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Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Lawrence Strike…a Struggle Simply for Living Wage” by Ruth Pickering

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones Raising Hell, NYT p1, Oct 6, 1916———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 22, 1919
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Textile Strikers Stand Firm

From The Liberator of May 1919:

The Lawrence Strike

[by Ruth Pickering]

American Freedom Detail, Liberator p31, May 1919

THE causes of the Lawrence strike are the most elemental in the whole history of the labor movement. It is a struggle simply for a living wage. But the “law and order” fraternity are doing their best to bring on what they so much fear-a revolution. Partly as an excuse for breaking the strike, partly out genuine nervousness, they are attempting to obscure the primary issues in the fog of “Bolshevism.” And the more they advertise the revolution as something which they hate, as something so manifestly dangerous to them, the more do the workers wonder: “If they hate this thing so-whatever it is-it must have something in it for us.” Fear of Bolshevism and memories of 1912 have made the Lawrence citizens and the press applaud all repressive measures. Mounted police have been imported from Lynn, and stray recruits have been added which cost the city 3,000 extra dollars per week to maintain. Their horses are scrawny and rickety and they ride with some difficulty, but what pride they lose in their consciousness of these facts, they take out on the pickets.

Men come in from the picket-line with their heads cut open and blood covering their shirt fronts. That the strikers have a legal right to maintain the picket-line is out of the question. Liberty has come to be a joke. There is no law for the “damned Bolshevik foreigner.” The brave mounted police ride up on the sidewalk cursing and swinging their sticks. The pickets retreat before these onslaughts-but they will never forget.

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Hellraisers Journal: Capraro and Kleinman, Leaders of Lawrence Strike, Kidnapped, Beaten, & Nearly Lynched

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege, Ab Chp III———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 7, 1919
Lawrence, Massachusetts – The Ordeal of Anthony Capraro and Nathan Kleinman

From the Boston Evening Globe of May 6, 1919:

TWO LAWRENCE STRIKE LEADERS KIDNAPED
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BEATEN BY CROWD, THEY BOTH SAY
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One Found in Andover, the Other in Lowell
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Special Dispatch to the Globe
Lawrence Textile Strike, Capraro Kleinman, Brattleboro VT Dly Rfmr p1, May 6, 1919
Brattleboro Daily Reformer
May 6, 1919

LAWRENCE, May 6–Anthony Capraro, reputed to be a representative of the New York Call, a Socialist newspaper, who has been here several weeks, reported to day that he and Nathan Kleinman, also of New York, who is an organizer for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, endeavoring to organize the Amalgamated Textile Workers as a nucleus, were kidnaped at 1:30 this morning by masked and armed men and terribly beaten.

Kleinman appeared at hotel in Lowell early today. Capraro was found in West Andover early this morning in a badly battered condition, and he was taken to the office of Dr. P. J. Look in Andover and his wounds dressed, and afterward taken to the Andover Police Station, where he now is.

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Alleges Mob Beat them

Capraro told his own story while in the Andover Police Station. He said he and Kleinman were in their rooms at the Needham Hotel in Lawrence this morning at 1:30, when a bell boy named James Silk brought the mob of 20 men to their doors. Capraro declared that the score of men were heavily masked and carried revolvers and blackjacks in their hands. When they got into the rooms of Kleinman and Capraro they began beating both labor leaders, Capraro alleged, and finally hustled them down to the street and put them into an automobile and drove away under the cover of darkness.

Capraro stated that it seemed as if they would never reach their destination, the ride was so long, and all the while they were speeding over the country roads in the automobiles the mob was busy beating Kleinman and Capraro over the heads, faces and bodies with their bludgeons.

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Put Noose About His Neck

Capraro said the mob took him out of his automobile in the woods and fixed a noose about his neck and told him they were going to hang him. All the while some of the members of the mob were beating him. Capraro said he could not see Kleinman while this was going on. The crowd which had Kleinman evidently took him to another spot. Finally they decided not to hang Capraro, he said, and they removed the noose from his neck and choked and beat and kicked him unmercifully. When the crowd tired of beating him, Capraro asserted, he managed to escape and he ran into a field and in the dark eluded his screaming pursuers.

Capraro declared that he finally reached a field, fell exhausted and crawled into the high grass and concealed himself. He lay there suffering untold pain and anguish until dawn. He then managed to crawl to the farmhouse of William I. Livingstone, near the Hackett’s Pond railroad station in West Andover. He aroused the occupants of the farmhouse at 5:30 and told his story.

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