Tag: Duquesne PA

Hellraisers Journal: The Nation: Mary Heaton Vorse on Civil Liberty, Steel Strikers and Pennsylvania Cossacks

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote MHV Immigrants Fight for Freedom, Quarry Jr p2, Nov 1, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 18, 1919
Pennsylvania Cossacks, Steel Strikers, and Civil Liberty

From The Nation of November 15, 1919:

Civil Liberty in the Steel Strike

By MARY HEATON VORSE

GSS, PA Cossacks in Clairton, Lt Dg p10, Oct 4, 1919

THE steel strike has been marked by the orderliness of the strikers on the one hand, and on the other by the sweeping denial of their civil rights, and by the brutality of that extraordinary body of men, the State Constabulary of Pennsylvania. When one states that in Homestead, for example, there was a reign of terror, that men were beaten for no cause and chased down the street into strange houses; that men and women were arrested and fined for no cause and their fines remitted under promise that they would go back to work; and that posters fomenting race hatred are even now in current circulation in the steel mills, the statements sound fantastic. Let the documents, however, speak for themselves. One may choose almost at random from a wealth of material. The cases cited are not isolated; town after town had its own story of terrorism to tell.

In spite of Judge Gary’s statement to the contrary, men were persecuted and dismissed for union activities.

Not only were such methods used to discourage the men from organizing, but the rights of free speech and free assembly were denied them. No meetings were allowed in Farrell, Monessen, and Donora. In McKeesport people were arrested while attending a meeting and fined excessively. Rabbi Wise was refused a permit to hold a meeting in Duquesne, the burgess of this town remarking with naive truth: “Jesus Christ couldn’t hold a meeting in Duquesne.” Since September 22 [the date the Steel Strike began] no meetings have been allowed in Pittsburgh except at the Labor Temple. The strike in that city is unpopular with the authorities. Because the sheriff does not like Mr. Foster, he arbitrarily takes away the workers’ civil liberties, though at no time has there been even a suggestion of disorder in Pittsburgh.

Before the strike was actually in progress, the State Constabulary was called in and an extra police force of 5,000 was deputized in Allegheny County alone. Among these deputies were Negro strike breakers—in the towns of Donora and Monessen—and this during a time when an epidemic of race riots had swept the country.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Closed Towns” by S. Adele Shaw for The Survey: Pittsburgh Steel District Contrasted with Ohio

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Strikes are not peace Clv UMWC p537, Sept 16, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday November 13, 1919
Intimidation in Pittsburg Steel District Contrasted with Ohio

From The Survey of November 8, 1919:

Closed Towns

Intimidation as It is Practised in the Pittsburgh
Steel District:—the Contrast in Ohio

By S. Adele Shaw

[Parts III-V of V]

GSS, Mother Jones, WZF, Organizers, Survey p64, Nov 8, 1919

III

THIS interlocking of mill and town officials explains not only the ease with which normal civil rights have been shelved, but the ease with which, under the guise of law enforcement, deputies and troopers get away with reckless action in the streets and alleys, and with which the petty courts turn trumped-up grounds for the arrest of labor organizers and strikers into denials of justice.

In Allegheny county Sheriff Haddock had, according to his own statement on October first, deputized 300 men for service under control of his central office and 5,000 mill deputies. Newspapers placed the figure early in the strike at 10,000. The mill police who in ordinary times are sworn in under the state provision for coal and iron police for duty in the mills only, are, since the strike, sworn in by the sheriff at the request of the companies. They have power to act anywhere in the county. They are under the direction of the mill authorities. Companies are required to file a bond of $2,000 for each man so deputized and are responsible for his actions.

It is the state constabulary, however, who have set the pace for the work of intimidation in the mill towns of Allegheny county. Responsibility for calling them in is difficult to fix. Since last February squads had been stationed at Dravosburg within easy reach of the steel towns; and the Saturday before the strike patrols were brought down into them. The sheriff denies that he called on the state for the troopers. The burgess of Braddock and the chiefs of police in Homestead and Munhall professed ignorance of the responsibility for their coming.

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Hellraisers Journal: “Closed Towns” by S. Adele Shaw for The Survey: Intimidation in Pittsburgh Steel District

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Strikes are not peace Clv UMWC p537, Sept 16, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday November 12, 1919
Intimidation as Practiced in the Pittsburgh Steel District

From The Survey of November 8, 1919:

GSS Arrests at Homestead, Survey p58, Nov 8, 1919

Closed Towns

Intimidation as It is Practised in the Pittsburgh
Steel District:—the Contrast in Ohio

By S. Adele Shaw

[Miss Shaw spent the first two weeks of the strike in the Pittsburgh district for the SURVEY, and then crossed from Pennsylvania to the steel centers of Ohio, where civil liberties are preserved in the midst of the industrial conflict. A native of Pittsburgh, member of the staff of the Pittsburgh Survey, Miss Shaw brings experience as a social worker and as a journalist to her task of interpretation. The first draft of her article was submitted for criticism to public officials, strike leaders and mill executives. Facts were then checked up and incidents carried to their sources, and her narrative can be depended upon as the findings of a trained observer.—EDITOR.]

[Parts I-II of V]

I ARRIVED in Pittsburgh the evening of the third day of the steel strike [September 24th]. Through a gate to one side of me, as I stood in the Union Station, a line of foreigners perhaps twenty-five in number, Slavs and Poles, dressed in their dark “best” clothes, with mustaches brushed, their faces shining, passed to the New York emigrant train. Each man carried a large new leather suitcase, or occasionally the painted tin suitcase—a veritable trunk—appeared in the line. And there, not quite concealed by its wrapping, was the unmistakable portrait which one could picture in its setting over the mantle in the boarding-house just left. Men and baggage were leaving, as every night they leave from that station on that same train for New York and the “old country.”

Scarcely had the gate closed on the emigrant workers when a guard threw open an entrance gate through which marched, erect and brisk, a squad of state constabulary “Cossacks” they are called in the mill towns. Young men they were in perfect training—men with great projection of jaw developed, it almost seemed, to hold the black leather straps of their helmets firmly in place.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1919, Part III: Found Wherever a Good Fight For Freedom Is Going On

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Home Good Fight Going On, Ptt Prs p17, Sept 24, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 31, 1919
Mother Jones News for September 1919, Part III
Her Home? “Wherever there is a good fight for freedom going on.”

From The Pittsburgh Post of September 24, 1919:

Mother Jones, crpd, Chg Tb p120, Oct 26, 1919

‘Mother’ Jones Heard
in Labor Trial
—–

“Mother” Jones, aged organizer for the United Mine Workers, appearing yesterday as a witness before Judge Richard H. Kennedy, gave her address as “wherever there is a good fight for freedom going on.”

She testified in the hearing of a large number of appeals from fines imposed by Mayor James S. Crawford in connection with a meeting held in Duquesne last September 7.

After leaving the stand “Mother” Jones declared that had been her first experience as a witness in “a regular court trial.” She was one of the organizers arrested, but was not fined. That was the first time, she said, that she had been placed behind bars, although she had been arrested more than once.

———-

[Photograph added.]

From The Pittsburgh Press of September 24, 1919:

“MOTHER” JONES FREED FOR LABOR ACTIVITY.
—–

“Mother” Jones was freed today following her arrest in the steel mill districts Sept. 7. She came before Judge Kennedy and was permitted to go without a fine.

“What is your age?” queried the court.

“Ninety on the first day of next May.”

“Where is your home?”

“Wherever there is a good fight for freedom going on,” replied the old lady, vigorously.

“You may go.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1919, Part I: Arrested for Organizing Steel Workers at Duquesne, Pennsylvania

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Kaiser n Steel Barons, Clairton PA Aug 10, Ptt KS Wkrs Chc p5, Sept 5, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal –Wednesday October 29, 1919
Mother Jones News for September 1919, Part I
Duquesne, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Arrested for Organizing Steel Workers

From the New York Sun of September 8, 1919:

RAID ENDS MEETING OF STEEL WORKERS
—–
Mother Jones and Other Organizers
Seized in Duquesne.
—–

Special Dispatch to THE SUN.

PITTSBURG, Sept. 7.-Duquesne was the scene of much excitement on the part of the police and union organizers this afternoon when Police Chief Thomas Flynn and a squad of patrolmen appeared at an open air meeting at Linden and River avenues, where more than 1,000 steel workers had assembled, and arrested four labor organizers, including “Mother” Jones, the veteran organizer, and forty steel workers. The organizers were charged with holding a public meeting without a permit and the workmen were charged with illegal congregating. After staying in the Duquesne police station four hours they were released on forfeits for a hearing to-morrow.

Mother Jones n WZF Couple of Reds, Chg Tb p120, Oct 26, 1919
Mother Jones with William Z. Foster

The organizers arrested besides “Mother” Jones were William Z. Foster, secretary of the national committee for organizing iron and steel workers; J. L. Beaghen, president of the Pittsburg Bricklayers Union, and an American Federation of Labor organizer, and J. M. Patterson, vice-president of the Brotherhood of Railway Car Men.

The organizers said the meeting was being held on a vacant lot, the owner of which had given permission.

———-

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in Cleveland to Delegates of Convention of United Mine Workers of America, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Judge Gary Cup of Rice, Clv UMWC p540, Sept 16, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 18, 1919
Cleveland, Ohio – Mother Jones Speaks at U. M. W. A. Convention, Part II

From Stenographic Report by Mary Burke East
-September 16th speech of Mother Jones continued:

Mother Jones Crpd Women in Industry, Eve Ns Hburg PA p2, Jan 6, 1919

In Homestead the labor men were allowed to speak for the first time in 28 years. We were arrested the first day. When I got up to speak I was taken. Eight or ten thousand labor men followed me to the jail. They all marched there. When we went into the jail they remained outside. One fellow began to cry and said: “What for you take Mudder Jones?” and they took him by the neck and shoved him behind the bars. That is all he did or said. We put up a bond of $15 each. We were to come for trial the next day, but the burgess didn’t appear. They postponed the trial on account of the mob that appeared outside. When they got me in jail the police themselves got scared to death. One of our men said: “Mother can handle those men.” He was told, “No, nobody can handle them.” “Yes, she can; let her get out.” I went out and said: “Boys, we live in America! Let us give three cheers for Uncle Sam and go home and let the companies go to hell!” And they did. Everybody went home, but they went down the street cheering. There was no trouble, nobody was hurt-they were law-abiding. They blew off steam and went home.

In Duquesne they took forty men. One man came out of a restaurant and asked what the trouble was. They got him by the back of the neck and put him behind the iron bars. He was kept there from two o’clock Monday afternoon until ten o’clock Sunday morning without a bite to eat or even a drink of water. That was the only crime the man had committed. Is there any kaiser who is more vicious than that? Do you think it is time for us to line up, man to man, and clean out those kaisers at home?

The steel workers have taken a strike vote and decided to strike. You men must stand behind them. Never mind what anybody says, that strike will come off next Monday. The miners and all the other working men of the nation must stand with them in that strike, because it is the crucial test of the labor movement of America. You are the basic industry. They didn’t win the war with generals, and the President didn’t win the war. They could have sent all the soldiers abroad, but if you hadn’t dug the coal to furnish the materials to fight with, what could they have done? You miners at home won the war digging coal. You have been able to clean up the kaisers abroad, now join with us and clean up the kaisers at home.

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