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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 12, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Carmen’s Strike Continues; Women Organize
From The Progressive Woman of May 1910:
The Philadelphia Situation
LUELLA TWINING
The most significant features of the Carmen’s strike in Philadelphia are the sympathetic strike that was called soon after the carmen went out, involving 200,000 men and women; the awakening of the workers of this city to the fact that the government is the bulwark of capitalism; and the great organization of carmen’s wives that has been built up in two weeks, now numbering five thousand women.
Government Officials Control Situation
Senators Penrose, McNichols, Director Clay and other officials have taken charge of affairs for the Transit company. There was not even an attempt at a settlement till those senators appeared, Mr. McNichols coming from Florida where he had fled to get away from the strike. Indeed, so apparent has been the connivance between the Transit company and national, state and city officials that even the least observing have been forced to see it. Mayor Reyburn has issued statements for the Transit company showing that the city hall is openly against the strikers; policemen are put on the cars to run them and scab on the carmen; when the carmen attempted to hold a meeting in the ball park, which had been rented for that purpose, mounted policemen rode into men, women and children, trampling them down and beating them on the heads with clubs, till the pavement was covered with blood. So active has the government been in attempting to break the strike that the strikers and their wives discuss the political situation almost exclusively. It might well be called a “political strike.”
