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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 6, 1919
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Carlo Tresca Speaks to Strikers
From the Boston Evening Globe of May 3, 1919:
SMUGGLE TRESCA IN AND OUT OF LAWRENCE
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I. W. W. Agitator Addresses Strikers After
Dodging the Police in Search
—–Special Dispatch to the Globe
LAWRENCE, May 3-Carlo Tresca, noted I. W. W. advocate and prominent leader of the strike in 1912, addressed an enthusiastic mass meeting of the strikers behind locked doors in Lexington Hall, last night. Tresca was accorded a great reception. Leaders pleaded with the strikers to restrain from demonstrations for fear of police interference.
One speaker, the police were informed, advised the strikers to go out and shoot every policeman that interfered with them.
Tresca was smuggled into Lawrence late Wednesday afternoon. His presence in the city was closely guarded because the strike leaders knew the police would not tolerate his presence.
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Secreted Under the Stage
At 6 he was taken to the hall in a closed automobile. He was secreted beneath the stage, and only a few knew that he was there. At 7:30 the hall was filled to capacity, and hundreds on the outside clamored for admission, it having been stated that there was to be a prominent speaker.
At 7:30 Anthony Capraro of the general strike committee, and chairman of the meeting, told the audience that the had a great surprise for them and that he was going to introduce a speaker they loved and for whom they were clamoring. He then called Tresca on to the stage.
In the course of his remarks Tresca, it is said, congratulated the Lawrence strikers for the manner in which they were conducting their fight, and flayed the police for their alleged oppression. When he concluded all doors were guarded and no one was allowed to leave the hall for 20 minutes after Tresca had departed. This was done so as to cover Tresca’s tracks in leaving the city.
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