Tag: Fall River MA

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Battle for Bread at Lawrence” by Mary E. Marcy, Part III

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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quote BBH Weave Cloth Bayonets, ISR p538—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 6, 1912
“The Battle for Bread at Lawrence” by Mary E. Marcy, Part III

From the International Socialist Review of March 1912

” The Battle for Bread at Lawrence”
-by Mary Marcy, Part III
———-

[Wonderful Solidarity]

 

Lawrence Family of Striker, ISR p543, March 1912

The wonderful solidarity displayed by the strikers has surprised everybody. There are more languages spoken in the confines of Lawrence than in any other district of its size in the world. But in spite of these barriers, the strike was an almost spontaneous one and seventeen races, differing widely in speech and custom, rose in a concerted protest. Lacking anything like a substantial organization at the outset, they have clung together in furthering a common cause without dissension. Too much credit cannot be given Comrades Joseph Ettor and Wm. D. Haywood in the splendid work of organization and education they have carried on in Lawrence.

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Hellraisers Journal: Chicago IWW Trial: Fellow Worker Francis Miller on Early Death in the Textile Mills of New England

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday August 6, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – Francis Miller on Textile Mills and Early Death

Report on the Chicago I. W. W. Trial from Harrison George:

WWIR, In Here For You, Ralph Chaplin, Sol Aug 4, Sept 1, 1917

The first witness to take the stand on Monday, August 5, was Francis P. Miller, defendant and member of the General Executive Board. Miller was born in France in the region known as the Department of the Seine, where the great textile mills were before the war. He came to America in 1892, and has worked continuously in the textile mills of the east, and at the time of his arrest was employed by the American Woolen Company as inspector on government goods.

Testifying upon conditions in the textile mills of New England, Miller said:

The development in the textile industry has been both a development of machinery and the process of ‘speeding up.” In the cotton industry the looms and other machinery have been improved so that the worker produces 300 or 400 per cent more than he did a generation ago. In the woolen mills the machinery has not been improved to any great extent, but the workers usually have to run two machines where they ran one twenty years ago. The pay has increased a little, but not in keeping with the cost of living at all. Factory owners and trade papers say that production has increased one thousandfold, that is, over hand production. It has certainly increased 300 or 400 per cent in the last twenty-five years.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: Mother Jones on the Iniquities of Child Labor in the South

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones, Stand with Working People, LW, Dec 15, 1906

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Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday December 19, 1906
From The Labor World: Young Lives Ground Up for Profit

Mother Jones March of the Mill Children, 1903, with text

Mother Jones has never forgotten the cruelty of Child Labor since the summer of 1903 when she led the mill children of Philadelphia on a march to Oyster Bay. They made the long trek in the summer heat in order that they might tell President Roosevelt about the hardships of their lives spent at work instead of in school. The President refused to meet with the children and Mother takes a few jabs at the “Great Prosperity” President in the following article on the subject of Child Labor in the American South.

BABY WAGE-EARNERS IN
SOUTHERN MILLS
—–

“Mother” Jones Writes Stirring
Article on Iniquities of
Child Labor in South.
—–
Cotton Mills Produce a Type of
Children Easily Recognized
As Most Puny.
—–

(By “Mother” Jones.)

After thirteen years of absence I returned to see what improvements had been made in the industrial conditions of the mill workers of the sunny south.

I found that there had been marvelous progress made as far as the mills and machinery were concerned. Looking at the advancement in that line, one would think that the day of rest for the workers must be near. Instead of bringing rest and leisure to the workers, however, this perfected machinery brings only a more merciless exploitation than was ever practiced before. With the advancement in machinery has come a corresponding advance in the methods of exploitation. That is all the difference the improvements have made upon the workers.

I stood one morning in the early dawn and I watched the slaves as they entered the pen of capitalism. I could see the shadows of the slaves passing along in the brush to the mill at twenty minutes to six in the morning. Children, roused from the heavy sleep of youth, left their beds reluctantly and entered the institution of capitalism to create wealth for others to enjoy.

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