide and seek among the labyrinth of threads.
So much has been written about these youngest victims of capitalist greed, the children of the cotton mills, that were we not misery hardened, were we not blinded by brutal toil, long ago an awakened working class would have united to wipe this iniquity out.
And yet, the workers are not to blame that the forced struggle for existence has limited their vision and stupefied their imagination.
One little child set in the midst of a crowd, because in his person misery is visualized, makes a more eloquent appeal than the story of all the thousands of children whose lives are crushed by the cruel millstones of industry.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1909, Part I: Found in New York City Speaking to Shirtwaist Strikers
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 9, 1910
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1909, Part I:
-Found in New York City Speaking to Shirtwaist Strikers
From the New York Call of December 10, 1909:
“This is not a play this is a fight!”
With these ringing words, Mother Jones, the valiant agitator for the freedom of the workers, struck the keynote of the enthusiastic mass meeting, in behalf of the waist strikers, held by Local New York, of the Socialist party in Thalia Theater yesterday afternoon. The big crowd applauded this sentiment to the echo……
Mother Jones Speaks.
Mother Jones, the friend of the miners and champion of all oppressed, was greeted with a very hearty reception by the big crowd. She was in excellent conditions. As she scored the system with sledge-hammer blows of logic and wit, the enthusiasm of the crowd broke into storms of applause.
[Said Mother Jones in opening:]
Through all the ages you have built a wonderful monument of civilization, but you don’t own it. You make all the fine waists, but you do not wear them. You work hard and are poorly paid, and now you have been forced to strike for better conditions of labor, shorter hours and higher wages.
You ought to parade past the shops where you work and up the avenues where the swells who wear the waists you make live. They won’t like to see you, they will be afraid of you!
If I belonged to a union and was on strike I would insist that we parade past the shops and homes of the masters.
You must stick together to win. The boss looks for cheap workers. When the child can do the work cheaper he displaces the woman. When the woman can do the work cheaper he displaces the man. But when you are organized you have something to say about the conditions of labor and your wages. You must stand shoulder to shoulder. The women must fight in the labor movement beside man. Every strike that I have ever been in was won by the women.
Last Great Fight of Man.
[Declared Mother Jones, as she concluded amid storms of applause:]
Whether you know of it or not, this is the last great fight of man against man. We are fighting for the time when there will be no master and no slave. When the fight of the workers to own the tools with which they toil is won, for the first time in human history man will be free.
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[Photograph added.]
